Day 21 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025.
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It was a light day for bike news yesterday, probably because of the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday.
So let’s get right to it.
I mean, it’s not like there was anything else going on yesterday, right?
Today’s graphic is a 1908 British telegraph ad, courtesy of Cool Bike Art.
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Sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
If the cops stop you for swerving on your bicycle and having trouble standing off it, blurting out “I am drunk” is probably not your best defense.
A 20-year old French ebike rider pled guilty to careless driving for causing the death of a 51-year old man riding a regular bicycle in Yorkshire, England; he also entered a guilty plea to driving without a license or insurance. Which makes it sound like he was actually on an electric motorcycle, even though the story clearly says it was an electric bicycle. Or “electronic,” anyway.
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Local
No news is good news, right?
State
This is who we share the road with. A Corona man faces charges for shooting at another driver, after first sideswiping the victim’s car while illegally driving in the bike lane.
A new Chico bike and pedestrian bridge will be named for a Chico State University nursing student, eleven years after she was killed by a drunk driver while riding her bike home from the university library.
National
A women’s website puts the 19th Century warnings about women suffering from “bicycle face” in context, as the forerunner to today’s “resting bitch face.”
Denver-based bikewear maker Primal Wear has been hit by a ransomware attack affecting over 10,000 files and 17 gigabytes of data, but no customer data appears to have been breached.
Seriously? Iowa is just now getting around to banning handheld cellphone use while driving, despite a previous ban on texting while driving.
A Chicago website takes a look back at the good news for local bicycling in 2024, starting with a nearly 20% drop in bicycling deaths, which is very good news.
A Minneapolis man reflects on his neighbor’s bike theft, and his recovery of her stolen bike a few days later, as the thief prepares to go to trial.
A writer from the New York area says the pricing strategy for New York’s Citi Bike bikeshare system makes it seem less like a transportation solution and more like a hostage negotiation.
International
Momentum considers how three Canadian cities are leading the way on winter Viking biking programs.
It only took British bikemaker Pashley 99 years to finally build a bike with drop handlebars, not to mention disk brakes and 3D-printed junctions.
Police in Nottingham, England proved it is possible to do something about the bike theft epidemic, after a campaign of increased enforcement and bicycle registration cut bike thefts a whopping 77%. But only if your local police department actually cares enough to do it.
Talk about not getting it. A British wildlife trust calls approval of Brompton’s new eco-friendly headquarters “a dark day for nature,” while also noting the “puzzling” lack of car parking. Because evidently, encouraging employees to drive to work is good for nature and wildlife.
After an Irish doctor recovered from an induced coma resulting from a hit-and-run driver as he was riding his bike home from work, he penned an open letter calling for slowing drivers and improving safety for bicyclists, asking ” Why are we all in such a hurry to kill ourselves…and the planet?”
An Indian man was injured when his handlebars got caught in dangling wires hanging down from an overpass.
A writer for OneArabia says yes, bicycling is a sustainable transportation option amid the skyscrapers and luxury cars in Dubai, despite the hefty environmental costs for shipping and packaging.
Kuala Lumpur wonders where the bike riders are, after rolling out over 20 miles of new bike lanes in the city center. Never mind that 20 miles isn’t much, and there’s no safe way to get there from outlying areas — or that drivers are parking in them.
Competitive Cycling
The race director of the Tour Down Under defended their safety measures after a woman watching a pre-race crit was injured when several riders crashed on a tight corner; former Tour de France champ Geraint Thomas agreed, calling the TDU one of the safest races on the WorldTour.
The Big Bear Cycling Association announced details for August’s Tour de Big Bear, ranked one of the top ten Grand Fondos in the US.
Finally…
Evidently, losing your rear wheel in the middle of a race is a bad thing. Getting buzzed by a driver is one thing; getting buzzed by the director of a cycling team in the middle of a race is another.
And here’s one way to put a little more spring in your ride.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin.
