Tag Archive for bike videos

Hard-hitting Vision Zero ad, foldie-riding VeloBarber, and your own personal helmet-mounted air scoop air filter

Thanks for your patience with yesterday’s diabetes issues, which resulted in a somewhat truncated Morning Links. 

We’re back today to catch up on what we missed, as well as today’s news. And a whole lot of videos. 

For those keeping score at home, my bout with low blood sugar was followed by a spike in morning, followed by high blood sugar all day. 

Which I suppose means it all evened out in the long run. 

Seriously, diabetes sucks. 

Photo by Ryan McGuire from Pixabay.

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This is how you sell Vision Zero.

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Brompton posts video of New York’s bike-riding VeloBarber.

Maybe we could talk him into riding out here if SoCal goes back into coronavirus lockdown mode.

Which is looking like a distinct possibility right now.

Thanks to Aurelio Jose Barrera for the video.

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Now you can ride with your very own personal air filter sticking out from your helmet like an air scoop.

Which, sadly, almost makes sense these days.

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A British bike rider points out what may be the worst maintained bike path in the UK.

Even though it looks a lot better than some I’ve ridden in Los Angeles.

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The latest GCN video takes a look at bike tech that was ahead of its time.

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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

A San Leandro man faces a murder charge after witnesses say he intentionally ran down a man riding a bicycle, then fled the scene; no reason was given for the attack.

A British bike rider was the victim of an early morning strong arm robbery when someone knocked him off his bike and rode off with it.

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Local

Uber covertly recruited advocacy groups to fight data sharing programs like the e-scooter data program pioneered in Los Angeles, without telling them the giant ride hailing service was behind it.

Metro is hosting a pair of virtual meetings next week to discuss a new joint development at the NoHo transit station, including a Bike Hub and Metro Bike station.

The San Gabriel Valley is about to get ebike bikeshare, starting with 30 bikes in El Monte and expanding to 840 bikes within the next year.

 

State

More on formerly auto-centric Caltrans plans to support bicycling, walking and transit.

The San Diego Bicycle Coalition is holding a scavenger hunt through next week to encourage active transportation in Imperial Beach. Thanks to Robert Leone for the heads-up.

That feeling when Frank Sinatra takes you home to Palm Springs and offers to buy you a car, but you’d rather have a bike.

Canceling this year’s La Quinta – Indian Wells Ironman race could leave a $10 million hole in the local economy.

 

National

The Bike League announced their latest list of 75 new or renewing Bicycle Friendly Businesses; unfortunately, none are in Southern California.

Google Maps could soon show you the location of traffic lights, which is a vital tool for planning a bike route that crosses busy streets.

Forbes examines why you might want an ebike, calling them the hottest thing on two wheels.

Popular Science says add a quick quick-release check to the standard ABC (air, brakes, chain) pre-ride safety check.

An energy website calls the “humble bicycle” one of the heroes of the coronavirus crisis.

A Eugene, Oregon letter writer insists you should put a bike bell on your racing bike. No, really. But at least have the courtesy to give a vocal warning before you pass someone, especially on a bike path.

No Tour de Fat in my hometown this year. Or anywhere else, for that matter.

So much for that plan for secure bike parking pods in New York City, after the three-year old proposal ran into financial problems from the start.

An architecture critic for the New York Times says New York can, and should, become a biking city, while a columnist for the paper says he’s seen a carfree future and it’s amazingSeriously, if New York can do it, what the hell is LA’s problem?

New York’s early Critical Mass rides led the NYPD to require a parade permit for any assembly of 50 or more people that blocks traffic, giving them the justification they needed to crack down on this year’s Black Lives Matter protests.

In a truly bizarre tragedy, a 17-year old Florida boy was killed in a collision as he was being pulled in a shopping cart tied to his friend’s bicycle with a plastic bag.

Florida bicyclists are threatening to sue over a new non-resident bike ban in Key Biscayne, accusing the city of using Covid-19 as an excuse to get rid of bike riders.

 

International

Cycling News says local bike shops will survive because there’s no substitute for their service and skills. Although your favorite LBS may not without your support.

Road.cc recommends the year’s best bicycling sunglasses (multiply the UK price by 1.26 to get an approximate US price); some form of eye protection is vital to keep your eyes safe from rocks, flies and other road debris, as well as harmful UV light.

The UK has opened its first CYCLOPS — Cycle Optimized Protected Signals —  intersection in Manchester, providing bicyclists with a segregated cycle track leading around the entire junction.

Irish bike thieves aren’t taking the pandemic off, with Dublin bicycle thefts up over 140% in June compared to last year.

The Covid-19 lockdown provided a glimpse of a greener future for Paris, where the mayor is committed to making it a bicycling city to rival Amsterdam and Copenhagen, while reducing the city’s reliance on cars.

A Kenyan newspaper talks with Salim Nasir, who rode 351 miles from Nairobi to Mombassa in just two days.

An Australian woman suffered a horrible freak accident when she fell off her ebike and was impaled on a mangrove.

 

Competitive Cycling

A writer for CyclingTips rides a steel frame bike to explore a few new-to-the-Tour climbs scheduled for this year’s Tour de France.

After losing his leadership position with Team Ineos — aka the former Team Sky — after eleven years, former Tour de France winner Chris Froome is jumping to the Israel Start Up Nation team for a shot at a record-tying fifth Tour win. Even though Lance won seven, but, you know.

Former British pro Emma Pooley set a new women’s Everesting record, shaving 15 minutes off the month-old record of 9:08:31.

 

Finally…

Who needs to carry a bike lock when you can ride one? Your next bike could have all-wheel drive. No, really.

And the newest Shelby Cobra comes with pedals and a handlebar.

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Be safe, and stay healthy. And wear a mask, already. 

Warning for Camp Pendleton bike riders, California Guard guards SaMo bikeways, and more shredding on mountain bikes

Let’s start today with a warning from Caltrans for Camp Pendleton bike riders.

This message is a reminder to all cyclists traveling through Camp Pendleton to stay on the bike path at all times. Camp Pendleton is an active training base and it operates 24/7 conducting training. Venturing off the bike path could expose civilians to unsafe conditions.

The Camp Pendleton Community Plan Liaison informed Caltrans that cyclists were observed on the landing zone just off of the bike path (see map attached). A military helicopter that had been approaching the landing zone had to abort its landing to avoid injuring the cyclists that had trespassed military grounds. To ensure the safety of civilian cyclists and military members of Camp Pendleton, please stay on the bike path. The bike path is the only area where cyclists are allowed on Camp Pendleton. Cyclist and Caltrans are allowed on Camp Pendleton through permits approved by the military, to ensure cyclist access continues, please follow the rules set by the Camp Pendleton staff.

For everyone’s safety, please pass this message along to fellow cyclists, and if you see anyone diverging into military property, please let them know to stay on the bike path.

Seriously, that could have been a disaster.

And failure to stick to the rules could result in everyone getting banned from the base, which would also be a disaster.

Thanks to Robert Leone for forwarding the message.

Today’s photo come from David Drexler, showing a newly reopened, extra wide Marvin Bruade bike path in Santa Monica.

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Drexler also forwarded photos from last week’s unrest in Santa Monica, showing what he calls the world’s safest bikeways on Ocean and Colorado, with the streets guarded by California National Guard troops.

Although that’s not exactly what I’d call inviting.

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Let’s take another quick shredding break this morning, with mountain biking videos from Argentina…

Switzerland…

And New Zealand.

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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bike just keeps on going.

You’ve got to be kidding. After a Russian driver slammed into a 12-year old bike rider, leaving him with serious, long-lasting injuries, the coldhearted driver sued the kid for scratching her car — and won.

Sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.

Police in Atlanta are looking for a bike-riding robber who fired shots inside a check cashing business.

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Local

Over 1,000 people turned out for a bike ride and march through the Crenshaw District last weekend, described as a demonstration of love by and for black men.

Coldplay frontman Chris Martin is one of us, riding his mountain bike through the ‘Bu.

 

State

No, drivers can’t legally blare on their horns to show their displeasure, whether with other drivers or people on bicycles. But good luck getting anyone to enforce it.

Calbike examines how Californians can support endangered community bike shops.

Faux Danish city Solvang is getting in on the Slow Streets movement, temporarily closing a main street through the city’s business district to motor vehicles.

Ranchers in tiny Red Bluff — population 14,000 — are holding a Ride Against All Racism this Sunday, and inviting people to walk or bike along if you don’t have a horse.

Critical Mass continues its monthly takeover of the streets of San Francisco.

Consider it the world’s most beautiful ciclovía. Yosemite’s Tioga Road opens to bike riders this weekend, before it’s opened to cars on Monday.

 

National

A new study shows short sprints during your ride can help keep your muscles healthy.

Bike lawyer Bob Mionske looks at whether bike shops are essential services during the lockdown. Which should be an obvious yes, but isn’t always.

Nearly 2,000 Portland people turned out for a ride to support Black Girls Do Bike’s call for racial justice.

Once again, bike riders are heroes, after a group of Seattle riders used their bicycles and bodies to protect protesters from a driver who intentionally tried to smash into the demonstrators.

A Chicago columnist says the city’s first shared street is great, but it isn’t the long-lasting change they need.

A bighearted Michigan dentist donated $15,000 worth of free dental work to the 18-year old black man who had his front teeth knocked out by a bigoted white man using a bike chain.

A DC bike rider takes it on himself to clear broken glass from a bike lane by hand.

Marchers in Charlotte NC turned to people on bicycles to carry supplies and keep order at the ongoing protests following the death of George Floyd.

The Florida legislature passed a bill allowing ebikes on any road, path or sidewalk where regular bicycles are allowed; now it’s up to the state’s Republican governor to sign into law, or not.

 

International

British singer Sophie Ellis-Bextor explains her recent bicycling injuries came when she swerved to avoid someone on a Thames River pathway and fell off her bike, without a helmet, smacking her head on the concrete down below. Which serves as a reminder that slow speed falls are exactly what bike helmets are designed for, not collisions with motor vehicles.

A former Welsh rugby star raised the equivalent of over $176,000 by riding his bike 1,000 miles last month, benefitting the cancer center that helped him beat testicular cancer.

Heartbreaking story from the UK, where a father went looking for his 14-year old son when he didn’t return from a bike ride, and found him being treated by paramedics as the boy lay dying in the street, the victim of a speeding driver.

A new study shows Great Britain could face a “traffic tsunami” as people turn to their cars to avoid public transit. Which is exactly what we’ve been warning about over here.

No surprise here, as over two-thirds of people in Brussels, Belgium, want more space for people walking and biking, as well as public transit, and less devoted to motor vehicles.

Only 20% of bicycling injuries on Belgian and Dutch roads involve a motor vehicle.

Slovenia invites you to discover the country by bicycle.

An Indian paper says bicycles have empowered women, revolutionized fashion, cleared the air, and led to…glowing skin? Seriously?

Tel Aviv is planning to double the amount of the city’s bikeways over the next year, hoping to avoid becoming another Los Angeles.

 

Competitive Cycling

Team USA announced the preliminary road, mountain biking and track cycling teams for the delayed Tokyo Olympics, assuming the pandemic is under control and they actually take place next year.

Apparently, this is Legion of Los Angeles week. Team founder Justin Williams makes the news once again, as the former US track, time trial and road cycling champ discussed Lance, and Lance’s former team manager Johan Bruyneel, on Williams new podcast. Meanwhile, the crowdfunding page for the LA-based diversity-themed cycling team has raised over $101,000 — doubling the original $50,000 goal.

 

Finally…

Get your kids started early with a BMW balance bike. Now you, too, can own a handcrafted Dutch supercar and matching bicycle, along with your very own airline seats — minus the plane.

And that feeling when a pair of tire blowouts save your life.

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Thanks to Dennis E for his generous donation to help support this site, and keep SoCal’s best bike news coming your way every day. 

Be safe, and stay healthy. And wear a mask, already. 

Debate over weaponizing police bikes goes on, UCI honors brutal bike-riding dictator, and a mountain bike video break

Today’s common theme reprises yesterday’s discussion of bike cops using their bicycles as weapons.

Bicycling examines whether bikemakers should stop selling bicycles to police departments, after cops were accused of using them against protesters.

Meanwhile, a Michigan TV station profiles how the state police’s tactical bike team trains for crowd control, showing glimpses of the tactics people are complaining about.

And Red Kite Prayer’s Padraig really doesn’t know what to make of it all, noting bikes have been used effectively to shield riders against mountain lions, but protesters don’t pose the same kind of threat, if any.

Photo by Shane Aldendorff from Pexels.

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You’ve got to be kidding.

Cycling’s governing body has bestowed its highest honor on Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, the bike-riding president of Turkmenistan.

Never mind that in this case, “president” is a euphemism for a dangerous, brutal dictator.

As Cycling Tips puts it,

Today, Berdimuhamedov presides over one of the most repressive regimes in the world. According to Human Rights Watch, the president has complete control over public life, energetically suppressing alternative political and religious expression. In the ‘elections’ since claiming power, Berdimuhamedov has enjoyed up to 98% approval, which is the kind of landslide that seems purpose-built to raise eyebrows.

In 2019, Reporters Without Borders put Turkmenistan as the worst country in the world for press freedom, behind even North Korea, and the country has the highest number of political prisoners out of all former Soviet states, against whom torture is reportedly practiced. The word ‘coronavirus’ is banned, homosexuality is illegal, child and forced marriage is still prevalent, gender inequality is entrenched, and dissidents are ‘disappeared’ into prison for indefinite sentences.

But other than that, he’s a nice guy, right?

Not to mention the one who’ll host next year’s world track cycling championships.

Now he can hang a certificate awarding him UCI’s apparently unnamed highest honor on his wall, presented unanimously by the organization’s steering committee.

Which doesn’t carry the slightest whiff of corruption, does it?

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You’ve worked hard enough this week. So take a six-minute mountain biking break today.

Or maybe you’d prefer a few tips and tricks to build out your own bike.

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NFL All-Pro defensive end Ndamukong Suh is one of us, too.

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Sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.

A 24-year old BMX rider was busted for throwing a rock through the window of a Santa Rosa bike shop during the George Floyd protests last week. You’d think a bike rider would know better, but apparently you’d be wrong.

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Local

Streetsblog details plans for new bus lanes on 5th and 6th Streets in DTLA, including protected bike lanes on the left side of the one-way streets.

The Los Angeles Fire Department rescued a mountain biker who got stranded near Oat Mountain above Chatsworth; fortunately, he wasn’t injured.

La Cañada Flintridge received a $50,000 grant for new bike racks and EV charging stations from the South Coast Air Quality Management District; the grant will pay for new 20 racks throughout the city.

 

State

A bike rider suffered serious injuries when he was t-boned in San Diego’s East Village, after allegedly running a stop sign; fortunately, his injures were not expected to be life-threatening. As always, the question is whether anyone other than the driver involved actually saw him blow the stop.

Two men face a long list of charges after being arrested for the murder of a Visalia woman, followed by the hit-and-run death of bike-riding woman in Tulare as they fled from police.

A pair of Fresno County bike riders were seriously injured when they were hit head-on by a possibly distracted driver who crossed onto the wrong side of the road; one of the victims was an off-duty police officer.

Berkeley will get two miles of Slow Streets, with lanes blocked off on one side to provide space for people to bike and walk while maintaining social distancing.

Oakland News Now continues their bizarre obsession with a Bay Area bike rider who posts video of two wheeled, stop sign-running escapades through the city. Note to Oakland News Now — I believe the word you wanted was reckless, not wreckless. Unless maybe you’re complimenting them on avoiding crashes.

The bicyclist killed in a Sonoma County hit-and-run on Sunday was identified as a Kensington man; he was unidentified at first because he wasn’t carrying any ID. Yet another reminder to always have some form of identification, including emergency contacts, with you when you ride.

 

National

Strava wants to make you a local legend.

Lawyers have released video of a Portland sheriff’s deputy slamming a drunk bicycling suspect against a wall, allegedly fracturing his skull and causing multiple brain bleeds, resulting in a 19-day hospital stay. The action doesn’t start until around the 12 minute mark of the nearly 13 minute video.

Here’s your chance to ride Colorado’s epic 14,264 foot Mt. Evans while it’s still free from cars this summer, offering more than 3,600 feet of climbing over 14 miles.

After he was ticketed for running a stop sign last week, a black Ohio man complains that he’s been stopped by police nine times; he says he was riding without lights just after dawn because he doesn’t want to have interactions with anyone while he’s riding.

Horrifying assault on free speech and freedom of the press, as Maine police officers intimidated a Streetsblog editor in his own home, in apparent retaliation for his role in a recent protest, as well as comments he made online.

The New Yorker examines the bicycle as a vehicle of protest in the 21st Century.

Bikes are still booming in DC as the district prepares to reopen, and shops sell out of lower cost bicycles.

Police seized guns and a KKK grand dragon robe from the home of the Virginia avowed racist who allegedly drove his car into a crowd of protesters on Sunday, hitting a man riding a bike.

Nice story from North Carolina, where a kindhearted bike cop let a little girl attending a protest ride her police bike, and gave her a hand to do it.

 

International

Road.cc takes a look at the best panniers and racks. Meanwhile, sister site Off Road.cc offers a beginner’s guide to bikepacking.

You, too, can ride what may be the most tech-heavy bike ever for a shade under sixteen grand.

An English county is overriding a local mayor who opposed installing pop-up bike lanes, believing they would encourage too many inexperienced bike riders. Which is kind of the point, yes.

It takes a real schmuck to steal a pair of bicycles from a 90-year old British man who rides his bike every day. Or used to, anyway.

The tiny Isle of Man, nestled between England and Northern Ireland in the Irish Sea, with a population smaller than Santa Monica, could become the first European nation to require all bike riders to wear helmets.

A pair of Aussie professors say don’t take the analogy too far, but the conflict between drivers and bicyclists has the characteristics of an ethnic conflict, with driving being the equivalent of whiteness and roadway segregation like apartheid.

 

Finally…

Presenting what may be the ugliest cycling kit ever made. Maybe more adults would obey bike laws if we got ice cream, too.

And this is what your bike would look like if you could ride at the speed of light.

You’d probably win a few Strava KOMs, too.

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Be safe, and stay healthy. And wear a mask, already. 

Stolen bikes and the jerks who take them, 9-year old San Marcos BMX bike flipper, and South African bicycle hip hop

Today’s a holiday, in case you hadn’t noticed. Which is easy to do if you didn’t get it off. 

But my wife did, surprisingly enough.

So we’re going with sort of a Morning Links lite today, with most of the weekend’s bike news, so I can get a little sleep before she wakes me up too damned early in the morning; we’ll catch up on the rest tomorrow.

Today’s photo is what’s left of a bike after thieves stripped it, leaving its mangled carcass behind. 

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Today’s common theme is stolen bikes and the jerks who take them.

A Santa Cruz man got his bike back three years after it was stolen, after deputies recovered it when the wanted criminal they were chasing abandoned the bike he was riding, and they were able to track down the real owner.

Oregon sheriff’s deputies bust a major schmuck who scammed people out of bikes they were trying to sell online — including a 12-year old boy. See hell, special place in.

Gotham’s ebike crime wave continues, as a 20-year old delivery rider was stabbed in both legs and robbed of his bicycle, cellphone, jacket, around 70 bucks and a pizza.

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Online viewers are flipping over nine-year old San Marcos BMX rider Connor Stitt.

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Introducing my new favorite South African hip hop video.

Seriously, who can top rhymes like this?

When I hop on the metal and push on the pedal, there’s a certain peace that I get that’s really good for my mental.

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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes goes on. And on. 

A Willits CA woman intentionally ran over a man on a bike who she had been arguing with; she was arrested after fleeing the scene, along with her husband and son-in-law, who were booked as accessories after the fact for helping with her coverup.

The New York Post’s notoriously anti-bike columnist says car culture could be squashed and America covered with bike lanes if Michael Bloomberg gets elected president. But somehow seems to think that’s a bad thing.

Some jerk Down Under was apparently proud of himself for tossing a drink on a woman riding a bike from a passing car, posting the video online.

Sometimes, though, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.

A bike-riding man dressed like an old-time railroad engineer injured two women on San Francisco’s Embarcadero in a pair of unrelated, seemingly random attacks.

The bike-riding serial groper in Davis CA is still on the loose after attacking a third woman.

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Local

No bias here. A Pepperdine University professor, who should know better, repeats the unsupported myth that more people will die because emergency personnel can’t get through traffic, than will be saved by LA’s Vision Zero and Mobility Plan 2035. Never mind that no one has shown it has actually happened anywhere. Or that the mobility plan is about modernizing the city’s transportation plan, not reducing traffic deaths.

CicLAvia is returning to Glendale and Atwater Village this summer, with a short 3.5-mile route.

South Pasadena Councilmember and AQMD (Air Quality Management District) board member Michael Cacciotti gets it, fighting the battle for clean air by riding his bike and taking the bus everywhere.

A Brea motorcycle dealer is branching out into ped-assist ebikes and accessories.

 

State

Good for him. After a 14-year old Turlock special needs boy was beaten up and had his shoes and bike by group of boys, he responded by organizing a bike ride calling for an end to bullying.

Sacramento’s popular American River bike path finally reopens, three years after it was closed by a landslide.

Residents of Arcata are raising funds for a woman who suffered a serious spinal injury when she was struck by a driver while riding her bike; the crowdfunding page has raised nearly $29,000 of the $33,000 goal in four days.

 

National

A writer for HuffPo calls for better bike and pedestrian planning and infrastructure to make it safe for people of any age to walk and bike, to reduce the decline in children riding bikes.

A Honolulu writer calls for fixing a 750-foot gap in a pair of bike paths that makes it dangerous to ride a bike between two side-by-side neighborhoods.

A Portland family proves that yes, the entire family can ride their bikes to church every week. Maybe someday we’ll get to a point where that not surprising to anyone.

The Washington state senate voted overwhelmingly to approve a partial Idaho Stop Law, allowing bike riders to treat stops as yields, but not red lights as stop signs.

Thousands of Colorado residents ignored the snow on the ground, and took to their bikes for Winter Bike to Work Day.

J. Patrick Lynch calls our attention to a little automotive schadenfreude, as thousands of Colorado hockey fans demand refunds after major traffic jams forced them to miss large parts of an outdoor NHL match. Or are they really just mad LA’s Kings beat the hometown Avs?

An upstate New York town supervisor calls for a bike path leading to a new bridge after two deadly crashes. Yet somehow assumes most bicyclists don’t get that riding in traffic can be dangerous, despite being one himself.

New York is installing concrete barriers that beautify the city and protect bike riders at the same time.

After a New Jersey man suffered a major brain injury when he was hit by a drunk driver, and got tired of living on food stamps, he set out on a recumbent to ride across the country; he’s now on his sixth trip across the US in just over two years.

A Jacksonville, Florida sports writer takes part in the Champions Ride with a peloton made up of NASCAR drivers and crew members to promote traffic safety. And gets a hand to the finish line from ride founder Jimmie Johnson.

 

International

Shimano has come out with an updated electronic gear shift you can retrofit your bike with for a cool $2,300.

No bias here, either. A Toronto columnist says the city’s Vision Zero isn’t failing because drivers need more safety education, but rather, they break the law because they’re frustrated by gridlock caused by all those bike lanes and lower speed limits. Which doesn’t explain why drivers broke the law before all those things, though.

British foldie Gocycle is re-entering the American market, offering magnesium frame bikes starting at $2799, and carbon frames at nearly twice the price.

A writer for The Guardian takes a 600+ mile ride along bike trails through the Seine, Loire and Rhône valleys, experiencing a view of France inaccessible by cars.

An Indian man rode his bike nearly 375 miles to meet his favorite Bollywood star at an awards show, even though the actor may not even attend it; he also holds a certificate for riding his bike 24 miles in one hour — with no hands.

If you’re looking for Asian connections to get a leg up in your career, you could do worse than an early morning ride with Singapore’s Rapha Cycling Club.

 

Competitive Cycling

VeloNews looks at the long road back for Olympic silver medalist Rigoberto Urán following his crash in last year’s Vuelta, which left hm with a broken collarbone, broken ribs, shattered scapula and a punctured lung.

Eighteen-year-old Turkish cyclist Azize Bekar is making the jump to a Belgian road cycling team, while aiming her sights on representing her country in Olympic mountain biking.

 

Finally…

Bikes are a great way to get to your train — but stop riding once you get on. Drinking in public and biking under the influence, but at least he wasn’t driving this time.

And the next time you think it’s too windy to ride a bike in LA, watch this.

 

 

91-year old actor killed on Venice Blvd, LA Times endorses Ryu in CD4, trash cans in bike lanes, and bike videos

Is this really the Los Angeles traffic safety deniers want?

According to the LA Times, 91-year old actor Orson Bean was killed crossing dangerous Venice Blvd near the Pacific Resident Theatre Friday night when he was struck by first one, then another, driver.

The longtime television star was crossing to the theater, where his wife was volunteering as an usher.

“Many of us do this, including the audience,” (theater publicist Judith) Borne said. “The crosswalk is out of the way. Many people … just cross” the lanes.

And there’s the problem.

The street is designed to maximize traffic flow, with pedestrians expected to walk at least a full block in either direction to use a crosswalk to cross the wide, four-lane street.

Except people usually won’t do that.

Most people tend to take the most direct and convenient route. Which in Bean’s case, meant crossing without a crosswalk.

And no, that’s not jaywalking.

Under California law, every intersection has a crosswalk, whether or not it’s marked on the pavement.

Which is often what it means when the police say, as they did in this case, that someone was crossing outside a marked crosswalk.

However, it’s also perfectly legal to cross in the middle of the block, as long as it’s not controlled by a traffic signal on both ends; in this case, the only traffic signal is on Oakwood Ave on the east end of the block.

What’s missing from the street are the safe, convenient crosswalks, and narrowed streets at intersections to slow speeds and reduce crossing distances, that advocates have long been calling for.

And which are exactly the sort of safety improvements that groups like Keep LA Moving and Restore Venice Blvd have been fighting, in an attempt to prioritize the convenience of drivers over the lives and safety of human beings.

If something like this had been in place on every block, rather than just some parallel painted lines where they pose the least inconvenience to drivers, Orson Bean might have lived to see his 92nd birthday.

And if that’s not a tragic waste, I don’t know what is.

Bean deserved better. So do the rest of us.

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The LA Times endorsed incumbent David Ryu for re-election in my council district, despite the presence of two candidates with better safety and planning credentials in Sarah Kate Levy and Nithya Raman.

Even though, like our current president, Ryu apparently likes to take credit for work done by the previous office holder.

He is also responsible for blocking a desperately needed, shovel-ready road diet and bike lanes on 6th Street between Fairfax and La Brea, despite the support of the local neighborhood council, because it would have inconvenienced drivers who use the narrow street as a bypass for busy Wilshire Blvd.

Both Levy and Raman have been endorsed by Bike the Vote LA. And either would be a better choice in next month’s election.

However, the Times did at least endorse Loraine Lundquist in CD12.

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If you have any questions about your vote in the March 3rd election, Bike the Vote LA will help answer them tonight.

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Yes, placing trash cans in a bike lane is illegal under state law. But good luck trying to find someone to enforce it.

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Let’s hope LA Mayor Eric Garcetti, the new world climate mayor, understands French.

Then again, you don’t need to read it to get this one from the current Paris mayor and previous climate mayor.

https://twitter.com/Anne_Hidalgo/status/1225776654213144577

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Like Volvo’s misguided glow-in-the-dark spray paint, Ford thinks we’ll all be better off with happy face emojis and turn signals on our jackets. Instead of, say, building safer trucks and SUVs that aren’t designed to kill on impact.

https://twitter.com/FordEu/status/1225364514289352704

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How about a little music for your next ride?

And yes, the lyrics seem to sum it up pretty well. Just don’t wear earbuds in both ears.

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Looks like someone is fed up with cops parking in bike lanes.

Although, while I appreciate the anger, the wording on that one seems to go a little too.

Thanks to Erik Griswold and W Corylus for the heads-up.

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As Horace Greeley might have said, “go left, young man.”

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A new video suggests maybe Los Angeles doesn’t suck for cycling, after all.

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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

Police in the UK are looking for a driver who intentionally knocked a teenage boy off his bike. Note to Southern Daily Echo: The car didn’t “nudge” the victim’s tire, the driver did using his car as a weapon.

Sometimes, though, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.

After leading a Washington deputy on a slow speed chase when he refused to pull over for a traffic stop, a Minnesota man threw his bicycle at the officer, took a fighting stance, and said he was baddest man in the world and was going to beat the cop up, then threatened to burn the cop’s home down and kill him after the deputy tased him. But other than that, he seems like a perfect ambassador for the sport, right?

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Local

The San Francisco bike rider who was convicted for killing a pedestrian in a crosswalk while allegedly racing through the streets trying to claim a Strava KOM is now running attack ads against George Gascón, the DA who charged him, as Gascón runs for the same post in Los Angeles. Which seems like a damn good reason to vote for Gascón, if you ask me.

LAist examines the push to reform the deadly 85th Percentile Law and lower speed limits to safer levels in the City of Angels. Although maybe the City of Angeles could just stop making so many of them.

CicLAvia points out some of the high points on historic Central Avenue through South Central, Florence-Firestone and Watts, site of the next CicLAvia on February 23rd. Meanwhile, an op-ed in the Times discusses the importance of the area once known as the Eastside to the black community. Which explains how the East Side Riders got their name, even though they’re nowhere near East LA.

Classy move by Duarte, which renamed a bike and pedestrian path in the city for the San Gabriel Valley’s first African American council member and mayor, and his wife.

Tonight’s Malibu City Council meeting will include discussion of proposed bike and pedestrian paths to improve safety on Civic Center Way, along with the possibility of adding a traffic lane.

 

State

Baby steps. The first state bill in response to a recent study criticizing the outdated and deadly 85th Percentile Law would merely extend the time between required traffic surveys, while creating a statewide traffic safety program to monitor pedestrian and bicycle crashes. Meanwhile, speed surveys have finally been completed on all LA streets, allowing full speed enforcement for the first time in several years.

Evidently, Cleveland isn’t the only place where rivers catch on fire; Riverside firefighters were mopping up the remains of a 64-acre blaze that ignited on the Santa Ana River bottom, forcing the closure of the bike path that parallels the river.

The thoroughly discredited concept of bike licenses and registration once again rears its ugly head in San Francisco, thanks to a candidate for city supervisor. Most people who call for it are really far less interested in licensing than they are in just getting bikes off the streets.

It only took one day for bike ridership to boom on San Francisco’s newly carfree Market Street.

A Bay Area bike rider describes how he gladly broke the law by riding an ebike on a trail through the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

A trio of Marin mountain bikers face prosecution for building an illegal trail though an open space reserve, allegedly causing $72,000 in damage.

 

National

Harley Davidson’s new $30,000 electric motorcycle could face unexpected competition from more modest ebikes.

Finally, someone gets around to the really important stuff, as the Chicago Tribune examines what to look for in a dog bike trailer and offers their picks.

The VP of the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy says America will need bicycling and walking included to pass a major transportation bill.

Tragic news, as the president of the Utah-based Children’s Miracle Network of hospitals was killed in a bicycling crash; unfortunately, there’s no word on where or how the crash occurred.

A British tabloid gets it right, saying the breathtaking views of Colorado’s Crested Butte is best seen from the seat of a mountain bike.

A kindhearted Colorado man is using his spare time to turn “junk into jewels’ by refurbishing bicycles to give to homeless people.

An Iowa woman wants to know why her husband was killed in a violent fall when the experienced bicyclist was wearing a helmet and riding uphill. And why police discount evidence that he may have been clipped by a passing driver.

Actress Selma Blair bought a $2,000 mobility bike for a Massachusetts stroke victim when the woman couldn’t afford to get it herself.

An Alabama man lay dying in a ditch for over an hour after his bike was struck by a hit-and-run driver who didn’t call 911. And neither did a state legislator or the local police chief, who both knew about the crash but didn’t bother to call for medical help.

The Montgomery, Alabama Bicycle Club will host a bike ride from Selma-to-Montgomery later this month, following in the footsteps of Dr. Martin Luther King on his historic march.

Nothing to worry about in this Orlando, Florida neighborhood, where an eleven-year old neighborhood watch captain patrols the streets by bicycle.

Newly released bodycam video shows a Florida cop tasing a teenage bike rider for the crime of popping wheelies last year; the cop was censured for his actions.

 

International

They’re some of us, too. The Spanish language edition of GQ looks at the bikes preferred by Barack Obama, Brad Pitt, Jude Law, Justin Timberlake and Matt Damon; the first two were also Oscar winners last night.

In a case of life sort of imitating art, an unidentified Reddit user says she stopped speaking to her fiancé when he bought her a Peloton bike, after pleading with him not to get her one.

A Kiwi woman is bicycling 1,250 miles across the length of Mexico, accompanied by a man riding from Alaska to Argentina.

A British Columbia lawyer warns that a switch to no-fault insurance in the province could harm bike riders involved in crashes.

Saskatoon, Canada considers axing a must-use requirement for bike lanes, allowing bicyclists to ride in traffic lanes and make left turns, almost like real people.

An Englishman offers advice on how to ride a unicycle 21,000 miles around the world in three years, which is exactly how he did it. Step one: Don’t fall off.

It takes a real schmuck to steal a Scottish doctor’s bicycle as she was making a house call to visit an elderly patient.

Who says bike riders aren’t tough? A 72-year old British man got back on his bike and rode nine miles home after he was struck by a hit-and-run driver — despite suffering four broken ribs, a fractured hip and a head injury.

A Tunisian woman rode her bike to the Saudi Arabian holy city of Mecca, becoming the first woman to make the pilgrimage by bike; she was allowed into the city, even though she wasn’t accompanied by a male guardian on the 53-day journey, as required by Saudi law.

The former chief-of-staff for Guyana’s defense forces was arrested for a crash that killed a well-known bicyclist; the retired rear admiral failed a roadside Breathalyzer test.

 

Competitive Cycling

Riders in the Netherlands pick an appropriate time to hold the Dutch Headwind Cycling Championships, with no drop bars allowed, as Winter Storm Ciara pummels Europe.

VeloNews discusses why American bike racing needed the late, great Amgen Tour of California; the race is on the sort of one-year hiatus from which most bike races and other events never seem to return.

 

Finally…

If you insist on riding inside, skip the two-grand Peloton and build your own DIY version. Your next Lyft driver could be a 15-time Grammy winner.

And if dinosaurs had just worn helmets and hi-viz, they might still be here today.

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Thanks to Domus Press for a very generous and unexpected donation to help keep this site coming your way every day. Donations are always welcome, in any amount and for any reason. 

 

Morning Links: Women fight thieves for their bikes, medical insurance fail, and what a punishment pass looks like

Don’t mess with women.

Or their bikes.

A Toronto woman ran out of a store and beat up the thief who tried to make off with her unlocked bike, even kicking him when he was down. Unfortunately, the video is posted to a private account, and I haven’t managed to find a copy.

And a 72-year old British great-grandmother wrestled a stolen mountain bike away from a thief after reading about the theft on Facebook; the man had tried to sell her the $1,500 bike for the equivalent of just $200.

Photo by Steve Buissinne from Pixabay.

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Retired pro Phil Gaimon somehow manages to maintain his sense of humor, even after a recent crash left him with $250,000 in medical bills.

And yes, that’s with insurance.

Just another example of how broken America’s medical and insurance system is.

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A Dublin Bus driver is under fire — and under investigation — after a frighteningly close punishment pass.

Seriously, keep watching after the first one.

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Take a break for few minutes with a video of mountain biking in Israel.

Work can wait, right?

Unless you’d prefer a ride through Madeira, Portugal.

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Pink Bike offers some clever ideas on how to stash your tools on your bike when you don’t want to use a pack.

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Local

Who knew? A Reddit post points out that LA County has a page devoted to reporting problems with bike paths, promising a pretty remarkable two-day response time.

 

State

Things are looking up for the San Diego-area man with Parkinson’s disease whose new ebike was stolen before he could even ride it; a crowdfunding campaign raised enough to buy a new bike in just four hours, while local company Juiced Bikes gave one to his wife so they can ride together. Meanwhile, police have arrested two suspects for the theft.

Clearly, drivers aren’t the only risk people on bikes face these days. A Riverside man joined the rising toll of bike riders across the US who’ve been shot in recent weeks; the victim was discovered lying in the street after several people reported hearing shots and died after being taken to a hospital.

Ventura County’s Ojai Valley Bike Trail reopens today, after construction work to repair storm damage forced it to close five months ago.

 

National

The fat bike craze is getting skinnier, with just half of the fat bike makers from 2015 still here five years later.

A Tucson letter writer says bicyclists should be required to use lights at “dusk, night and dawn,” just like the law already requires. And says those “handlebar ringydingy bells” would be nice, too.

Other cities continue to make progress while Los Angeles just keeps falling back, as the already bike-friendly Mile High City commits to building another 125 miles of bike lanes over the next three years. Unfortunately, the Denver Streetsblog won’t be around to cover it, at least not in its current form.

A Chicago bike lane remains faded, months after the city promised to repaint it following the death of a woman on her bike.

A New York community board says the lack of crosstown bike paths through Central Park are a ticking time bomb; they claim one rider has already lost his life as a result.

You’ve got to be kidding. Life is really cheap in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where a woman was fined just $1,000 for the distracted driving crash that killed two people on a club ride — which works out to just $500 for a human life. And she’ll get her license back in a lousy six months. Shameful.

Kindhearted Florida cops buy a new bike and helmet for a nine-year old boy after his was stolen, even making him an honorary junior officer.

 

International

Bike Radar continues their look at the year’s best bikes, with a ranking of the top steel framed bicycles.

Victoria, BC swears it’s not clearing snow off bike lanes before the rest of the street.

The rumored future Bond, James Bond is one of us, as James Norton rides his bike through the streets of London. But why does the press always seem to assume someone had to “settle” for riding a bicycle?

Britain’s biggest bike retailer said scooter and ebike sales nearly doubled compared to the last quarter of the previous year.

The Wall Street Journal reports bike riders are driving up real estate prices in Girona, Spain, which has seen prices go up 15% in the last year. Unfortunately, the usual WSJ paywall problems apply. Thanks to Jeff Vaughn for the heads-up.

India’s Hero Cycles develops plans to rule the bike world. Or 5% of it, anyway.

US Customs says ebikes are motorcycles, but that’s a good thing. The misclassification allows them to avoid Trump’s onerous 25% tariff.

 

Competitive Cycling

Fayetteville, Arkansas has been selected as the site of this year’s Pan-American Cyclocross Championships.

Dutch champ Anna van der Breggen looks forward to defending her Olympic road race gold metal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

 

Finally…

Indoor climbing walls are nothing new, but indoor bike park, not so much. Unless maybe you’d rather ride your bike on water.

And someone has finally developed an all-weather corgi carrier for your cargo bike.

What.

 

Morning Links: Uber & Lyft blamed for traffic deaths, file LAPD theft and hit-and-run reports online, and lots of bike videos

Let’s start with a few new studies today.

Researchers from Rice University and the University of Chicago point the finger at Uber and Lyft for the recent rise in traffic deaths, noting that fatality rates shot up in cities across the US as ride hailing companies set up shop.

A new study shows that while bicycling and pedestrian deaths are on the rise across the US, biking and walking deaths among school-aged children continue to decline; the authors credit programs like Safe Routes to Schools. Although a stronger argument could be made that the decline is due to fewer children walking and riding bikes, as more parents ferry their children everywhere.

A married couple conducted their own study, riding 1,476 miles across the British Isles to monitor air pollution, and finding that 70% of the ride exceeded safe levels established by the World Health Organization.

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In sort of good news, you can now file theft reports with the LAPD online, including bike thefts, as well as non-emergency hit-and-runs.

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Buena Park wants your input on proposed bike facilities. No, really.

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It takes real skill to fail to notice several grown men on bicycles, and take out most of them in a single right hook.

Thanks to David Huntsman for the heads-up.

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Coming to your friend’s rescue is always a good thing. So is moving your bike out of the way first.

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When you’re Danny MacAskill, you make your own weather.

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Translated, it says “Those cyclists feel superior.”

And sometimes, they have a right to.

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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes is all too real.

Sometimes, the video says it all.

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Local

Streetsblog reports around 30 people turned out at City Hall on Friday to demand safer streets, following the death of a four-year old girl in Koreatown two days earlier. Not a bad turnout given the short lead time. Let’s hope they can give more notice next time so even more people can show up.

LADOT has begun the city’s first-ever count of bicyclists and pedestrians, finally establishing benchmarks for measuring non-motorized traffic on the city’s streets; prior to this, the only counts were done by advocacy groups LACBC and LA Walks.

Curbed’s Alissa Walker calls for emulating San Francisco’s closure of Market Street to private motor vehicles, and suggests seven LA-area streets that should be closed to cars and opened to people. It would be hard to make a case for closing Sunset, Santa Monica and Wilshire boulevards, as she suggests, since they represent three major parallel crosstown routes; a better case could be made for closing Wilshire and Hollywood to cars.

The new EP by LA musician Nacho Cano, who records under the name Harmless, documents the crash with a speeding drunk driver that nearly took his life as he was riding his bike to work, and the long, painful recovery that followed.

The mayor of Santa Clarita invites you to hop on your bike and tour the city’s bike trails and new bike lanes, and credits the Santa Clarita Valley Bicycle Coalition for helping increase the popularity of bicycling in the area.

 

State

A Bay Area newspaper says the perfect romantic getaway is 48 hours of bikes and wine in Paso Robles.

A San Jose nonprofit bike shop is still committed to serving the homeless despite two burglaries in the last week; the shop has given away 3,500 refurbished bikes to homeless people, and made over 200,000 repairs for them.

In a story that should sound familiar to any bike-riding catcall-suffering women, the San Francisco Chronicle chronicles the sexual-based backlash suffered by women bicyclists in the 1890s.

The Napa County library has a new branch that travels on three wheels, plus a book-carting trailer.

Santa Rosa is just the latest California city to deal with a homeless camp overrunning a local bike path.

Sacramento bridge will be rebuilt for bicyclists and pedestrians when a new bridge is completed in a few years.

Zombies roll through bike-friendly Davis.

 

National

Outside profiles former professional mountain biker and three-time world 24-hour mountain bike champ Steve Fassbinder, who’s devoted his post-racing retirement to biking, rafting mountain climbing and llama riding adventures around the globe.

A CityLab op-ed accuses micromobility advocates of thinking small, saying instead of asking for bike lanes we should be demanding a world where cars are marginalized and universal basic mobility is seen as a human right.

MIPS and WaveCel could soon have new competition from Specialized. Oddly, my brother got his MIPS helmet by finding it on the side of the road. And no, there wasn’t a head in it at the time.

Surprisingly, Yahoo says you can’t power an entire city with your bike. It’s not surprising you can’t generate that much power with your bike; it’s surprising that Yahoo is still around.

Students at Oregon State University are angry over the arrest of a young black woman who was aggressively wrestled to the ground and cuffed by two state cops for the crime of riding salmon, leading the university to threaten to cut ties with the state police.

I want to be like him when I grow up. A 75-year old Arizona man celebrates his birthday by biking his age.

An eight-year old Texas girl born with just half a left arm can ride a bike for the first time, thanks to the first multi-grip bionic arm for kids that young.

Actor Dennis Christopher returns to Indiana for the 40th anniversary of the iconic bike film Breaking Away.

We all know Patrick Dempsey is one of us, right? He returned to his Maine hometown last month, raising $1.2 million for his eponymous center for cancer patients and their families through a bicycling and running event.

A Long Island village became the second area community to approve prosecuting and seizing the bikes of teenage bicyclists for blocking traffic, riding towards moving cars, and otherwise antagonizing motorists.

House of Cards and Jack Ryan actor — and former New York bike messenger — Michael Kelly is one of us, making time to ride his bicycle on the city’s streets every day.

Still more carnage from the Big Apple, where a 66-year old woman died a month after her bike was struck by the driver of a large van, raising the number of 2019 bicycle deaths to 26, compared to ten for all of last year. Needless to say, the NYPD immediately blamed the victim.

In an all-too-typical sign of the times, the family of a black Philadelphia delivery bicyclist has started getting threats and online harassment after he was acquitted of killing a road-raging white motorist who threatened to “beat the black off” him.

He gets it. A writer for the Washington Post asks why we put up with a transit system that kills, maims and wastes hours of our time. Why, indeed. Any transportation system that accepts deaths as a normal part of getting from here to there is an abject failure. 

 

International

Cycling Weekly says take concussions seriously. It could save your life.

Quartz says downtown areas around the world are slowly giving up on personal cars. Except for Downtown Los Angeles, of course, although even DTLA is finally getting around to accommodating bikes, thanks primarily to Councilmember José Huizar.

After a Winnipeg driver right hooks a woman riding her bike on the sidewalk, he complains that he’s being unfairly held responsible because she hit his car.

In a plan that could have been dreamed up by Robin Hood himself, Nottingham, England charges employers for each parking space, then uses the money to reduce car usage.

Road.cc explains why many British bicyclists don’t ride far to the right…uh, left. Just reverse the direction, and it explains why you should take the lane on most streets without bike lanes over here, too.

Welsh doctors can now prescribe six months of free bikeshare to improve patients’ physical and mental health.

One more for your bike bucket list — a 500-mile bicycling route through the fields of Flanders.

An Irish writer bikes the route of the Berlin Wall, nearly 30 years after it fell.

Pune, India is recruiting volunteers to patrol the city’s bikeways and report people who park in them, and other violations, to the police for “corrective action.”

A new Australian safety program focuses on young drivers, because young men are taking too many chances behind the wheel. And bike riders are paying the price.

The best laid plans of mice and bike thieves. A pair of Aussie thieves steal the security cameras from a Sydney parking garage, then come back the next night to steal a bicycle — unaware they were being recorded by dash cam.

 

Competitive Cycling

Dr. Rachel McKinnon retained her world title for the women’s 200 meter sprint in the 35-39 age group, renewing debate over whether female transgender athletes have an unfair advantage over other women.

Dutch cyclist Laurens ten Dam calls it a career after a mere 17 years, leaving the WorldTour to take up gravel grinding.

Legendary cyclist Eddy Merckx got the okay to go home, five days after the 74-year old five-time Tour de France winner suffered a serious head injury in a solo crash.

The Sunweb team responds to the crash that paralyzed 19-year old cyclist Edo Maas by insisting UCI and race organizers need to really focus on safety to prevent future tragedies.

 

Finally…

Young man turns blue after biking across Montana. Four shots, one faceplant.

And Michael Meyers is one of us, too.

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Thanks to John L for his generous donation to support this site.

As we noted before, it would take just $10 from everyone who visits BikinginLA today to fund it for an entire year; John says he says he gave extra to make up for a couple people who didn’t.

Morning Links: Giving the cops a hand, Dorothy Wong fights for bike safety, and Froome is back in the saddle again

It’s a light news day for a change. 

Which is probably a relief for both of us after yesterday’s massive missive

So settle in for a few minutes, and we’ll get right to it. 

Photo by Craig Adderley from Pexels.

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A Scottish Uber Eats delivery rider gave police a hand, skidding to a stop and chasing down a moped thief to help take him into custody.

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Local

Altadena councilmember, League Cycling Instructor and former pro mountain biker Dorothy Wong continues her fight for bike safety and protecting the Hahamongna Watershed.

 

State

Streetsblog says the San Diego Association of Governments, aka SANDAG, can’t see the future for the cars, after the board overrules staff members to invest funds in widening highways. Although invest might not be the right word.

A Silicone Valley bike tour was scratched due to sick chickens.

The Sacramento Bee explains how drivers’ choices can help cut traffic deaths, including using the Dutch Reach and not stopping in bike lanes; the capital city has the deadliest streets for children under 15 for any large California city.

 

National

You, too, can get your very own bicycle designed specifically to fit a woman’s anatomy — if you have a measly $12,300 hidden under your sofa cushions.

Bike Snob says bicycle tech has advanced so far that it’s almost impossible to buy a bad bike these days. There may be some big box bike buyers who’d probably disagree.

A new portable, quick-release bike saddle promises to eliminate the problems of rain soaked or stolen bicycle seats by allowing you to take it with you; it’s currently raising funds on Kickstarter.

Popular Mechanics lists their choices for the best bike apps.

A Washington writer patiently explains why someone would want to ride on the left edge of what drivers might see as a perfectly good bike lane.

An Idaho judge decides a badly fractured ankle isn’t punished enough, and fines a woman $90 for running a red light on her bike, which led to collision with a driver.

After his grandparent’s neighbor was killed by a hit-and-run driver while riding his bike, a bighearted Colorado 8th grader raised $1,200 for a state bike advocacy group in the victim’s honor.

Clearly, we’re not safe from heartless, cowards anywhere. An Illinois pedestrian was run down by a hit-and-run golf cart driver while walking on a bike path.

No shit. A Dutch man visits his sister in Minnesota, and finds riding a bike here is just a tad different than over there.

An Indianapolis official apparently thinks his constituents aren’t bright enough to grasp how a parking protected bike lane works.

An Arkansas man participating in a century ride was killed when he fell down a 30-foot embankment after apparently suffering a blown tire.

A Maine bike rider is lucky to be alive after a man trained in CPR found him lying unconscious on the side of the road, despite wearing a helmet.

Providence, Rhode Island decides to rip out a two-way protected bike lane over fears that emergency vehicles can’t get through on the newly narrowed traffic lanes. Even though they could easily fit in the wide bikeway or run over the plastic bollards separating the lanes from vehicular traffic if they don’t.

A Long Island teenager learns the hard way that popping a wheelie in traffic may not be the best idea

New York bike riders rally at city hall to demand passage of bills that would improve bicycle safety, including more protected bike lanes, limiting where garbage trucks can go, and targeting the city’s most dangerous drivers.

A DC bike rider says he was lucky to escape with a bent rim when he was jumped by a group of bike-riding teenagers on the National Mall.

Chapel Hill NC considers banning right turns on red lights at several mostly downtown intersections to protect bicyclists and pedestrians.

A New Orleans radio station says the city may be on its way to becoming carfree.

A very drunk, 51-year old Florida man went back to school without an invitation, riding his bike past security at a high school and taking a seat in a classroom before police led him away in cuffs.

 

International

A writer for Bike Radar tries a handlebar mirror for the first time. And after reflection, comes away unimpressed.

Speaking of Bike Radar, they can’t wait for the next Trek bike — or the next bike name based on an anagram of Madone — so they invented their own.

A couple in Mérida, Mexico explain how they met while riding their bikes to work. Try doing that in a car.

He gets it. Instead of the usual call for more bike helmets, an Edinburgh trauma surgeon calls for lower speed limits to prevent crashes and save lives.

There’s a lesson here somewhere. A 60-year old British man on a bike tour to Venice collapsed and died while watching porn in an Italian sex shop. Maybe he should have worn his helmet.

 

Competitive Cycling

Dutch pro Ellen van Dijk is getting her stolen bike back, after German police recovered the purloined Trek Madone that went missing on the final day of the Lotto Ladies Tour.

Colorado Springs CO is planning a $50,000 four-day mountain bike race on the dirt roads, four-wheel paths and mountain bike singletrack of legendary Pikes Peak.

Four-time Tour de France winner Chris Froome is back in the saddle again, 14 weeks after a crash while training for the Critérium du Dauphiné sent him to the intensive care unit.

 

Finally…

Doesn’t everyone wear skintight leather pants for a tandem ride — and stand on the pedals to pose for the camera? Surely, you joust.

And your next e-scooter could do 50 mph.

But that’s not necessarily a good thing.

 

Morning Links: Sunland ghost bike tonight, limiting cars in city centers, and ATL rapper rides — and is — a Lil Bike

A ghost bike will be placed tonight for a 55-year old Tujunga man who was killed in a Sunland hit-and-run two weeks ago, one of two bicycling deaths that came to light over the weekend.

The second was an 82-year old man killed on a killer intersection on deadly Los Coyotes Diagonal in Long Beach.

Ghost bike photo by Matthew T Rader from Pexels.

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Today’s common theme is a mostly one-sided debate over whether it’s possible to encourage bicycling and other forms of so-called alternative transportation to reduce motor vehicle traffic. 

And for a change, the bikes are winning.

The short-sighted editors of LA County’s Antelope Valley Press say car-free streets are just an impossible dream, ignoring the fact that several European cities are already banning private cars from their urban centers.

A local paper says Spokane WA was built for bicycles, before those bullies in cars came along and took over the streets. But an Indiana college professor says we can get back there with a commitment to Complete Streets and better bike infrastructure.

And a writer for the Washington Post says European cities show it’s not only possible, but beneficial to limit cars and encourage bicycling.

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Trek develops an Aussie accent to introduce their new offroad bike in a tongue-in-cheek ad that just keeps going on…and on…

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When your rap name is Lil Bike, you’ve got to include at least one in your new video.

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Building your own DIY bike horn to scare the crap out of anyone.

Except, of course, for modern drivers in their hermetically sealed, virtually soundproof vehicles, who can’t even hear a firetruck bearing down on them.

Unfortunately, I lost track of who forwarded this to me over the weekend, so my thanks and apologies, whoever you are. 

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The war on cars is a myth, but the war on bikes is all too real.

A group of young men shouted profanities at an English bicyclist as they passed by in a car, then made a U-turn and came back to physically push him off the road, the fourth such attack in the area this year.

But sometimes its the people on bikes behaving badly.

It takes a major schmuck to just ride off on his bike after knocking a five-year old boy from the UK off his bicycle as he rode home from school; the middle-aged hit-and-run bicyclist left the kid lying in his own blood with a number of cuts and bruises.

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Local

LAist wants to know what’s up with the long-closed Arroyo Seco Bike Path, concluding a big part of the problem is a “virtual Russian doll” of intertwined jurisdictions. And don’t hold your breath on the promised September re-opening.

Santa Clarita’s mayor invites people to come out and bike the city’s numerous bike paths and trails, as well as the fourth annual Santa Clarita Gran Fondo later this month.

A new road project on Palmdale’s Rancho Vista Boulevard will widen it to three lanes in each direction, while adding five-foot bike lanes on both sides.

 

State

California’s ebike voucher bill was passed by the legislature and signed into law by Governor Newsom; it will allow some low-income drivers to trade in their inefficient cars for vouchers good for bikeshare or ebike purchases. Unfortunately, I suspect my 1994 car is still one year too recent to qualify, dammit.

The co-founder of an Irvine-based kids bike maker says the whipsaw effect of Trump’s tariffs will force small businesses like his to go under.

It was a bad few days in San Diego, where a 64-year old man suffered life-threatening injuries when he was run down by a hit-and-run driver in a Point Loma bike lane. And a 22-year old woman suffered life-threatening injuries when she was hit by an SUV driver after allegedly veering in front of her vehicle.

San Diego officials plan to redevelop the city’s Mission Valley to accommodate 28,000 new homes, with new neighborhoods designed around bicycling, walking and the San Diego River.

Sad news from Bakersfield, where a man riding a bicycle was left lying in the road by a hit-and-run driver, and struck again by the driver of a second vehicle. As always, there’s no way of knowing if the victim would have survived if the asshole heartless coward in the first car hadn’t left him bleeding in the street.

A San Jose man is behind bars after a sharp-eyed Milpitas mall cop spotted the suspected burglar who rode off on a homeowner’s bicycle after an early morning break-in; police were able to return the bicycle just hours after the theft.

San Jose police bust an alleged hit-and-run driver who killed a man riding his bike in a crosswalk last month.

There’s a special place in hell for whoever stole the bicycle an 81-year old Sacramento man used to ride to the library.

 

National

A hard-hitting piece from Vice says bicycling deaths are exploding because American cities are car-friendly death traps, citing New York and Los Angeles as the nation’s deadliest cities for people on two wheels.

Inspired by a celebration of life after his brother’s death from leukemia, a 60-year old Los Angeles man with no bicycling experience is riding diagonally across the US, covering 4,764 miles from Neah Bay, Washington to Key West, Florida — including at least one mile a day on his brother’s 1982 bike.

A Washington bike rider says if drivers can’t afford a 15-second delay caused by someone on a bicycle, they need to plan their trip better.

A Reno bike co-op is expecting four truckloads of bicycles abandoned by Burning Man revelers, which will be fixed and recycled for use again next year.

A Montana newspaper doesn’t appear to be a fan of new Trump administration rules to allow ebikes on some National Park and BLM trails.

My favorite Scottish bike and bunny blogger takes a ride on Iowa’s 46-mile High Trestle Trail, so called because it takes you over a former railroad bridge.

A Fargo, North Dakota man is angry after getting hit with a special assessment on his home to pay for a new bike path, which the mayor says is needed to attract millennials to the city — even though it will cost him just $10 a year.

With Ohio bicycling deaths piling up, staff members for a Cleveland website debates what to do about it.

Bike Snob’s Eben Weiss says New York Mayor and mostly ignored presidential candidate Bill De Blasio’s call for mandatory bike helmets isn’t the answer, suggesting this is how Vision Zero dies.

A New York mother faces charges after her five-year old special needs son was found riding his bicycle alone in the middle of the night.

So much for that whole pedtextrian myth. A new study from New York shows there is “little concrete evidence that…distracted walking contributes significantly to pedestrian fatalities and injuries,” to which the windshield-biased New York Times responds, yeah, but it’s still annoying.

A writer for the New Yorker says let’s just give up on climate change already, because the battle is already lost since people aren’t going to change their behavior. That’s the same kind of clear eyed, rational thinking that led John F. Kennedy to say, “Oh just forget it. The moon’s too far away anyway.” And Winston Churchill to tell the people of England “I have nothing to offer you but blood, sweat and tears. So just fuck it and start learning German.”

The motorcycle rider who fatally shot a man on a regular Miami group ride was formally indicted on charges of 2nd degree murder aggravated assault; his lawyer says he’s never been in trouble before and is devastated to be behind bars. There’s a simple solution to that — just don’t shoot people. 

 

International

Treehugger’s Lloyd Alter says ebikes are great; buying them online, not so much.

Road.cc offers advice on how to pick the right bike cam. Which is your best protection against drivers and cops who blame you for a crash or blowing a stop signal you actually observed.

She gets it. An Ottawa columnist says the trick to a healthier population is designing public spaces in ways that naturally nudge people into moving around more without having to think about it.

Truly horrifying video of a 15-year old Toronto sidewalk rider literally getting run over by a pickup driver blowing out of a parking lot, who somehow didn’t notice — or maybe didn’t care — they’d just knocked him over; thankfully, he only suffered minor injuries. Be sure you really want to see this before you click on the link; even though he wasn’t seriously hurt, this one is very hard to watch. And to forget.

Powerful protest from the UK, as hundreds of Londoners stage a funeral procession through Trafalgar Square led by three horse-drawn hearses to protest bicycling deaths.

British police tell a doctor “that’s not my problem, it’s your problem” when it comes it bike theft, saying people understand that it’s not a big priority compared to other crimes. Except for the people whose bikes get stolen, of course.

In calling the Netherland’s Utrecht a “cycle-crazed” city, an architecture website demonstrates a serious misunderstanding of people’s psyches in the Netherlands. It’s not that they’re crazy about bicycling — it’s just normal. People hop on their bikes in the morning the same way most Americans walk to their cars.

Bollywood movie star Salman Khan is one of us, riding a bicycle through rain-drenched Mumbai streets to get to the set of his latest film.

 

Competitive Cycling

You know you’re having a bad year when a kitchen knife puts you back in the hospital; four-time Tour de France winner Chris Froome severed a tendon on his thumb, just months after a major crash in the Critérium du Dauphiné knocked him out of action for most of this year’s racing season.

After a chaotic first week, no new lead changes in the Vuelta, as 24-year old American Sepp Kuss solos to victory in stage 15, notching his first long-range climbing win.

VeloNews says 27-year old Norwegian pro tour rookie Carl Fredrik Hagen continues to impress in his first Grand Tour, holding on to eighth in the Vuelta after finishing 18th in the Tour of Poland.

 

Finally…

Probably not the best idea to hit a bike cop with your truck’s wing mirror. And who needs a water bottle when you can carry a six-pack and a spare on your bike?

No surprise it took an Aussie to figure that one out, either.

 

Morning Links: Debunking a bike rumor, Insurance Institute criticizes protected bike lanes, and a bicycle video Monday

Before we start, let me offer a quick apology and thank you to anyone who sent in links for today’s post.

As you’ll see below, it’s been a traumatic weekend, and with a few exceptions, I’ve lost track of who may have sent what. 

I’m incredibly grateful to anyone who takes a few minutes out of their busy day to give me a heads up, whether or not my muddled brain manages to keep up. 

Photo by Deniz Anttila from Pixabay.

………

Let’s start by debunking a rumor.

According to a Reddit post last week, a bike rider was killed by motorist in DTLA last week as a result of a road rage dispute.

Fatal bicycle accident on 7th and hill in DTLA

I was walking on 7th today around 10:30am and came across a woman on the side of the street who was clearly having a panic attack. I looked beyond her parked car and there was a man on a bicycle, his head face down on the pavement and blood everywhere. He wasn’t moving. There were no police or authorities on the scene yet. A man next to me said that the bicyclist kicked a car and the car hit him and drove off. He died on contact… Did anyone else see this? Have any more info? I’m not sure if the woman was panicking because she saw it happen or because she hit him and the kicking story isn’t true. Pretty gnarly to see. I walked on the same corner about 30 minutes later and it was as if nothing happened… all there was left was some blood and a bit of flesh on the pavement. Woof.

Except it didn’t happen.

Any fatal crash would require the roadway to be closed for several hours as police investigate the crash. Especially if it involved a homicide investigation.

Not just cleaned up and reopened in a matter of minutes, as if nothing ever happened.

But just to be sure, I checked with someone with knowledge of the situation, who said there was an incident at that location, but it didn’t involve a crash. Intentional or otherwise.

And no one was killed.

So let’s be careful spreading rumors. There are enough real tragedies without needlessly, and incorrectly, adding more.

Thanks to Matt Stewart for the tip.

……….

A new study from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety says not all protected bike lanes are created even.

And in some cases, aren’t even as safe as a regular painted bike lane.

Compared with a major road with no bike infrastructure, the risk of a crash or fall was much lower on two-way protected bike lanes on bridges or raised from the roadway — for example, within greenways. In contrast, the risk of a crash or fall on a two-way protected bike lane at street level was much higher than that of a major road.

One-way protected bike lanes differed little from major roads in terms of injury risk.

“A cyclist on a protected lane at street level is likely to encounter vehicles at intersections, driveways and alleys more often than on a protected lane enclosed within a bridge or greenway,” says Jessica Cicchino, IIHS vice president for research and the lead author of the new paper. “Pedestrians also sometimes enter street-level bike lanes, which can cause cyclists to swerve and fall.”

On the other hand, a crash in a protected bike lane is less likely to be fatal.

That said, the types of bicyclist crashes seen in street-level protected lanes weren’t the type that are typically most severe. Most fatal bicyclist crashes involving motor vehicles occur midblock, while cyclists in protected bike lanes in the study collided with vehicles most often at intersections or junctions with driveways and alleys. In such cases, vehicles are usually turning and traveling slowly…

“There is evidence that protected bike lanes help prevent the worst crashes,” Cicchino says. “What our study shows is that certain locations are better than others for this type of infrastructure.

So the choice seems to come down to whether you want to prevent crashes, or save lives.

Or just insist on building better bike lanes to begin with.

You can read the full press release hereThanks to Chris Woodyard for the heads-up.

………

CiclaValley narrates an inaugural ride along a new segment of the LA Riverfront Greenway in the San Fernando Valley, better known in lower sections as the LA River bike path.

………

A Boston public radio station traces the long and winding backstory connecting a mass market brand of French cognac to early cycling legend Major Taylor.

………

Seriously, don’t blame the driver next to you when you don’t hold your line. Or keep both wheels on the ground.

Meanwhile, bike-riding British radio host causes an uproar by responding that a clown on a bicycle doesn’t hurt anyone, unlike a clown in a car.

………

Dutch bikemaker VanMoof released the video below to show how willing people are to buy a stolen bike.

Except it turns out the entire thing was a scam — the “real” people were hired actors, and the money came directly from the film crew.

Which is a little worse than just spreading rumors.

………

It’s sort of like lane assist for bicycles.

A new Dutch ebike prototype has smart steering assistance built into the handlebars to help keep riders upright.

………

Evidently, the old song was right.

A new study shows breathing in air pollution is as bad for your lungs as smoking. Especially for active people — like the ones who ride bicycles, for instance.

………

This is who we share the roads with.

Washington State police found a distracted driver stopped on the side of the road playing Pokémon Go on not one, not two, but eight separate phones at once.

And apparently let him go with just a warning.

If you want to know why people keep dying on out streets, that’s a pretty good place to start.

………

Local

Los Angeles is now marking the sites of fatal collisions with rainbow halos created by artist John Morse, in collaboration with Southern California Families for Safe Streets and Los Angeles Walks.

WeHoVille offers a recap of Sunday’s Meet the Hollywoods CicLAvia, which allowed tens of thousands of people to experience Hollywood, Highland and Santa Monica Blvds without cars, most for the first time. Meanwhile, apologies for the tardiness as the Militant Angeleno’s latest Epic Tour tells you what you may have missed yesterday.

Santa Clarita police will stage yet another bicycle and pedestrian safety enforcement day this Thursday, ticketing anyone who commits any violation that could jeopardize the safety of people walking or biking. The usual protocol applies — ride to the letter of the law that day until you leave their jurisdiction, so you’re not the one who gets written up.

 

State

California Streetsblog accuses Caltrans of trying to sabotage the Complete Streets bill in the state assembly with an over-inflated price tag.

A news story popping up across the US asks if California can put cars in the rear view mirror, noting that the only way to meet the state’s climate goals is reducing the number of cars on the streets.

The Orange County Register’s David Whiting considers the family fun of the popular Over the Hump mountain bike race.

KPBS says a group suing to stop plans for a bike lane on 30th Street in the North Park neighborhood vastly overstated their local support, as 31% of the people who signed their petition live outside of San Diego, let alone North Park.

A Santa Barbara man recovered a stolen bike and returned it to its rightful owner after spotting someone stashing it in an alley.

It’s only taken the state three years to get around to clearing a rock slide off a Sacramento-area bike path, once again demonstrating just how much they value people who get around on two wheels.

 

National

An Irishman gets a different view of the US by riding his bike 4,500 miles across the country.

Maybe he should have kept up the steroids. Turns out the singer/dancer/actress is in much better shape than her athlete boyfriend, as J-Lo nearly drops A-Rod on a bike ride.

CityLab looks at the birth of the beach cruiser in 1970s California, and how it helped turn vacationers into bike riders.

GeekWire says Lime’s ebikes can be a blast. Sometimes literally.

Bicycling rates the best commuter bags for bike riders, starting at just $30.

A lot of people go spring skiing, but not many ride their bikes there. And even fewer ride their bikes 3,650 miles to just ski Alaska’s Mt. Denali.

Colorado Springs CO spent ten years installing bike lanes before the auto-centric bikelash began; a leader of the car-focused activists says he doesn’t like bike lanes even though they haven’t slowed down his commute, because he’s highly offended that someone wants to force out of his car and onto a bicycle. Because really, who hasn’t stood by helplessly as those damn militant bicyclists grab some poor, innocent driver, jerk them out of their cars and force them onto bicycles?

Nice. Houston opens a 30-acre, $25 million bike park.

This is who we share the roads with. An Oklahoma driver admitted to being high on meth when he crashed into a bike rider, apparently without breaking.

That’s more like it. A drunken Illinois hit-and-run driver who killed a 19-year old bike rider and injured another man was sentenced to 15 years behind bars — which could be doubled due to prior felony convictions.

Sometimes a story just goes from bad to worse. After a Pittsburgh bike rider was run down from behind by a hit-and-run driver, police arrested an off-duty Pittsburgh cop for the crime, after video showed he downed two shots and 160 ounces of beer before getting behind the wheel — because he was celebrating the drive-by murder of Pittsburgh rapper Jimmy Wopo.

A mob of “two-wheeled hooligans” rode their bikes on a wild rampage through Providence RI, stealing snacks from a Dollar Tree and randomly assaulting people. Police bizarrely blamed dockless Jump ebikes for the rampage because some of the kids rode them after hacking the locks. Which is like blaming car rental companies for all the reckless drivers on the 405. Or anywhere else.

A kindhearted Connecticut cop turned bike mechanic when he saw a kid having problems with his bicycle.

A Buffalo NY man decides to trade his motorcycle for a slow roll bike ride.

New York bike riders are up in arms after the local DA refuses to charge a truck driver who kept going after running over a bike rider, concluding she fell over after hitting a pothole, and the driver had no idea he’d hit anyone. No, really.

A Gothamist op-ed says making incremental changes on the streets has failed, and it’s time to break car culture now.

A surprisingly even-handed report from a New York TV station observes that the rate of pedestrians hit by bicyclists is going up. But while many bike riders break the law, it’s not always the bicyclist’s fault.

On the other hand, a writer who seems to suggest he’s an expert on bicycling because he briefly worked as a bike messenger 20 years ago says New York is living in a golden age of bicycling — or would be, if not for all those lawbreaking bicyclists. Yes, people on bicycles need to obey the law and use the streets safely, just like anyone else. But safe bike riders get killed just like the other kind.

Wealthy New York residents are suing to stop a bike lane next to Central Park, choosing to protect their precious parking spaces over human lives; as one resident who opposes the suit puts it, “The optics are terrible. No doubt we look like an overprivileged, insensitive group of people.” Gee, you think?

A Brooklyn bike shop is taking the next step in bike advocacy by posting the city’s bicycling death toll on the door to ensure everyone see it. Meanwhile, LA bike shops don’t seem to grasp the concept that safer streets would mean more customers.

Miami police have finally arrested the motorcyclist who fatally shot a bicyclist on a group ride after other members of the ride came forward with video contradicting his claim of self-defense. The New Times says the shooting is symptomatic of the dangers people on bicycles face.

 

International

Don’t steal a bike from a runner. A Winnipeg woman manages to chase down the man making off with her bicycle and get it back. While running in bare feet, no less.

The Guardian’s Laura Laker considers just how much we lose when a local bike shop shuts down. Hint: A lot. You may get a better price online, but you’ll pay much more in the loss of hands-on service. Besides, you might make some new friends if you venture out into the real world to do your shopping.

An Aussie woman living in France got her stolen bike back thanks to a sharp eye in the classifieds and an assist from the local gendarmes. 

A new German/Canadian study shows that bike helmets make you feel safer. Even if you’re nowhere near a bicycle.

Wonder Woman’s Gail Gadot is one of us, as the Israeli actress poses for a photo on her bike as she waits on a bridge. Although someone should explain to the Daily Mail what a selfie is. Because they don’t seem to have a clue.

 

Competitive Cycling

Bicycling offers a preview of the 2019 Vuelta a España; the year’s final Grand Tour kicks off on Saturday in the Alicante province.

1960s Italian racing great Felice Gimondi passed away from a heart attack at age 76; he won the 1965 Tour de France in his first year as a pro, followed by victories in the Vuelta and the Giro, making him just one of seven riders to win all three Grand Tours.

The pro cyclists union says the narrow streets, unmarked road furniture and dangerous conditions of the Binck Bank Tour mean it doesn’t deserve to be a WorldTour race.

Writing for the Guardian, competitor Nick Van Mead offers a first-hand description of what it’s like to compete in the self-supported, unmapped Transcontinental bike race across Europe from the Black Sea to France’s Atlantic Coast — including getting chased through Serbia by packs of wild dogs.

 

Finally…

Seriously, who needs a seat tube? Apparently, you can carry just about anything on a bicycle or four.

And who needs an ebike when you’ve got an exosuit in your shorts?