Tag Archive for bike videos

Morning Links: 15-year old fixie rider dragged 1,000 feet by hit-and-run driver, and a flaming bagpipe unicycle ride

August 7, 2019 / / Comments Off on Morning Links: 15-year old fixie rider dragged 1,000 feet by hit-and-run driver, and a flaming bagpipe unicycle ride

Horrible news from South LA, where a 15-year old boy was critically injured by a hit-and-run driver who sped off, leaving him bleeding in the streets.

While the story identifies him as a pedestrian, he was actually riding or walking with what appears to be a fixie when he was run down by a heartless coward at Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Woodlawn Avenue around 9 pm last night — then dragged over the length of a football field under the driver’s car.

That’s around 1,000 feet.

Police described the victim as barely alive.

Officers are looking for a 2007 or 2008 dark blue or green Honda Accord with tinted windows and front-end damage.

As always, there is a standing $25,000 reward for any hit-and-run involving serious injuries in the City of Los Angeles, which will increase to $50,000 if the worst happens.

Let’s hope they catch this murderous jerk.

And pray that the boy he tried to kill by not stopping makes a fast and full recovery.

Update: The victim has been identified by his mother as Roberto Diaz, who was riding in a crosswalk after buying a soda at a nearby store when he was run down by a driver who blew through a stop sign. 

The driver stopped briefly when he or she was followed by witnesses before taking off again. 

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Apparently, parking is a common theme today.

Harbor Area planning commissioners approve plans for a new 80-room hotel in San Pedro, with 56 parking spaces for drivers, and all of five — count ’em, 5 — spaces for people with bicycles.

A massive new San Diego commercial development will feature just 90 short-term bike racks, along with 90 long-term bike lockers, to compliment nearly 1,400 parking spaces for motor vehicles. Not exactly the way to encourage people to leave their cars at home.

A bike-riding Seattle business owner says he’d rather keep the street parking in front of his cafe and put a planned bike lane somewhere else, evidently preferring his current customers to getting more business from people like him. And before someone says Seattle isn’t Amsterdam, maybe it should be. Then again, so should Los Angeles.

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Trek’s podcast talks with the founder of Black Girls Do Bike, who deserves the Medal of Freedom. Or sainthood. Or something.

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Security video captures a Kansas City-area driver plow through a crosswalk without looking, and right into a bicyclist riding in it.

Then the police ticket the driver, as well as both bike riders for not waiting for the walk signal even though they had the green light.

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Former Top Gear host James May calls on drivers to live in peace with fellow road users, and not “buy into the anti-cycling thing.”

https://twitter.com/SafeCyclingEire/status/1158470770110189569?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1158470770110189569&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Froad.cc%2Fcontent%2Fnews%2F265136-live-blog-dont-buy-anti-cycling-thing-james-may-tells-drivers-stop-worrying

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Local

The LA Weekly goes on a bicycle pastry tour through LA’s Fairfax District and points east. And gives a shout out to former Flying Pigeon owner Josef Bray-Ali’s popular Get Some Dim Sum rides. 

Streetsblog’s Joe Linton explains LA’s wonky and acronym-heavy shift from LOS to VMT, saying it’s “likely to have big ramifications for making L.A. healthier, more walkable, more bikeable, and transit-friendly.”

Plans to redevelop the aging South Bay Galleria include what are obliquely described as “bicycle connections,” whatever that means in real life.

No need for guilt when you attend a track cycling race at the VELO Sports Center on the complex that houses Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, which Los Angeles Magazine calls the world’s most sustainable soccer facility, right down to its fleet of cruiser bikes for workers to traverse the expansive grounds.

 

State

In today’s faux soap opera report, ebikes have infiltrated the Real Housewives of Orange County, as Kelly Dodd presents her plastic surgeon boyfriend with a William Shatner-approved Pedego. And no, I had no idea who Dodd is, or anyone else on the show for that matter. But hey, good taste in gift giving.

A man was shot in the hand by a bike-jacker just after dark on bike path in the San Pasqual area near Escondido; he was shot as he raised his hands after the armed thief jumped out from behind some rocks and demanded his bicycle.

Everyone was on their best behavior as thousands of people turn out for Santa Barbara’s long-running Fiesta Cruiser Ride, after police cracked down on previous rides.

These are difficult days for local bike shops trying to compete in today’s online shopping world, as demonstrated by two bike shops closing in San Luis Obispo in just the last week.

The Davis Enterprise offers a quartet of stories celebrating the US Bicycling Hall of Fame on its 10th birthday, calling it the most bikey thing about the bike-mad town and part of the fabric of the community, while noting that the hall may shift gears in the future.

 

National

If anyone is shocked that Uber and Lyft are making traffic congestion worse, you need to get out more. But at least they finally admit it.

Ebike price continue to drop, as Electrek and Verge like the new Swagtron EB12 city bike, which checks in at penny under $1,000; the best part is it looks like an actual bicycle. And hopefully rides that way.

Great idea. A new bike light currently crowdfunding online offers dual lights, with one forward-facing 500 lumen LED to light the road, and another back-facing LED to make the rider more visible to drivers.

C|net compares a pair of low cost GoPro alternatives to the real thing.

A pair of cancer survivors just rode 4,000 miles across the US to promote bone marrow donations and raise $24,000 for the organization that helped save their own lives.

The mountain bike front derailleur isn’t dead yet, it’s just 90% off.

Hats off to a Boise, Idaho pawnshop owner, who helped bust a serial bike thief trying to unload $40,000 worth of bicycles reportedly stolen in Washington, California, Nevada, Florida, Colorado, Virginia, and North Carolina.

After 45 years, savage serial killer Ted Bundy’s last case was finally closed, 45 years after he took the life of a young Colorado woman as she was out for a bike ride.

A Kansas man is on trial for aggravated battery for critically injuring MMA fighter Carmella James while she was riding her bicycle to work; police believe he was under the influence, but don’t appear to have tested him.

A San Antonio TX bike rider was shot in the back in a drive-by.

An Arkansas bicycle coordinator says bike helmets are great, but mandatory helmet laws aren’t.

Yes, 288-pound NFL star JJ Watt replaced a young Green Bay Packers fan’s bicycle, after breaking the boy’s bike riding it to training camp.

Broadway actor Noah Galvin is one of us, riding along Manhattan’s Riverfront Park when he’s not performing in the hit show Waitress.

It takes a humongous schmuck to steal not one, not two, but three ghost bikes dedicated to a Virginia woman’s sister, who calls them a powerful symbol of a life lost.

A North Carolina city legalizes riding on the sidewalk as a stopgap measure until they get a planned bike lane network installed, recognizing that their streets aren’t currently safe for people on bicycles. On the other hand, riding on the sidewalk usually isn’t any safer; in fact, it usually increases your risk due to limited sight lines.

They get it. In a New Orleans podcast, bike advocates say we’ll have peace on the road when everyone has a piece of the road; meanwhile, the host of the podcast says progress on the city’s bike network is “worth the inconvenience of adapting to it.” I like him already.

 

International

No bias here. European truck drivers say they’ll give bike riders a safe passing distance as long as we’re required to wear hi-vis and and use daytime lights.

The family of a fallen London bike rider call for safer streets after the pioneering physician was fatally doored last September.

WTF? A local UK council gets an injunction preventing bike riders from meeting or congregating at a new cycling café. Which raises the obvious question of what exactly is the point of a cycling café if cyclists can’t use it. And if you bump into someone there who also rides a bike, does one of you have to leave?

The former Posh Spice is one of us, as she goes for a bike ride on a romantic Italian getaway with husband David Beckham and their four kids.

Travel and Leisure says the best way to see the scenic Swiss countryside is by bicycle, even if you’re a beginning rider.

A Luxembourg website lists the most common traffic violations for the country’s bicyclists, while noting that bike riders were only held accountable for 40% of bike crashes. The question is how many drivers were ticketed for the same crashes.

News reports question whether the president of Turkmenistan is suffering from a serious illness — or worse — despite recent news clips showing him riding and participating in other activities, which could have been outtakes from previous clips.

 

Competitive Cycling

Underscoring the danger pro cyclists face on a daily basis, the director of the Tour de Pologne, aka Tour of Poland, blames the tragic death of 22-year old Belgian cyclist Bjorg Lambrecht on a single “moment of hesitation.”

Yesterday’s stage of the Tour of Poland was transformed to a solemn memorial procession with the peloton riding in Lambrecht’s honor.

A writer for Cycling Weekly recalls the pivotal role Lambrecht played in an extraordinary day of racing at a U-23 race trough the Pyrenees.

Cycling Tips questions how long on-and-off road cycling champ Mathieu van der Poel can keep up his torrid pace.

Who says women can’t compete with the men? Twenty-four-year old German cancer researcher Fiona Kolbinger became the first woman to win the European Transcontinental Race, covering 2,485 miles across the continent in just 10 days, two hours and 48 minutes to beat 265 other riders. And it was her first bike race.

Finally…

This is what you might call an epic bike lane fail. Take your pooch on a Jump bike ride.

And we’ll just end on this one without comment.

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , ,

Morning Links: PeopleForBikes leads ebike fight, CHP victim blaming, and the best 3 minutes 27 seconds of your day

July 24, 2019 / / 4 comments

I recently received the following press release from People for Bikes — or as they now call themselves, PeopleForBikes (I should talk, I know).

I don’t normally repost PR stories in their entirety, if at all. But it’s a good message and a battle worth fighting.

Besides, it’s a quarter to four, I’m tired and cranky, and the Corgi needs her beauty sleep and won’t go to bed until I do.

Research over the past year has extolled the virtues of e-biking: Studies have shown that e-bikes significantly bring down cities’ CO2 emissions, reduce noise pollution, get people active, and even have the capacity to create car-free households. Simply put, e-bikes form a certain way to help our planet as it enters an uncertain future. That’s why PeopleForBikes has made e-bike advocacy a core part of their work, working to drive the conversation that’s building towards an “e-bike revolution.”

PFB has supported pages and pages of research and resources that have been instrumental parts of legislation giving people access to and infrastructure around e-biking. PFB has generated information on state-by-state e-bike policy, easy-to-read research and statistics, and e-bikers’ favorite city-by-city routes. They’ve seen some awesome results: Through the work of advocates and legal advisors, 22 states have passed PFB’s model e-bike legislation, which regulates e-bikes like regular bicycles. This is a huge win for the health of our cities, the planet, and e-bike riders.

Of course, many challenges remain ahead. Most states have confusing laws saying where e-bikers can and can’t ride, and tariffs make bike motors and e-bikes themselves more expensive than they need to be. PFB wants to continue to be at the forefront of this conversation as we push for accessible e-biking for all.

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No windshield bias here.

A Santa Rosa bike rider was killed when he was struck by a hit-and-run driver who continued without stopping, throwing him onto the opposite side of the roadway, where he was struck by another car.

But instead of addressing the heartless coward who murdered an innocent man, the CHP blamed the victim for possibly riding in the traffic lane instead of the bike lane, and wearing dark clothing on a dark street.

Which shouldn’t matter in the slightest if the victim had the legally required lights and reflectors on his bike, which they don’t mention at all.

And maybe someone should tell the CHP about the numerous exceptions to CVC 21208 that allow bicyclists to leave a bike lane whenever necessary.

Not to mention that it’s almost impossible to pinpoint the exact point of contact for a bike crash unless the driver braked before impact, which doesn’t seem to have happened here.

But sure, let’s keep demonstrating that notorious CHP windshield bias.

Thanks to Sindy Saito for the heads-up.

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Watching this video could be the best 3 minutes and 27 seconds of your day.

Or maybe you have a more exciting life than I do.

But still.

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

Someone has been planting dangerous medieval-style booby traps on biking and hiking trails in national parks across Australia’s New South Wales; one local official called the people responsible “complete scumbags,” which pretty well sums it up.

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Local

City Watch talks with environmental justice advocate and CD10 city council candidate Aura Vasquez, who wants to fix our streets and build more bike and micromobility lanes.

Dodger Stadium is scheduled to get a $100 million makeover next year. But that huge parking crater surrounding it will remain, despite previous plans to replace it with housing and an entertainment district. Let’s hope they at least improve bike access, and provide safer places to park your bike. Or better yet, a bike valet.

 

State

Deputies with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department busted a Dana Point bike chop shop on Tuesday; if you recently had a bike stolen in the area, they may have found whatever is left of it.

The owner of a new Encinitas gelato shop talks about his only other job as a pro cyclist in Italy until a knee injury forced his retirement at the ripe old age of 22.

A San Diego TV station considers SB 127, the Complete Streets bill currently working its way through the state legislature, which would mandate bike and pedestrian accommodations any time a state roadway is resurfaced.

Sun-baked Banning will build a bike lane crossing the entire city in an effort to improve the health and waistlines of its residents; the city expects the lane to draw 400 bike riders a day, while a Safe Routes to School Coordinator bizarrely responds they’ll be lucky to get that many in a year, because no one bikes in Banning. Maybe they would if they actually had safer places to ride, as he should well know.

Deadly Rancho Mirage has introduced a $400,000 bike and pedestrian safety plan.

After 20 years, Victorville is nearing completion of the Mojave Riverwalk, an eleven-mile bikeway with four miles of offroad shared use paths.

San Francisco bicycling and walking advocates turn out to demand safer streets and call for the declaration of a traffic emergency in the city after the deaths of 21 people walking or riding bicycles so far this year.

A woman has been charged in the hit-and-run death of a Crockett bike rider, after another woman overheard her telling the second woman’s roommate she’d been in a crash, but wasn’t sure what she’d hit because the sun was in her eyes. God forbid she should have stopped her car to find out — especially in full daylight. Let alone stopped once she realized she couldn’t see, and avoided the crash altogether. 

 

National

A new nationwide study confirms that protected and separated bike lanes improve safety for everyone on roadway, not just the people on two wheels. And that cities with the greatest number of bike riders also have the best safety records. Which brings up the whole chicken/egg thing — do safer streets attract more bike riders, or do more bike riders improve safety?

Surprise your best friend with a dog-friendly e-cargo bike, complete with his or her own set of handlebars.

Slate examines what happens to all the old bikes when bikeshare providers pull out of a city or shut down entirely. In most cases, the picture isn’t pretty.

Your next steel frame bike could be printed, not built. And have a really weird looking kink in the seat post.

You can now legally ride your bike — or your e-scooter — through any Portland fast food drive-through.

Seattle considers adopting Dutch-style intersections to improve safety for bike riders.

There’s a special place in hell for whoever stole the wheels of a disabled Nebraska man’s bicycle, in broad daylight as people walked by, leaving him without any form of transportation; fortunately, the local Trek dealer gave him a new set of wheels and tires worth up to $500. And a lock to secure them.

The Texas driver who ran over a bike cop’s bicycle while fleeing a traffic stop last month and dragging his partner by the arm, has been arrested after being identified in a photo lineup.

A Chicago bike rider was killed when he somehow fell off a train station platform and landed on the electrically charged third rail; three other riders were also injured in separate incidents last week.

Ohio State University collects over 500 abandoned bikes each year and donates them to a local bike co-op.

Four “reckless” Connecticut bike riders were busted for loitering near a park, harassing residents and blocking traffic with their bicycles. No doubt it’s just a coincidence that they all happened to be biking while black.

No bias here. New York approves a pilot program to allow bike riders to use leading pedestrians intervals to cross intersections before drivers get the green light. But the anti-bike New York Post insists on calling it a “green light for cyclists to run red lights.” Just wait until someone tells them about the Idaho Stop Law.

So much for Vision Zero under presidential candidate Bill de Blasio. New York’s death toll keeps getting worse, as two more bike riders lose their lives in collisions with the drivers of large trucks; 17 bike riders have died in the city this year, compared with ten for all of last year. Thanks to Jeff Vaughn for the link.

The driver who killed longtime DC bike advocate Dave Salovesh while fleeing a traffic stop pled guilty to voluntary manslaughter Tuesday, after the DA reduced the charge from second degree murder. The city will install a road diet and bike lanes that Salovesh had long fought for on the street by 2021 — just a tad too late to save his life.

A new study shows drivers are actually less likely to stop for bike riders who activate a crossing signal on a New Orleans greenway than if the riders simply crossed the street without it.

Shameful. Florida police use deadly force to stop a fleeing teenage bike rider, ramming his bicycle for the crime of, yes, popping wheelies. And yes, biking while black.

 

International

A Victoria, British Columbia letter writer insists the city’s newly appointed bike mayor is crazy for thinking that safer streets will improve bike safety more than requiring bike helmets. And somehow feels the need to inform her she’s not in Amsterdam, in case she was unaware.

An Australian driver insists on demonstrating that fatal hit-and-runs against bike riders aren’t just an American phenomenon. Although unlike most Americans, he turned himself in 40 minutes later. Thanks to Steve Messer for the tip.

Make a good impression on your next trip to Korea by talking bikes in the local lingua franca.

An English language website makes the case for bike commuting in Hong Kong, where most people only ride recreationally.

 

Competitive Cycling

The Tour de France riders adopt the risk and rewards of the super tuck to increase downhill speed. And prayers to make it down safely.

Defending TdF champ Geraint Thomas hit the pavement for the third time in 16 stages, saying he was thrown from his bike when the gears jammed. Meanwhile, Denmark’s Jakob Fuglsang crashed out of the race.

Rising Belgian star Wout van Aert left the hospital following successful surgery to repair a deep cut to his upper thigh acquired when he caught a retaining barrier during the individual time trial in this year’s Tour; doctors want him to stay off his bike for another two months.

Esquire asks pro cyclists what it feels like to ride in the Tour de France, while London’s Telegraph examines the not-so-secretive inner workings of the race.

A former Tour de France reporter looks back on Greg LeMond’s remarkable comeback victory exactly 30 years ago yesterday, after he was nearly killed by his brother-in-law in a hunting accident.

Rouleur makes the case for Tour de France announcers Phil Liggett and the late Robert Sherwen to be inducted into the Cycling Hall of Fame.

 

Finally…

Your next water bottle could come back as a collapsable bike helmet. That feeling when your eight-year old gets his low-rider bicycle back after it was stolen — both times.

And every bike ride should end with pie.

Or beer. Or maybe both.

 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Morning Links: Challenger Sarah Kate Levy gets big endorsement in CD4, bike cops in the news, and a video Tuesday

June 25, 2019 / / One comment

LA’s city elections are still more than nine months away.

Yet the action is heating up in the city’s 4th Council District, where challenger Sarah Kate Levy has already won the endorsement of popular first-term Congresswoman Katie Hill.

It’s unusual for an elected official to endorse a challenger facing an incumbent councilmember from his or her own party.

Especially in Los Angeles.

And especially this early in the race.

Yet Hill announced yesterday she’s throwing in with the rookie city council candidate.

Sarah Kate Levy also received an early endorsement from Bike the Vote LA, who said she stood out far above the scrum of candidates, including Ryu.

Or maybe especially Ryu.

Levy summed up her position on Twitter in response to another user.

Which is something we should have heard from incumbent David Ryu years ago.

Photo from Sara Kate Levy’s website.

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Today’s common theme is bike cops.

When a pair of Seattle bike cops tried to stop a man for carrying a knife, he fought with the officers — probably because of his two outstanding warrants and the coke in his backpack.

Boston bike cops got into a shootout with a fleeing man after responding to a report of shots fired; the officers were uninjured, while the suspect was killed.

Two Ottawa, Canada bike cops were exonerated of breaking a belligerent drunk’s wrist after the man confronted them and challenged one to a fight; investigators concluded he could have broken his wrist in a fight before the police arrested him, or while punching his cell wall afterwards.

And you could always make the tales of a teenaged Maine bike cop part of your summer reading.

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Heartbreaking news from New York, where hundreds of fed-up bike riders rallied to protest the death of yet another person on a bicycle, coupled with the usual inaction by the NYPD.

The victim, a 20-year old bike racer, was hit by the driver of a semi-truck shortly after moving to the city from Virginia.

Needless to say, the driver kept going, returning to the scene claiming he didn’t know he’d hit anyone, after witnesses chased him down.

The victim, Robyn Hightman, had recently been named one of 10 ambassadors for the Hagens Berman–Supermint Pro Cycling Team.

Here’s what she movingly wrote about the impact of bicycling in her life, in applying for the program.

As a homeless youth deeply entrenched in the trappings of poverty and parental abuse and neglect, my first bicycle offered a way to seek respite from the horrors of my surroundings and human experience, if only for a few glorious minutes. My bicycle established a sense of independence, strengthened my ability to be self sufficient, and provided me with the confidence necessary to advocate for myself, my rights, and my needs in public space. My bicycle enabled me to leave our encampment every day to access education, seek out food, and fulfill my basic needs. Eventually, my bicycle allowed me to provide for myself when I began working a full time job at the age of fourteen. My bicycle provided me with the socioeconomic mobility necessary to escape. My bicycle saved my life.

Sadly, she lost it while riding her bike, as well.

Maybe if LA bike riders would respond like that to the continued carnage on our streets, our elected leaders might finally start taking us — and our lives — seriously.

Sadly, though, when someone is killed riding a bike in Los Angeles, in most cases, the late, great Phil Ochs nailed it.

Because in most cases, “It really doesn’t matter to anybody, outside of a small circle of friends.”

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Why waste your bike pump skills putting air in your tires, when you could be making music?

Although this one seems to work a little better.

And more timely, too.

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Okay, so it’s not the kind of bike you pedal.

But a young Pennsylvania man learned the hard way not to taunt a cop while riding a stolen dirt bike if you can’t control the damn thing.

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

Even when they’re kids riding for a good cause, if not in the right way.

English drivers were angered when a hundred teenagers took to the streets to call for an end to knife crime. But one man did more than complain, getting out of his car and pushing a boy off his bike; police called that “not an acceptable response.”

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Local

Sad news from Koreatown, where a man was shot and killed while riding his bicycle by another man on a bike; police are investigating it as a possible gang shooting.

A New Urbanist living carfree in Los Angeles says she’d like to ride a bike, but has doubts about safety.

 

State

No news is good news, right?

 

National

NPR talks with the author of The World’s Fastest Man about the legendary Major Taylor, who battled Jim Crow racism to become an international bike racing sensation in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, yet died pennyless. Thanks to Brooks McKinney for the heads-up.

Wired lists their picks for the year’s top three bike helmets, ranging from Trek’s new $300 WaveCel tech to Bluetooth and crash detection models. Or maybe you’d rather have a full-face mountain bike helmet that snaps off to convert to a regular helmet.

Bicycling says if you get a concussion while shredding trails on your mountain bike, stop riding, already. The same goes for roadies, too.

Forget bikes, Strava wants to be your new social network.

A Portland woman walks with just community service after injuring a woman by booby trapping a bike path after a night of heavy drinking — but she does have to write a letter saying she’s really, really sorry. She can thank the very forgiving victim who asked for no jail time.

Speaking of Portland, a man riding a bike is dead because a speeding, aggressive driver had the munchies after drinking tequila and Sprite all day.

E-mails obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show Chicago officials were afraid of a revolt by bike riders if they banned bicycles from the popular Riverfront shared-use path. Even though one alderman is still trying to do just that.

A Minnesota paper almost gets it, saying sharrows are nothing more than a reminder to share the road, although thy don’t seem grasp their benefit as wayfinding symbols, or that they tell both bicyclists and drivers where bikes should be positioned in the lane. As far as safety is concerned, however, all they do is help drivers improve their aim. Which is not a good thing.

A kindhearted Kentucky kid gave away the bike he was given after a thief made off with his bike, after cops recovered the one he got for having perfect attendance.

A Boston mom says the thief that stole her six-year old son’s bicycle didn’t just  take his bike, he stole his innocence.

No bias here. A community in New York’s Hudson Valley has decided to break the law by requiring bicyclists to ride single file, even though state law allows people to ride side-by-side; a local radio station manages to see the story from just one side of the windshield.

There’s something seriously wrong with a protected bike lane when the NYPD has to stand guard to keep drivers out of it.

Tragic news from New Jersey, where family members found a 61-year old man dead on the side of the road next to his bike after he didn’t come home from his job on the graveyard shift; investigators believe he rode off the road on a descent. Although it’s always possible he was the victim of a too-close pass that forced him off the road.

WTF? No, a bicyclist didn’t break into a home and murder an 82-year old Pennsylvania man in his sleep. A man who happened to be riding a bicycle did, before he dismounted, busted in and killed a random stranger. The fact he was riding a bike had absolutely nothing to do with it.

A DC website wonders why there’s so much knee-jerk opposition to road diets in the area, when they would make streets safer and barely affect traffic. Good question. Another good question is why do so many newspapers and websites insist on putting quotation marks around “road diet”? That’s what they’re called. It makes no more sense than to put quotes around road diet than it does “streets”.

 

International

Brazil is the latest country to succumb to the e-scooter invasion.

Britney Spears is one of us, going for a bikini-clad bike ride in some undisclosed tropical location.

The Guardian picks up the disgusting tale of the truly despicable London woman who pretended to be the aunt of a fallen bicyclist she had no relationship to, in order to claim the victim would have opposed a protected bike lane that might have saved her life.

Guardian readers consider how to make bicycling safer and more appealing, with one letter writer saying London doesn’t suck compared to Sydney, Australia, and another suggesting at least two US cities don’t suck, either. One of which is my humble hometown.

A British man uses recycled ocean plastic to create a foldable, and kind of cool looking, bikeshare helmet.

Experts attending the international Velo-City conference say Dublin, Ireland needs to cut private cars to make room for bikes.

 

Competitive Cycling

Cycling Weekly considers five lessons from the recently concluded Tour de Suisse, as well as which Brits to watch for in advance of next month’s Tour de France.

Pro cyclist Lindsey Goldman says there has to be a better financial model for women’s cycling, as her Hagens Berman—Supermint team prepares to lose its chief sponsor. If they find one, tell the men, too.

 

Finally…

When you’re making a jail break, always grab the nearest bicycle you can find to ensure a clean getaway. A man may have a clear conscious after mailing back the $6,000 bike he stole, but he ended up behind bars anyway.

And bike rustlers don’t have to ghost ride their stolen bikes anymore.

 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Morning Links: Raging bicyclist flings his poop, Thanksgiving bike events, and riding with a knife in his skull

November 21, 2018 / / 3 comments

Monkey see, monkey poo.

A bike-raging British Columbia bicyclist reverted to his simian self following a collision with a motorist.

He reportedly dropped his pants on a public street, pooped on the pavement and flung it at the woman’s car, who had wisely locked the door after he had previously opened it to hurl abuse at her.

Before hurling his own poop, that is.

And like they say, if there’s no video, it didn’t happen.

So yeah, poop happens.

According to Phil Gaimon, there’s a word for that.

I could come up with a lot more words for someone like that — especially for someone who now has to ride home with that crap all over his handlebar.

Needless to say, police are looking for him.

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SoCal Cycling offers a list of Thanksgiving Day bike rides if you can tear yourself away from the turkey and football.

Bike Walk Burbank is hosting its own post-Thanksgiving ride from Burbank to Lake Balboa this Saturday.

And SoCal Cross is holding the 15th annual Turkey Trot Cross in Glendale this Sunday.

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The Bike Exchange has launched a new ad campaign in an attempt to create the world’s first global bike marketplace.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46ymVscUXic

I haven’t managed to get past the buffering to see the last 24 seconds, despite several attempts. But maybe you’ll have better luck.

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Carlton Reid says “Cargobikes have a long history, and a bright future, even in car-obsessed America.”

And tells the story of how America’s WWII Victory Bikes led to a notable anti-car — or at least anti-OPEC — beer commercial made by an Oscar-winning director.

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Local

Metro has proposed starting work on the $365 million Los Angeles River Bike Path Gap Closure Project by 2023, hoping to finish the eight-mile connector between the existing sections of the path in time for the 2028 LA Olympics.

Santa Clarita has installed a traffic light bicycle detection system; if you have the app installed on your phone, it can detect your bike and activate the signal from up to 300 feet away. If not, you’re evidently on your own. Correction: In a comment below, Nina Moskol of the LACBC’s Santa Clarita chapter clarifies that this system is being beta tested, and not yet available for public use. She says it’s intended as a backup system for when the bike detectors currently in place fail to work properly.

 

State

Streetsblog offers a reminder of California’s projects and programs to help meet climate change and equity goals, including bicycle and pedestrian safety training.

After first filing suit against the city, Encinitas NIMBYs are now suing the state Coastal Commission to keep Highway 101 dangerous as it passes through Leucadia.

San Diego County is considering a 6.5-mile bike path leading from the border crossing in San Ysidro, and connecting with the new Bayshore Bikeway around the San Diego Bay.

Streetsblog’s Roger Rudick says the only reason San Francisco has to consider spending $300 million to add a bike and pedestrian path to the Bay Bridge is that drivers refuse to give up an inch of the bridge’s ten lanes.

 

National

Bike Snob wants to know whatever happened to single-speed mountain bikes.

A Santa Fe newspaper tells drivers to move over and make room for bicyclists, noting that it’s not sharing when everyone has an equal right to the road.

An Aspen CO columnist lists the things she’s thankful for, including bike riders who respect those who can’t or won’t ride a bike themselves.

A Colorado Springs CO letter writer insists she’s not anti-bicyclist — then says “The bicycling thing is out of control” and those “crazy cyclists” should be limited to just certain streets and trails.

A pair of bike advocates write that Montana will be healthier with cleaner car regulations — and more people on bicycles.

An Oak Park IL resident says the city will only see minimal benefits from a planned road diet.

A Cincinnati wheelchair user asks drivers to please stop hitting him with their cars, after getting hit three times in ten months.

Life is cheap in Ohio, where a driver who walked with nothing more than probation for killing a bike rider won a court order to have her sentence sealed. So she won’t suffer any consequences for taking the life of another human being.

It’s been just five years since DC finally removed its mandatory bike bell law that had been on the books since 1884; bicyclists had originally requested the law, but tried to have it removed three years later after concluding the bells were ineffective.

 

International

Canadian Cycling Magazine offers tips on how to true your own wheels.

A London writer questions whether the city’s bike lanes are on the wrong side of the road.

In a story most California residents can relate to, a UK bike advocacy group says the country’s roads are in a dangerous state of disrepair, putting bike riders at needless risk.

British police will go undercover as ordinary bike riders to catch drivers who pass too close. Which we could easily do here, if police cared enough about bike safety to enforce the three-foot passing law.

Britain’s Laura Laker examines the failure of the country’s bicycling network.

The European Union is preparing to take action against China after accusing the country of ebike dumping.

The city of Utrecht in the Netherlands is opening the world’s biggest bike parking garage, with space for 12,500 bicycles once it’s finished next year.

Agenda 21 alert! The UN is working with the Zambian government to make space for bike riders and pedestrians despite the country’s crushing traffic congestion.

An anonymous Aussie writer questions whether the country’s “Safe System” is working to protect vulnerable road users.

 

Competitive Cycling

Cycling News looks at late-blooming Nebraska cyclist Ashton Lambie, who applied his training as a classical pianist to breaking the world record in the Individual Pursuit.

Cycling Weekly explains the point behind a breakaway in bike racing.

Cyclist writes in praise of the gruppetto.

About damn time. The new head of pro cycling’s governing body says he’s working to eliminate the overlap between the one-week Tour of California and the three-week Giro d’Italia. Although my preference would be extending the ToC to two weeks, and shortening the Giro and the Vuelta by a week to open space in the calendar.

Former Tour de France champ Bradley Wiggins promotes his new book with an “emotional, funny, rude” talk demonstrating “a deep dislike for everyone and everything.”

Slovenian cyclist Martin Lavric is the winner of this year’s Zwift Academy challenge, and will join next year’s Dimension Data Continental development team.

 

Finally…

Convicted of scooting under the influence. And nothing like riding to the hospital with a knife embedded deep in your skull.

Who says bike riders aren’t tough?

………

One last thought.

Bicycling offers a list of the best Black Friday bike deals.

Here’s what I think about that.

………

Barring any unexpected breaking news, the Corgi and I will be taking the rest of the week off to celebrate Thanksgiving. 

But that doesn’t mean BikinginLA will go dark for the next four days. 

Tomorrow will mark the start of the Fourth Annual BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive. So save a few bucks from your holiday feasting and festivities to help support this site and keep the Corgi in kibble. 

We’ll also repost a couple of guest posts on Friday about the importance of supporting your local bike shop for this weekend’s Small Business Saturday. 

Enjoy the holiday, be good to yourself, be kind to others, and ride safely. I want to see you back here on Monday. 

Snoop Dogg y dog.

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , ,

Morning Links: Parking on Lake Balboa bike path, safety PSAs & stupid driver tricks, and Bourdain was one of us

June 11, 2018 / / 3 comments

Before we start, be sure to read our rare Saturday post if you missed it over the weekend.

Now hold on, because we’ve got a lot of ground to cover.

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Let’s start with this email I received from danger d.

This Sunday June 10,2018 I was riding through the Balboa Lake Park Recreation area and came across no less than 18 cars parked right in the center of the Class 1 Shared pathway (r.e. Bike Path). I stopped and spoke with one person in their vehicle just parking on the path and explained that they were on a bike path and pointed out how they had just almost doored me but the lady said she saw no path, pointed to the center yellow line and said “I’m just parking behind the other cars!”

At this point I saw a fire department crew across the street and asked them to call parking enforcement, it was 2:36pm. I then called parking enforcement myself and talked to someone who identified themselves as operator 501 and told me someone else had called (the firemen) and that it would be taken care of. So here are the photos at 5:30 pm, 3 hours later, not one citation, no towing, NOTHING!

Obviously the weak plastic pylons which are mostly already run over are of NO use at all as a deterrent and I believe that it is high time that the city put a red curb, or K walls or at the very least some NO PARKING signs up at this location to stop this once and for all as it happens EVERY WEEKEND and as many times as I have called there has been ABSOLUTELY NO ENFORCEMENT AT ALL.

I am not even going to get into the 10 or so cars that I saw WELL into the grassy areas of the park near picnic benches, parked by people who think it’s OK to just drive across the bike path into the grass and park wherever they want! I guess they are correct because our city does NOTHING about this AT ALL.

When will something be done? Where is Vision Zero? City councilmember? Mayor?

 

This is ridiculous.

Dangerous, too, since it forces riders out into the street where drivers aren’t expecting them.

The law is pretty clear on the subject. CVC 21211 explicitly states that no one is allowed to block a bike path, except under very limited circumstances.

And parking the family car isn’t one of them.

21211.  

(a) No person may stop, stand, sit, or loiter upon any class I bikeway, as defined in subdivision (a) of Section 890.4 of the Streets and Highways Code, or any other public or private bicycle path or trail, if the stopping, standing, sitting, or loitering impedes or blocks the normal and reasonable movement of any bicyclist.

………

On the other hand, they get it.

Ireland’s County Mayo celebrates Bike Week by telling people not to park or drive in bike lanes.

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Illinois introduces a new public safety announcement, saying we all have to pay attention, especially at intersections, because traffic safety is literally a matter of life and death.

But fails to consider that only it’s only the people in the big, dangerous machines pose a significant risk to others.

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Great video from New Orleans advocacy group Bike Easy, in so many ways.

In just over two minutes, they manage to personalize bicyclists, while showing them as part of the fabric of city.

And making it clear you don’t have own spandex or a fancy new bike — and can carry a trombone while you ride.

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Anthony Bourdain was one of us, riding a tandem in France just the day before taking his own life.

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A popular Instagram account draws over half a million likes for comparing bicyclists to annoying creatures.

Never mind that like ’em or not, all of the above are vital to the environment.

Thanks to BerKelly for the heads-up.

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This is who we share the roads with.

Thanks to Censorthis for the link.

Then there’s the New York garbage truck driver who refused a breathalyzer test after plowing into nine — count ’em, nine — parked cars. Not surprisingly, he was booked for DUI.

And a Boston hit-and-run driver makes it clear that killing an 80-year old man and driving away afterwards is just no big thing. And it’s not his fault he was speeding, or chose to hit the horn instead of the brakes — let alone aimed at a human being instead of a pole.

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Nothing like a little role reversal, with the one on the bike giving the tickets for a change.

Thanks to J. Patrick Lynch for the tip.

………

Let’s spend a few moments on the Lime beat.

The company has established a beachhead in Santa Monica, going head-to-head with locally owned Bird. The new Lime-S e-scooters, developed in conjunction with Segway, will cost $1 to unlock and 15 cents per minute of riding time; you can get a $3 credit towards your first ride with the code LIMEWITHLA1.

Meanwhile, a writer for the Guardian questions what the owners of LimeBike were thinking when they programed their scooters to threaten to call the police if they’re not unlocked. Especially in neighborhoods with people of color, who may be just a tad sensitive to that.

Santa Barbara wasted no time running Lime out of town, after the company placed 100 scooters on the sidewalks in the morning, and the city impounded them in the afternoon.

And nice move from Lime, who have partnered with PayNearMe to make their bikeshare bikes available to people without bank accounts or smartphones, providing 100 pedal bike rides for just $5. No word on whether it will work with their scooters, as well.

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It was World Naked Bike Ride weekend around the world, as people stripped down to demand safer streets in —

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Local

A new UCLA video explains why transit use is declining, and what to do about it. Besides putting bigger bike racks on buses.

CiclaValley re-escapes to the Old Ridge Route.

Curbed asks if preparations for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics could permanently solve LA’s traffic problems, like the ’84 Olympics did for two brief, shining weeks.

Speaking of Curbed LA, they’re looking for a freelance transportation writer.

 

State

A half-mile extension of a Napa bike path could lead riders past a winery to the Napa River, near a historic ferry landing.

 

National

Strong Towns addresses the perennial debate over parking spaces versus bike lanes, showing proof bike lanes benefit businesses, even if that means the loss of parking.

Consumer Reports considers what they’ve learned from crashes involving self-driving cars, concluding that drivers can’t rely on their cars to do all the driving, and they still have trouble recognizing humans.

A few more rides to add to your bike bucket list, as Geotab maps out America’s quietest bike routes for when you need a little sanity break from city life.

Who says bike riders aren’t tough? A Denver women is going forward with plans for a 400-mile charity ride from Mount Kilimanjaro across Tanzania to the ocean — despite being the victim of a hit-and-run on Thursday.

A Michigan town fell about 350 bikes short in their attempt to set a new world record for the longest line of moving bicycles.

Columbus OH may have slipped past Indianapolis in size, but still lags behind in bike infrastructure. Then again, so does Los Angeles.

As we’ve noted before, NBC weatherman Al Roker is one of us. Or at least he used to be, since someone stole his bike outside a New York radio station.

New York’s Daily News gets it, saying the state must renew the law allowing speed cameras, double their number and increase the penalties for repeat violators. Meanwhile, speed cameras are illegal in California, and no one is doing anything about it.

 

International

A Canadian man is riding across the country to raise funds for mental health after being diagnosed with depression, anxiety and bipolar disorder last year.

Yet another dockless bikeshare company has invaded North America, as China’s U-bicycle has come to Western Canada and the University of Victoria.

Great idea. A Winnipeg festival brings together bike riders and wheelchair users for a tour of the city.

A 17-year old Toronto man faces first degree murder charges, and two others are being sought by police, for intentionally running down a bike rider, then getting out to punch and kick him before stabbing him to death.

Nice piece from the Guardian, as a bike rider says the kindness he was shown after a fall on a bike path restored his faith in ordinary people.

The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes goes on. Someone has been leaving tacks on a UK bike path, flattening the tires of several riders, including children.

They get it, too. The Zambia Road Safety Trust says the country needs to put people first, not cars, in the country’s transport systems.

A New Zealand cyclist says there’s no need to improve streets for bike riders, because the city has lots of parks, and he doesn’t see many bike riders on the roads now. Which may be because there aren’t any bikeways yet.

Malaysian bicyclists appeal to the country’s transport minister to provide bike lanes, signage and bike traffic signals to improve safety.

Getty Images offers pretty bikescapes created by the massive oversupply of dockless bikeshare bikes in China.

 

Competitive Cycling

Our old friend CLR Effect recaps the recent Wolfpack Hustle Forsyth Cup at the Encino Velodrome, sponsored by BikinginLA sponsor Thomas Forsyth.

The BBC talks with pro cyclist Molly Weaver about the crash that led to her depression and a quest for perfection, before her recent decision to withdraw from the sport.

 

Finally…

If you’re going to ride on the left side of a busy freeway, at least take the lane. “Oh, nothing, just a pole through the groin. How was your day?”

And weird and wonderful derailleurs through history.

 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Morning Links: Raising funds to storm city hall, great new DIY bike PSA, and getting dropped by an ebike

May 3, 2018 / / Comments Off on Morning Links: Raising funds to storm city hall, great new DIY bike PSA, and getting dropped by an ebike

Just a quick update.

As of this writing, we’ve raised $310 — just $90 short of our $400 goal — to give copies of Profiles in Courage and Do The Right Thing to the Mayor of Los Angeles and every member of the city council.

All to give them a not so subtle hint to show a little courage and do the right thing to protect the lives of everyone who walks, bikes or drives on the streets of Los Angeles.

You can donate through PayPal, or through the Zelle app using the email address you’ll find here.

And I hope you’ll join us in storming City Hall during Bike Week to demand safer and more livable streets for everyone.

Unfortunately, we have to change the original date, since the council won’t be in session on Bike to Work Day.

Instead, we’re in the process of selecting a new date, the morning of either Wednesday, May 16th before the Ride of Silence, or — more likely — Friday, May 18th before Bike Night at Union Station.

You can vote here if you have a preference.

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If this doesn’t put a smile on your face this morning, nothing will. Just in time for Bike Month, a new DIY PSA cobbled together from movie footage artfully makes the case for riding bikes instead of driving.

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It’s one thing to get dropped. It’s another to get passed by a ebike rider like you’re not even moving.

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Local

The Signal discusses upcoming events for May’s Bike Month.

Heat maps from the newly combined SaMo, WeHo, UCLA and Beverly Hills bikeshares show the desperate need for decent east-west bikeways on the Westside.

A pair of mountain biking groups have repaired the historic Gabrielino Trail in the peaks of the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument above La Cañada.

The West Covina city council punts on an active transportation plan that would add over 50 miles of bike paths after they’re unable to reach a consensus; they’ll pick it up again on the 15th.

Good read from Peter Flax, who discovers what it’s like to be a fish out of water. Or more precisely, a life-long roadie in a Manhattan Beach SoulCycle.

 

State

The Sierra Club goes bike packing along the Southern California coast through San Diego and Orange Counties.

The Bay Area celebrates Bike to Work Day a week earlier than SoCal on May 10th; a Sonoma paper offers tips on how to make the most of it.

San Francisco bicyclists once again form a people-protected bike lane to call for better bike infrastructure. To the best of my knowledge, no one’s done that in Los Angeles yet, perhaps because they don’t trust LA drivers not to run over them anyway.

A bicycle-riding Santa Rosa doctor says bike commuting is the key to fitness.

In today’s edition of things that would never happen in LA, the Redding city council voted to close a little-used stretch of road entirely to make way for a new bike and pedestrian trail near downtown. Thanks to Casey Kerrigan for the link.

 

National

The new GOP-passed tax law includes plenty of tax breaks for corporations and the rich; bike riders, not so much.

Ten more bike companies have joined with Ford and Trek to develop a Bike to Vehicle (B2V) communication system, envisioning a world where you’ll have to ride with a sensor on your bike to avoid getting run down by self-driving cars. Rather than, say, just building cars that can actually see people on bikes.

Bike Snob takes on the myth that bikes are frivolous toys for Lycra-clad fitness freaks.

Outside offers advice for parents on how to get more girls riding bikes.

Nice piece from Bike Portland’s Jonathan Maus, who calls on everyone to just chill and be a little more understanding of other people on bikes.

Denver bike riders are told to keep waiting for more protected bike lanes.

The family of a fallen Texas cyclist has filed suit against the driver that killed him, as well as a passenger in the car, after the driver walked with time served, without spending a day in prison, despite a two-year sentence for manslaughter. Thanks to Stephen Katz for the heads-up.

A pair of Walmart heirs are making Arkansas a fat-bike destination.

A Minnesota bike shop owner is running for the local city council on a platform of opposing bike lanes and traffic safety improvements, insisting that bike lanes aren’t used enough to justify their existence.

A Maryland town is installing 2,000 free bike lights to help reduce nighttime collisions.

 

International

Road.cc recommends their top eight front and rear daytime running lights. And yes, you should be using lights during the day.

Forget Copenhagen; traffic calming and an extensive bikeway network in Bogata, Columbia has resulted in 800,000 bike trips a day.

This is what we need. A new London bike map shows the safest routes, and where key interchanges are located.

A new British study suggests Google Street View can be used to estimate traffic patterns to help improve public health.

Ireland’s Transport Minister calls on drivers to pass bike riders safely, following a 50% jump in bicycling fatalities so far this year.

A pro cyclist explains why Croatia is a world-class mountain biking destination.

A New Zealand writer offers a surprisingly fair and insightful take on the divide between people on bikes and in cars, noting that “the cyclist you’re passing probably isn’t the same one who ran the red light in front of you the other day,” and the driver behind you probably isn’t the one who doored you last week.

Singapore says slow that e-scooter down already. 

 

Competitive Cycling

Wednesday’s stage one of the Redlands Classic was cancelled due to bad weather in Big Bear.

VeloNews reports on the 11th edition of the famed fixie fest Red Hook Classic.

A 20-year old cyclist has bounced back from a near-crippling crash at the Red Hook Classic to become one of the few African American Olympic hopefuls.

Great cause. Team Dimension Data for Qhubeka is using this year’s Giro d’Italia to raise funds to put 1,000 African women and girls on bikes over the next two months.

In advance of the Jerusalem start of the Giro, Israel has made legendary Italian cyclist Gino Bartali an honorary citizen of the country for his clandestine work saving Jews in World War II.

A Palestinian cyclist who lost a leg when he was shot by Israeli soldiers during a protest says he’s disgusted that the Giro will start in Israel.

 

Finally…

You might want to skip the keto diet if you want to go fast. Who needs dockless bikes in trees when you can leave a car dangling from a bridge?

And bloomers and bikes sparked the feminist movement of the ’90s.

No, the 1890s.

 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , ,

Morning Links: It’s bike video Friday — lo-fi Birds remake, Rapha Rides LA, and how not to win friends on a bike

September 1, 2017 / / Comments Off on Morning Links: It’s bike video Friday — lo-fi Birds remake, Rapha Rides LA, and how not to win friends on a bike

Let’s start off with handful of bike videos to get your holiday weekend going.

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Bike video #1: I’m all for lo-fi cinema, but this low budget remake of The Birds can’t match the original.

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Bike video #2: Rapha rides Los Angeles with artist and designer, Geoff McFetridge.

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Bike video #3: This is probably not the best way to win friends and influence people.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uw_WRKZoaao

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Bike video #4: It was Ridiculous Day at Thursday’s Stage 12 of the Vuelta, where Maxim Belkov was shoved off his bike by a spectator, going over the barriers and into a ditch.

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Bike video #5: A policeman guarding the Vuelta route apparently shoved a fan into a Shimano race moto, causing the rider to crash.

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In today’s mostly spoiler-free Vuelta update, the race leader was vertically challenged during Thursday’s stage 12.

The team bus belonging to Ireland’s Team Aqua Blue Sport went up in flames before the 12th stage when someone shoved a mattress under the bus and lit it on fire; fortunately, no one was in the bus at the time.

Kiwi cyclist George Bennett pulled out of the Vuelta after struggling with the same virus that made him drop out of the Tour de France six weeks earlier.

Former Senator, Secretary of State and presidential candidate John Kerry has been working the phones to find a new sponsor for the Cannondale-Drapac cycling team.

……….

Local

Great piece in The Argonaut about the weekly Venice Electric Light Parade, where people on colorfully lighted bikes ride through Santa Monica, Venice and Marina del Rey. Thanks to Audrey Kopp for the heads-up.

KCRW’s Frances Anderton responds to critics of the station’s piece on the anger over road diets in Playa del Rey.

CiclaValley gets dirty on the way to the Mount Baldy ski lodge.

Helen’s Cycles hosts a pair of group rides tomorrow, along with another in Arcadia next weekend.

The LACBC hosts their monthly Sunday Funday ride this Sunday, with a slow, family friendly ride from Gilbert Lindsay Park to the Washington Blue Line Station.

 

State

Santa Ana has opened a 1.1 mile network of bike lanes and sharrows connecting the south side of the city to the downtown area; the project was funded by a grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Partnerships to Improve Community Health program.

More than 11,000 people have signed a petition demanding that homeless camps be removed from the multi-use Santa Ana River Trail. Evidently, living on it is not one of the approved uses.

An apparent Bakersfield bike thief was killed in a collision with a flatbed truck moments after making off with a bicycle when the owner left it unlocked outside a convenience store.

The district attorney in San Luis Obispo County will attempt to try a 17-year old girl as an adult after the collision that killed a bike-riding Cal Poly student; she could face felony vehicular manslaughter, DUI and hit-and-run charges. The victim was a graduate of Murietta’s Mesa High School.

Santa Cruz has completed the final segment of a five-mile bike and pedestrian pathway along the San Lorenzo River.

The city manager of Daly City believes trash cans belong in the bike lane, in clear violation of CVC 21211(b).

These are the people we share the roads with. A San Francisco driver ran a red light and struck several vehicles, some parking meters, a tree and at least eight pedestrians; fortunately, no one was seriously injured. Should we really be surprised that no arrest has been made?

More sad news from the northern part of the state, where a man in his 50s was killed while riding his bicycle in south Sacramento County.

 

National

Streetsblog sums up the Governors Highway Safety Association report we discussed yesterday by saying the transportation establishment is finally beginning to understand bicycling.

Now your Oakleys can protect your skull, as well as wrapping points south.

A Madison WI program is working to get more Spanish-speaking immigrants out on their bikes.

After recording a series of bicyclists crash on the railroad tracks outside his window, a University of Tennessee civil engineering professor solves the problem by discovering that riders wheels won’t get caught if they cross at a 60 degree angle.

Pittsburgh got its first bicycle traffic signal to improve a dangerous intersection in the city’s Oakland neighborhood.

The New York Post explains how a bike delivery guy who was new to the city followed his Uber GPS to illegally ride the Lincoln tunnel, but still arrived in New Jersey in one piece.

The Washington Post looks at how China is exporting its dockless bikeshare revolution to the world.

A DC bike shop replaces an in-house coffee shop with a gourmet vegetarian taco stand. But no burritos, due to a non-compete clause with a nearby Chipotle.

Virginia police bust a wanted sex offender who’s been on the run for three years after he popped a tire trying to make his getaway by bike.

 

International

Five Vancouver rides to add to your bike bucket list.

A Canadian man was egged as he was riding his bike, the second time in two years he’s had food thrown at him.

You know you’ve got a problem when the roads are too dangerous for a former world and Olympic champion cyclist; Britain’s Chris Boardman says he won’t ride on the country’s streets, preferring to only ride offroad.

Apparently, even walking your bike home under the influence is against the law in the UK.

An Irish bike commuter says he’s acutely aware of the dangers of his 20 mile ride each way to and from work.

 

Finally…

When Lance Armstrong gives you a bike, you need to “lock your shit up” — especially if you’re the sheriff. Now you can have junk in your trunk on your next bike ride.

And as long as you’re riding behind the Google Maps car, you might as well bust a move.

………

Unless there’s breaking news, we’ll be taking the holiday weekend off. (And you can sign up for email alerts over there on the right column to make sure you don’t miss anything, just in case.)

Get out there and ride, but be careful in the heat; if possible, limit your riding to the cooler hours of the day, and drink more than you think you need.

And that remember three-day weekends and the start of college football season bring more drunks out on the roads. So ride defensively and watch out for careless and distracted drivers, because they’re not watching out for you.

We’ll see you back bright and early on Tuesday.

 

Category: Bike Cam Video, Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , ,

Morning Links: The good, bad and ugly in SD, screaming AL truckers busted, and the future belongs to bikes

May 8, 2017 / / One comment

It’s shaping up to be a video Monday.

Let’s start with a clip from Frank Lehnerz, who offers a first-hand perspective on why San Diego bicyclists are frustrated that starts out good, but gets ugly fast.

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An Alabama father and son were arrested after turning themselves in for the screaming road rage assault on a charity cyclist that went viral last week.

Then there was this one from the UK, where a British van driver deliberately ran a bicyclist off the road. And was fired as soon as the video became public.

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The future is ours. A prominent disruptive technologies analyst says bicycles will eventually rule the roads, and cars will be the big losers.

And forget ebikes. Here’s what we’ll all be riding.

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Nice new ad from Go Human in honor of bike month.

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With just over a week left in the campaign, CD1 challenger Joe Bray-Ali has replaced both his campaign manager and communications director with professionals, taking the place of two people described as “essentially neighborhood volunteers.”

Speaking of Bray-Ali, Todd Munson forwards a mailer from incumbent Gil Cedillo that targets the bike-riding challenger directly.

 

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Former American pro Tyler Hamilton says there’s still doping in the pro peloton. Which should come as a shock to absolutely no one.

It was not a good day for Australia’s Rohan Dennis at the Giro; Geraint Thomas had the legs, but not the luck. Here’s Sunday’s spoiler-free standings.

The Sacramento Bee wants to know why women cyclists competing in the Amgen Tour of California make less money than men when they work just as hard. Why, indeed?

Make your TV watching plans for the AToC. Or be there in person when the race comes to the LA area for the last four stages.

BMC Racing General Manager Jim Ochowicz says fans will be surprised by the next generation of cycling talent coming from the US in the next few years; a new group of Canadian riders is on the rise, as well.

ESPN introduces the women of New York’s Red Hook Crit. And for a change, it’s not all glamour pics. Or any, for that matter.

New champions were crowned in the Redlands Bicycle Classic men’s and women’s crits.

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Before we move on, let’s throw in a quick sponsored post from our friends Jon Riddle and Sarah Amelar, Co-Authors of Where to Bike Los Angeles.

Don’t let National Bike Month slip by without adding Where to Bike Los Angeles to your cycling library. It’s by far the best riding guide for LA by far and you can pick it up during the ongoing one-month sale — this May only — for less than twenty bucks a copy directly from the authors’ Amazon store.

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Local

The LA Times says it’s time to give the Idaho Stop Law a try in California.

The LACBC is hosting a Bicycle Commuting Essentials workshop tonight at Just Ride LA in DTLA to help get you ready for next week’s Bike to Work Day.

Streetsblog checks out the new protected bike lanes on Monterey Road in Northeast LA.

A writer for the San Gabriel Valley Tribune rides the San Gabriel River Trail and encounters several homeless encampments on the way, including what looks like a bicycle chop shop.

A writer on Facebook says his mother tracked down her stolen bicycle in El Monte, but can’t get police to take it seriously.

 

State

Newport Beach considers a road diet on Bayside Drive to slow speeding drivers, after resistance to plans for a roundabout.

A San Diego city councilmember rides with 100 bicyclists through his Barrio Logan district, while promising money for bicycling.

San Bernardino County accepts a $200,000 SCAG grant to develop an Active Transportation Plan for the High Dessert’s Morongo Basin.

Why blame all those people in cars for causing traffic congestion, when a bike-riding Santa Cruz councilmember and his supporters make such convenient scapegoats?

A Sacramento bike rider was attacked by a pair of pit bulls from a homeless encampment along a riverfront bike path, suffering severe bite wounds on his legs.

 

National

Despite the failure of Seattle’s bikeshare program — largely blamed on the city’s mandatory bike helmet law — two dockless, app-based bikeshare companies have set their sights on the city.

Caught on video: If you’ve ever wondered how bike thieves go about their business, check out this Boise ID security video.

Bighearted members of an Iowa organization provided five special needs kids with adaptive bicycles.

Texas toddlers complete in a strider bike race around the streets of Fort Worth in the cutest story you’ll read today.

A Memphis cop has joined past and current officers from the LAPD on the first Hollywood Memorial Ride to honor fallen officers.

Several hundred New York riders take part in the annual Blessing of the Bicycles. LA’s Blessing of the Bicycles will take place at Good Samaritan Hospital a week from tomorrow.

New York riders says a perpetually clogged Williamsburg bike lane is a fatal crash waiting to happen.

Evidently, Aziz Ansari is one of us, riding his bicycle to promote an upcoming show at New York’s Paley Center. Thanks to Megan Lynch for the heads-up.

Twenty-six riders stopped in Philadelphia on their way to DC on a 400-mile ride from Newton, Connecticut to honor the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting.

No surprise here. Bicyclists in Maryland oppose the release of the drunken, hit-and-run Baltimore bishop; if you live in Maryland, you’re urged to sign the petition to keep Heather Cook behind bars.

A Virginia writer says everything he knows about bicycling he learned from his father, and hopes to pass it on to his own kids one day.

Kindhearted cops in Georgia help 17 kids build their own bicycles donated by a food company.

 

International

In a study that should surprise absolutely no one, researchers conclude that the success of bikeshare programs depends on safe bicycling infrastructure.

Bike Radar offers six essential roadie skills, along with nine things you can do on a bike, but probably shouldn’t do off one.

Calgary police recover a stolen bicycle and return it to the owner 18 years after it was taken.

Despite support for cycling from Parliament, the UK’s Cyclist Magazine worries that cycling will get squeezed out of political party manifestos in the rush to the country’s new election.

A writer for the Guardian considers the lesson he learned from his dad about how to be a good father, courtesy of a used purple chopper bike.

Popular five-year old British bikewear maker Vulpine has gone belly-up.

An award-winning inventor in the UK has developed an incredible shrinking bike helmet designed to fit into a small pouch.

A five-year old girl will be tackling the full length of a 55-mile Welsh trail, along with her father and seven-year old brother. At that age, I was happy when my parents let me ride around the block. On the sidewalk.

Sad news from Spain, where a drunk and stoned driver — at 8:30 on Sunday morning — plowed into six members of a triathlon team on a training ride, killing two and seriously injuring three others.

Melbourne, Australia authorities clear a bike rider in the death of an elderly man who stepped in front of him as he rode in a bike lane.

 

Finally…

If you’re a convicted felon carrying a loaded handgun on your bike, don’t ride salmon. Unless headline is missing a comma, this could be the most popular bikeway in the state.

And the next time you’re struggling to make it up a hill, just &%$^! the #&O%! out of it.

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Thanks to Danila Oder for her generous donation to support BikinginLA, and help keep Southern California’s best bike news coming your way every day.

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And another post comes to  close, as the support staff has petered out after hard day fetching all the latest news.

Category: Advocacy & Politics, Bike Cam Video, Morning Links, Road Rage, Streets and Infrastructure / Tags: , , , , ,

Morning Links: Where to give on Giving Tuesday, emus and rams on the attack, and how to annoy women cyclists

November 29, 2016 / / 2 comments
It's the 2nd Annual BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive! Donate today to help keep SoCal's best source for bike news coming your way every day.

It’s the 2nd Annual BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive! Donate today to help keep Southern California’s best source for bike news coming your way every day.

Be sure to come back later today, when we’ll have a great guest post from David Kooi of Santa Monica Mountains Cyclery in Woodland Hills.

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Today is Giving Tuesday. If you’re looking for a good bike-related cause to support, here are a few suggestions.

The Milt Olin Foundation is raising $35,000 to fight distracted driving; the organization was founded by Louise Olin after her husband was killed by a sheriff’s deputy distracted by his onboard computer.

Streets Are For Everyone (SAFE) is a non-profit dedicated to improving street safety and ending hit-and-runs, led by Finish the Ride founder Damian Kevitt.

Richmond, CA’s Rich City Rides is raising $10,000 to help serve communities in San Francisco’s East Bay area. This is how they describe their mission: “We unite people with bicycles! By infusing high crime marginalized neighborhoods with social ride celebrations of life, unity and health we decrease violence and increase familiarity and humanity across cultures, ethnicities and communities.”

The California Bicycle Coalition, aka Calbike, works at the state level to fight for fairer treatment for bike riders, increased funding for bike projects, and changes in California law to better protect riders.

The Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition works to make LA and surrounding communities healthy, safe, and fun places to ride a bike through advocacy, education, and outreach. And a donation to the LACBC will enter you in a drawing to win a bicycle from Burbank-based Pure Cycles.

While they don’t seem to have donation pages online, the San Gabriel Valley’s Bike SGV and South LA’s East Side Riders both deserve support.

Note: I somehow forgot to include LA’s iconic CicLAvia, as well as World Bicycle Relief, an organization that works to end poverty by giving bicycles to students in Africa.

If we didn’t include your favorite bike organization or cause, be sure to mention it in the comments so others can see it.

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LA riders may have to deal with distracted, road raging drivers. But at least we don’t have to worry about charging emus.

Or head-butting mini rams, for that matter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5f5RDV4DvQk

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This could be a look at LA’s future, as an 18-year old New Zealand man rides 15 miles on broken, rubble-strewn roads to get to safety after a 7.8 earthquake.

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Former pro Tyler Hamilton opens up about his painful doping past. Which of course has nothing to do with marketing his presumably dope-free training camps.

Doping spreads to the world of fixies, as a Columbian cyclist earned a lifetime ban by testing positive for EPO at the Milan Red Hook Crit. Evidently, he didn’t get the memo that the doping era is over.

Caught on video: Two Belgian cyclocross riders were disqualified when push came to shove. Literally.

Maybe they all could learn something from some balance bike racers. Credit Peter Flax with finding the video.

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Local

Metro has to fork up another $300 million for the contractor on the 405 Freeway boondoggle, raising the total cost for the failed widening project to $1.6 billion. Lets hope they learned something before dumping their new Measure M funds down the same auto-centric toilet.

The Westside’s Bikerowave co-op is hosting a bicycle swap meet on December 11th; members of the public are welcome to sell bike-related items.

No bias here. El Monte police conduct the first of ten planned Bike & Pedestrian Safety Enforcement Operations by ticketing 41 bicyclists, 14 pedestrians — and just six drivers. Evidently, scofflaw motorists don’t pose much risk to others there.

Somehow this one passed under the radar, as Cudahy will host a ciclovía/open streets event from 11 am to 3 pm this Saturday.

The CSU Long Beach student newspaper looks at the national bike helmet safety campaign founded by Carmen Lofgren following the death of her son, CSULB alum Gary Lofgren two years ago.

 

State

Residents of San Diego’s exclusive beachside La Jolla neighborhood just say no to bikeshare, complaining about the unsightly advertising on the city’s DecoBike system, as well as a feared traffic nightmare if bikes were to besmirched their jewel-encrusted streets.

Yelp now considers bike parking in its reviews, while Cyclelicious observes that one upscale Silicon Valley mall offers free, secure bike lockers. Hopefully, that’s an idea that will spread down this way; I’d be much more comfortable riding my bike to shop if I didn’t have to field strip it to lock up and knew it would be there when I get back.

The Sacramento Bee says transportation advocates are cautiously optimistic about the prospects for active transportation under a Trump administration. Evidently, they haven’t been talking to the same advocates I have.

 

National

A writer for Car & Driver is just the latest to say he’s given up riding a bike out of fear of texting, talking and otherwise distracted cellphone-using drivers. Thanks to Opus the Poet for the heads-up.

Caught on video too: This is why you always lock your bike securely to your roof rack, as a Seattle bike thief needs just a few minutes to make off with one.

Good news from Colorado, as Olympian Mara Abbott gets her stolen bike back. And in better condition than when it was taken from her garage.

After a Kansas art professor and competitive cyclist was killed in a collision, her case was handled by a lawyer she had mentored as a young bike racer.

A Minnesota grad student partners with a professor to develop sensors that attach to your bike to tell you when a car is approaching.

Pittsburgh cyclists finally have the crash data they need to advocate for safety improvements.

New York releases stats on pedestrians and cyclists killed or injured on Gotham streets last month. Which is something Los Angeles has never done, if it even bothers to track that information in real time. And which Vision Zero will be meaningless without.

New York debates expanding the Citi Bike bikeshare system throughout the city.

Two Baltimore teens have been convicted of robbery and first degree assault in the stabbing death of a bike rider last January, but acquitted of murder charges, as their younger accomplice shoulders the blame.

 

International

Now that’s a fat bike. An Edmonton, Canada man builds a $1,700, customized four-tired bicycle designed to take him over 750 miles of ice and snow from the South Pole to the Antarctic coast.

A British bike site concludes that fake tans are just appearance doping.

Brit bike designer Isla Rowntree wants to convince parents to spend $350 on a high-performance kid’s bike, instead of dropping fifty to a hundred bucks on a kid-sized bicycle shaped object.

A kindhearted Scotsman buys a new bike for the “wee daughter” of a crossing guard after hers was stolen at a charity event.

Caught on video three: A Scottish paper is quick to blame a foul-mouthed bike rider who went off on a driver after being “beeped” at. It’s hard to blame the rider for crossing in front of the driver when the car had just rounded a curve which would have hidden it from view. On the other hand, even if you’re right, don’t be a damn jerk about it.

A TV show in the UK follows eight pseudo-celebs as they train for the 75-mile Etape du Tour.

The husband of an American cruise ship passenger killed while riding her bike in New Zealand says it was just an accident and no one was to blame. Although local riders were quick to blame the lack of safe streets.

An Aussie stunt rider gives a whole new meaning to riding the rails, while another freaks out a driver by skitching a bus.

Brisbane, Australia decides to remove unsafe safety rails from city bikeways.

A 13-year old New Zealand boy is riding the 1,000 mile length of the country’s North Island, accompanied by his mother, to raise funds for a new playground.

Taipei has revolutionized its cycling culture in just eight years, increasing bike ridership 30%, while the city’s bikeshare costs half the price of subway ride. Which is just the opposite of LA, where renting a Metro Bike costs up to twice as much as a train ride; if they really want it to succeed here and get people out of their cars, the cost has to come down.

 

Finally…

No, seriously. Why bother obeying traffic laws when you’re carrying meth, drug paraphernalia and stolen debit cards on your bike? Don’t blame your bike for a failed romance.

And how to annoy women cyclists.

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A special thanks to Todd Rowell for his generous contribution to support this site during the BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive.

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , ,

Weekend Links: Bike rider killed in Compton, a Canadian slap on the wrist, and it’s a triple-video weekend

September 12, 2015 / / 4 comments

Somehow, I missed this one earlier in the week.

Yet another young man has been shot and killed while riding his bike, this time Monday night in Compton.

The Sheriff’s Department says the 27-year old victim was targeted by the shooters, while a woman standing nearby was injured, apparently as collateral damage.

Thanks to Jaime Kate for the heads-up.

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In case you need a reminder how much fun it is to ride a bike, this girl’s reaction should do the trick.

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Caught on video: My friends at the West Seattle Blog post a first hand view of what it’s like to get right hooked by a massive semi-truck. Remarkably, both the rider and his bike survived almost unharmed.

As they note, you may want to hit the mute button if innocent ears are around, since they finally found someone who swears at drivers more than I do. And with good reason.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9RvUpdBJiU

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Un-effing-believable.

A Canadian driver went to play the slots after hitting a cyclist, leaving him to die alone in a ditch. Common sense suggests she’d face a murder charge for her callous indifference to human life, and sped the next several years behind bars.

Instead, she was fined a whopping $2,000, sentenced to community service, and lost her license for a whole month.

Clearly, life is cheap north of the border. At least if the victim is riding a bike.

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If you don’t read any other link today, take a few moments for this fascinating obituary of the sword swallowing, prize fighting, blood drinking Irish cycling legend Mike “Iron Man” Murphy, who slept in hay to prepare for races, and rode 40 miles afterwards just to cool down.

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Just eight days till the first world championships on US soil since ’86.

The reining world champ explains why he’s not the favorite, and says the hilly course means anything can happen. The San Diego Union Tribune handicaps the favorites, precious few whom are Americans. But if you happen to find yourself in Charlottesville VA next week, you can hang out with the US team.

Alexis Gougeard won Friday’s stage of the Vuelta in a solo breakaway, setting up Saturday’s penultimate leg in the mountains around Madrid. After crashing early in the stage, second place Fabio Aru lost three seconds to leader Tom Dumoulin, doubling the margin between them to just six seconds; however, he may lose more time if he’s penalized for an assist.

Mark Cavendish crashes out of the Tour of Britain — yes, there’s another race going on — with a shoulder injury.

And Marina del Rey women’s cyclist Lauren Mulwitz accepted a six-month ban for failing a drug test at June’s Manhattan Beach Gran Prix after she tested positive for marijuana. Yes, she was banned for pot, which has never been known to enhance anyone’s performance.

Seriously, why should anyone care if she or any other athlete takes a toke? Especially in California, where’s it’s just this side of legal.

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Local

Writing in the Daily News, a former Republican candidate for state assembly says the new mobility plan is all about whining about cars, and declares the new Reseda Blvd Great Streets protected bike lanes a failure. Somehow, they’re accused of making traffic worse even though no traffic lanes were removed; although admittedly, they do force drivers to actually look before jumping out of a car for a change.

The LA Times looks at what it’s like to ride the seven-day AIDS/LifeCycle ride from San Francisco to LA. Including being surrounded by men on bikes in red dresses.

A Glendale rider describes getting hit by a car that didn’t leave any passing room, let alone the three feet required by law.

Thousand Oaks will host their own two-mile ciclovía on Halloween.

 

State

Don’t try this at home. A San Diego man tackles the man selling his stolen bike after tracking it down on Craigslist. There are too many similar stories that went dangerously wrong; just call the police and let them handle it.

San Francisco’s SF Gate asks if it’s time to charge bike riders a road use fee. Actually, if you’re going to be fair about it, they owe us a refund.

A California appeals court rules that the environmental assessment for a new Danville housing development should have considered bike safety.

 

National

The trailer has dropped for The Program, the movie about Lance the Doper, staring Ben Foster, the doper.

Bicycling talks with the founder of Advocate Cycles, which will donate 100% of their profits to bike advocacy groups.

Honolulu busts bicyclists who illegally ride the sidewalk for a whole 100 feet between a bike lane and a multi-use path.

A Colorado cyclist is riding 12,000 miles to raise awareness about sex trafficking, while a Virginia man is riding cross country to raise money for the homeless.

Boston makes changes to a street where a bicyclist was killed in a right hook by a semi while she was riding in a bike lane. Every city, everywhere, should study the cause of any fatal collision, then fix the problem to keep it from happening again.

Hugh Jackman, aka Wolverine, is one of us, as he rides the streets of New York on his Scott mountain bike. Why is it that the press criticizes anyone who doesn’t wear a helmet, but makes fun of anyone who does?

 

International

An Ontario, Canada website says investing in bicycling is the smart thing to do, saying the province doesn’t have a traffic problem, it has a health problem.

If you build it, they will come. Bicycling is booming in Vancouver BC, as the city invests $4 million a year in bikeways and greenways. Although it doesn’t help when even the mayor of nearby Victoria is a victim of thieves who stripped her bike during a meeting to approve bike parking in a new development.

A Brit woman charges a cyclist the equivalent of nearly $5 to refill his water bottle — from a garden hose, no less — then dumps it out when he can’t pay.

A Copenhagen firm wants to be the Uber of bikes for hire. Although they couldn’t have picked a much worse name than AirDonkey; maybe it sounds better in Danish.

Speaking of Copenhagen, maybe someday the anti-bike forces here will say LA isn’t Jakarta, instead.

 

Finally…

A South African cyclist swears he had a suitcase full of syringes to lance the boils on his butt, while an official says they were for filling bike tires with sealant. Sure, let’s go with that. It’s such a no brainer to use the term no brainer when talking about bike helmets that anyone who uses the phrase no brainer to talk about bike helmets is just showing their own need for an effing copy editor.

And nothing like a little sex shaming to sell boy’s bikes.

 

Category: General, Morning Links, Violence & Crime / Tags: , , , ,
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