Great news, as we’re now up to 24 new or renewing members of the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition who’ve signed up in the first-ever May BikinginLA LACBC Membership Drive.
Which means we need just two more people to sign up or renew your membership today to make it 26 new members by May 26th.
We may not make the goal of 100 members by the end of this month. But I consider it a personal favor for everyone who signs up before I step down as an LACBC board member next month.
So thank you from the bottom of my heart to all who have joined as part of this drive.
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Sometimes, even a possible life sentence barely seems like enough.
The Ventura County Star reports an Oxnard man was sentenced Tuesday to 15 years to life in state prison for the drunken hit-and-run death of a 43-year old bike rider in 2014.
Thirty-one year old Policarpio Bartolon Diaz may have been driving as fast as 62 mph when he plowed into Marco Flores as he rode with a friend in a marked bike lane. Diaz never even braked as he fled the scene with Flores’ bike still trapped under his car.
Garcia’s friend, Robert Patterson, said he was riding his bike alongside Garcia and also came close to being struck….
“I know for a fact he wasn’t remorseful because when he hit my friend, his brake lights never came on … he just shook him off the car,” Patterson said. “If you hit a human being, you think he would stop. To see him being tossed off the car was the hardest thing I’ve had to live through to this day.”
Diaz had a BAC of .22, nearly three times the legal limit, when he was arrested just a mile away. It was his third arrest for DUI, and would have been his second conviction if the DA hadn’t bargained the DUI charge away in exchange for a guilty plea to second degree murder.
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PETA is offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the subhuman schmuck who beat a dog to death in Boyle Heights two weeks ago.
The man chased down the dog after it jumped out of the car and tried to run away, then repeatedly punched and slammed it onto the sidewalk. As if any animal wouldn’t try to get away from someone capable of doing that.
According to KCBS-2 —
The suspect is described as a white male with balding gray hair, 50 to 60 years old, about 6 feet tall and weighing approximately 280 pounds.
The suspect was driving a 1996 to 2000 silver or gray Dodge Caravan with an off-color rear bumper. At the time of the incident, the van had two bicycles on a rear bike rack.
Judging by the photo, at least one of those bikes has been stripped, appearing to be missing both wheels.
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Cycling in the South Bay’s Seth Davidson calls out the Palos Verdes Estate Police Department for a lackadaisical approach to investigating the death of cyclist John Bacon.
By Davidson’s account, cyclists have done virtually all the work in tracking down the man who may be responsible, as well as uncovering numerous riders who were harassed by a truck driver matching the same description.
Let’s hope the department cares enough to figure out what really happened. And bring any charges that are warranted.
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Bikeshare comes to DTLA on July 7th.
The system — officially named Metro Bike — will offer 1,000 bikes at 65 docking stations throughout the Downtown area, available for rent 24/7.
According to the announcement from LA Metro —
Register today for a bike share pass and receive a Limited Edition Metro Bike Share Kit featuring stickers, a Bikes on Metro guide and more. The first 1,000 people to sign up will also receive exclusive Metro Bike Share pins!
You can get a Metro Bike Share pass by the month or by the trip, similar to transit. If you ride a lot, a $20 Monthly pass might be for you, but if you just ride occasionally you should consider our $40 Flex pass. Remember through August 1st the system will be open for bike share pass holders only, so register for your Metro Bike Share pass today!
Members will be able to rent a bike for $1.75 per half hour — or free for the first half hour for monthly pass holders — while non-members can rent for $3.50 for each 30 minutes using a TAP card.
Only registered members will be able to rent a bike for the first month.
Meanwhile, the LA Weekly takes a sneak peak, finding the bikes smooth, sturdy and safe, if somewhat heavy, and “perfect for bar-hopping, grocery shopping or seeing the sights of DTLA.”
Although we have to come up with a much better nickname for the system than the unimaginative Metro Bike.
And on a related subject, you can now use your TAP card to rent one of the much better named Breeze Bikes in Santa Monica.
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A new Streetfilm celebrates Santa Monica’s savvy multimodalism.
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Last week we linked to a Facebook post from Arizona’s Brendan Lyons, in which he described meeting — and forgiving — the distracted driver who nearly killed him as he rode with his fiancé two years ago.
Now a local TV station picks up the story, describing a touching act of forgiveness for the horrifying wreck that ended Lyons’ firefighting career. And clearly driving home the dangers of using any electronic device behind the wheel, and taking your eyes off the road for even a moment.
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LA’s Phil Gaimon tells what it’s like to race in his home state in the Amgen Tour of California.
Bicycling explains the fine art of bike racing in the rain. Extra style points for belting out “Singing in the Rain” from the back of the peloton.
And what it’s like to be a soigneur for a professional racing team.
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Local
LAist suggests the eight best places to ride a bike in LA. Not to be confused with their ten best bike rides in LA.
Dodger’s bench coach Bob Geren is one of us, as he rides his bike to work at Dodger Stadium. Thanks to the Militant Angeleno for the link.
CiclaValley mournfully helps place another ghost bike in the San Fernando Valley.
Streetsblog’s Damien Newtown talks with Nancy Bond of Move Monrovia.
It’s been awhile since we’ve checked in with CLR Effect; Michael Wagner forwards news that the great I Can Bike program will be held at the Fairgrounds in Pomona at the end of next month to help people with disabilities gain greater independence by learning how to ride a bicycle.
The annual Fiesta Hermosa starts tomorrow in Hermosa Beach, complete with bike valet.
State
Following up on our recent piece about a bike rider blown off his bike by jet wash while riding past LAX, Cyclelicious tells a similar tale while growing up on a US military base in Japan.
Like business people in every other city, San Diego business owners worry about the loss of parking spots in the Uptown area after planned bike lanes are installed. As if people on bikes don’t spend money and potential customers don’t like calmer streets. Most likely, by this time next year, they’ll wonder what they were worried about.
A La Jolla paper goes for a bike ride through the city with the Executive Director of the San Diego Bicycle Coalition, and finds it needs a lot of improvement to meet San Diego’s Climate Action Plan.
Santa Ana police shoot a stabbing and carjacking suspect after she led them on a slow speed bicycle chase.
Just one more day to get tickets before the start of the Great Western Bicycle Rally in Paso Robles.
Chewbacca Mom is one of us, as she rides a bike with Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park.
Let’s call this the Sacramento section today:
- That Sacramento special needs boy who had his tricycle stolen now has a new one, thanks to a kindhearted stranger.
- A Sacramento public radio station looks at a monthly midtown cruiser bike ride that typically draws a couple hundred riders.
- Sacramento opens an $11 million bike and pedestrian bridge.
- State employees get their own bikeshare systems with 50 bikes at nine different departments.
Sad news from Tulare County, as a bike rider was killed in a hit-and-run on his way to work Tuesday. The CHP somehow felt the need to point out the victim wasn’t wearing a helmet, as if that would have protected him from an erratic, high-speed driver in large pickup.
National
HuffPo offers ten great American bike rides. None of which are in LA. Or California, for that matter.
Good Samaritans pitch in to rescue an Alaskan girl after she’s impaled by her bike handlebar in a remote village. Something that seems to happen far too often, suggesting a serious design flaw that needs to be corrected.
The mayor of Reno NV is pushing for green bike lanes in the right locations.
Life is cheap in Utah, where walking away from the drunken death of a cyclist only merits a single year behind bars.
Forty-eight states later, a Topeka man is back home from a cross country bike ride he took because he feared he’d regret it later if he didn’t. Which is about as good a reason as any.
A suspect has been arrested in the apparently random beating death of a 65-year old Des Moines IA bike rider earlier this month.
A new paper from the University of Illinois at Chicago establishes a metric allowing planners to rank the value of bicycling and walking projects.
BMX champ Dave Mirra was suffering from C.T.E. when he shot himself to death in Greenville NC in February; that’s the same disease resulting from repeated head trauma that has afflicted numerous football players.
International
Rio’s mayor says the elevated bike path that collapsed, killing three people, will be rebuilt and open again this year. Note to Rio Times Online: Ciclovía means bike path. So a headline referring to the ciclovía bike path is redundantly repetitive.
A bicycle advocate says it’s time to finish Canada’s Transnational Trail.
Bike your way through two Italian cities.
Finally…
Nothing like buying a bike lock and coming out to discover you don’t have anything to lock. Running a pro cycling team can be torture; no, literally.
And this is what happens when your carbon wheel fails.
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My apologies for yesterday’s unexcused absence. It seems my body still feels the need to remind me that I’m not as healthy as I like to think I am, sometime suddenly, unexpectedly and with surprising force.
