Tag Archive for caught on video

Why too-close passes matter, Cyber Monday bike deals near and far, and the ever-expanding world of ebikes

November 30, 2020 / / 3 comments

We’re of to an amazing start for the 6th Annual BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive, with our best ever opening weekend!

Thankfully, that led to my first haircut in three months, before I was forced to  become a hermit and move to a shack in Montana. 

Which doesn’t sound all that bad, given the year we’ve all had. 

So thanks to everyone who opened their hearts and wallets to help keep Southern California’s best source for bike news and advocacy coming to your favorite device every morning.

Now let’s keep it going!

Give to the BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive today!

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This is why close passes matter.

An Aussie driver clips a bicyclist riding in a double pace line, sending him flying into the riders around him — even though all of the riders were outside the traffic lane.

Naturally, social media users blamed the victims for riding too close to the white line, instead of blaming the driver for crossing it and breaking the country’s one-meter passing law — the equivalent of a three-foot passing law.

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It’s Cyber Monday, which is sort of like Black Friday, except online and a few days later.

Business Wire recommends their picks for the best bike deals of the day, as well as the best ebike deals online.

And Cycling Weekly offers UK-centric choices for the best deals for gravel grinders, along with other bicycling deals.

But before you buy anything online, check with your local bike shop to see if maybe they can give you something just as good, or better.

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Today’s common theme is the ever expanding world of ebikes, and the many uses for them.

Arnold is back on his ebike, riding through Santa Monica with his adult kids just a month after heart surgery.

Robin Wright is one of us, too, riding ebikes with her husband through the streets LA.

A Streetsblog writer says she tried an e-cargo bike for 30 days, and didn’t need to touch her car the whole time.

Canadian parcel delivery firms are shifting from trucks to e-cargo bikes in some cities.

Smart move. An anti-bike lane Parliament member had an epiphany after a bike dealer lent him an ebike to get around during the pandemic.

The Netherlands is turning old outdoor ashtrays into ebike charging stations.

A Parisian tech firm unveiled a new e-bicycle ambulance designed to efficiently slice through traffic to arrive at crash scenes and other rescue situations faster than a traditional ambulance. Meanwhile, Clean Technica considers how bike ambulances can save lives by reaching urban victims faster.

And the Bike League offers a recorded webinar discussing how ebikes can replace car trips in your community.

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

In what may be the grossest attack ever, a bicyclist out for a walk spotted a parked bicycle with a used condom stretched over the nose of the saddle.

A 60-something Irish ebike rider says he’s all in favor of bike lanes, but those damn “pseudo-racing cyclists (are) a complete menace.”

Angry British drivers are vandalizing traffic cams and new bike lanes less than a day after they’re installed.

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

A bike-riding UK teen gets seven and a half years for being a one-man crime wave, including robbery and sexual assault, even though his lawyer argued he was just a nice, well-adjusted boy.

Another British teen was shot in the leg by another bicycle rider as he was riding his bike; a 26-year old man was arrested for attempted murder.

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Local

The Los Angeles Police Commission ruled that an LAPD sergeant was justified in killing a mentally ill man holding a bike part that several witnesses had mistaken for a gun.

KCET offers a guide to LA’s best foot — and in most cases, bike — bridges.

Now that David Ryu is out in LA’s 4th Council District, Streetsblog’s Joe Linton suggests a number of actionable transportation ideas for new councilmember Nithya Raman.

Beverly Hills will host a zoom meeting this Sunday to discuss the gilded city’s Complete Streets plan.

 

State

An Irvine couple was busted for stealing a GPS-equipped bait bike, which police tracked to the back of their car following the theft.

La Jolla considers a proposal for protected bike lanes on Gilman Drive.

There’s something seriously wrong with anyone who could steal 200 new tricycles that had been donated to a San Francisco firefighters’ toy program for underprivileged kids.

Tragic news from Sacramento, where an 81-year old man was killed by an allegedly stoned driver as he was walking his bike on the sidewalk.

 

National

Consumer Reports offers advice on when to replace your bike helmet.

A HuffPo writer investigates Dunkin’s weird donut-branded tandem, and concludes it’s not the real bike being offered.

CleanTechnica says the pandemic is driving urban transport to micromobility.

Cycling Savvy offers advice on how to safely control the lane around blind curves.

NPR looks at how a nine-year old Nevada kid ended up with a $19,000 hospital bill for a few stitches after falling off his bike, when the insurance company unexpectedly denied the claim.

Colorado cops bust a man suspected of attacking and killing a 71-year old man riding a bike earlier this month, on unrelated charges.

After a grocery store worker’s bike was stolen while he was at work, kindhearted Illinois firefighters shopping at the store heard about it, and replaced his bicycle using union charity funds before the man’s shift ended.

A father and daughter successfully rode from their homes in Monroe County, Michigan to Monroe County, Florida on Penny Farthings.

A Long Island couple faces charges for chasing a 13-year old boy and tackling him off his bike in a case of mistaken identity.

The New York Post’s resident anti-bike curmudgeon celebrates news that the head of the city’s transportation department is stepping down, while blaming the “bullying bike lobby” for never being satisfied.

An on-duty Louisiana cop killed a man standing with his bicycle just inside the the traffic lane in a collision.

 

International

How to beat the bane of bicyclists by overcoming back pain resulting from time in the saddle.

Cycling Tips‘ James Huang discusses ten products he loved this year, ranging from a $5 used crockpot to a Specialized S-Works bike that costs too much to ask.

Touching story from British Columbia, where children made a small memorial for a stranger who died from a medical emergency while riding his bike, saying “…we are sure you were a great person and we hope you make it to heaven.”

Brompton is struggling to stay on track, despite being buffeted by the coronavirus pandemic and the Brexit exit from the European Union.

A local London site says the government is boosting spending on bike lanes, following a 300% jump in bicycling rates during the pandemic. However, London’s anti-bike Mail celebrates efforts to rip the bike lanes out, accusing them of clogging up “our” towns. Evidently, bike riders aren’t part of their towns, as far as they are concerned.

A 16-year old British boy will spend the next eight years behind bars for repeatedly stabbing a man in front of his kids, after the man accused him of stealing his son’s bike; the victim nearly bled to death before doctors were able to save him.

Life is cheap in the UK, where a drunk driver got a lousy 18 months behind bars for crashing into a pregnant woman riding in a bike lane, causing her to lose her baby. At least he lost his license for six years, although it should have been for life.

Life is even cheaper for the driver who walked with community service for killing a bike-riding father, after playing the universal Get Out of Jail Free card of claiming the sun was in his eyes; the victim’s wife insists “picking up litter is not justice” for taking a human life.

Sticking with deadly drivers in the UK, a bike rider forgives the drunk driver who nearly killed him on a group ride.

British road rage incidents have spiked over the past three years, including attacks on people riding bicycles.

A new report from a German testing institute says cargo bikes are safe for children, but only if they’re strapped into seat belts and they should be wearing helmets.

Angry Budapest residents want to know why the city’s bikeshare program is being closed for an overhaul in the middle of a pandemic, when more people are relying on bikes for safe transportation.

There’s a special place in hell for the Indian man who pushed a nine-year old boy off his bicycle in a strong arm robbery.

A Philippine paper says riding a bicycle is a key step towards improving your health.

 

Competitive Cycling

Yes, please. Cycling Tips’ Caley Fretz urges broadcasters to stop showing repeated replays of horrific cycling crashes until we know how the victim is.

French cyclist Mikaël Cherel was lucky to avoid serious injury when he was taken down by a loose dog that ran in front of his bike on a training ride; naturally, the owner made a quick escape with his dog while Cherel was still down on the pavement.

 

Finally…

Why rip out protected bike lanes when you can just ignore the bollards? Tesla’s  scary new ebike concept makes their awful truck look good.

And don’t run over your little brother with your bike.

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Thanks to Arthur B, Eric L, John C, Stephen T, David R, Michael S, the Muir’s , Michael F, Paul F, Andrew G, Alan C, Mike B, Andrew B, Mark J, Robert K, Glenn C, Theodore F, Domus P, Patrick J. M, Michael C, Lisa G and Michael V for their very generous support to help keep bringing SoCal’s best bike news and advocacy you way every day!

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

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

Morning Links: Murder charge for killer of Costa Mesa fire captain, Mehta hit-and-run hearing, and racing with a feeding tube

October 16, 2019 / / 3 comments

Let’s catch up with a few court cases.

Starting with the allegedly stoned killer of Costa Mesa Fire Captain Mike Kreza, courtesy of our anonymous courtroom correspondent.

Stephen Taylor Scarpa’s arraignment, scheduled for last Friday, was delayed again.

There are so many facets of this case that don’t look good for him: his status as an addict; his admission during interrogation that he should not have been driving; the amount and sheer number of drugs in his system; the presence in his vehicle of drugs obtained from an alleged overprescriber; his crash after “passing out” behind the wheel earlier in the year… etc.

He’s going down.

What perplexes me is the murder charge, because I can’t find any evidence of a prior DUI conviction — within LA or Orange County, at any rate. He could have priors elsewhere.

The Watson law is specific in its requirements: party has to be informed upon a DUI conviction of the possibility of a murder charge if said party kills someone while DUI.

So, this would mean, wouldn’t it, that Scarpa’s been convicted in some court at some point within the past 10 years?

A Watson advisement notwithstanding, PSA’s, American alcohol ads, and the DMV paperwork you sign before the state issues you a license all tell you that DUI is dangerous. But is that bombardment of facts enough to define malice, which is a required component of murder?

There’s one other thing that might convince a jury that Scarpa was aware of the dangers of DUI, enough so to convict of murder and not just manslaughter.

In 2011, as a student at Esperanza High, he participated in an Every Fifteen Minutes event, which is pretty comprehensive. In addition to pulling “dead” students out of classrooms every 15 minutes, a simulated collision is set up on campus, with the driver “arrested,” and moulaged “injured” & “dead” students extricated from the wreckage. These actors don’t go home that night; they’re sequestered overnight at a hotel, where they write a “Today I died” letter to their parents. (The parents also write to their dead kids.) The next day, these letters are read aloud at a school assembly.

Scarpa was one of the dead who was extricated from a mangled vehicle, who told his parents he died, who read this letter to his entire school.

I hope, every night before he falls asleep, he thinks of all the letters Mike Kreza never gets to write.

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Next up is yesterday’s hearing for the romance author, Medium contributor and Mercedes convertible driver convicted of a hit-and-run that left a Costa Mesa bike rider with a broken ankle.

Pratiti Renee Mehta is back from her vacation in Chowchilla Women’s Facility. She’s in custody in County, awaiting a court appearance this morning. I will be there, because I am a horrible person and will enjoy seeing her violent, unrepentant ass in saggy jail-issued fashion and shackles. The sentencing was in July, and I missed it. How it wasn’t  on my calendar, I dunno. (Busy week with the PAC on the 18th and the Caltrans D7 BAC on the 19th, but I wouldn’t have skipped the sentencing for anything.)

Due to a “clerical inadvertency,” Mehta had been sent up to state prison prior to a required sentencing assessment.

According to court records, on July 17th, the Defense’s request to reduce the felony hit-and-run count to a misdemeanor was denied, and then the judge sentenced Ms. Mehta to 3 years in state prison.

Two other things surprise me about the sentence: (1) The judge actually threw the book at her, wow. (2) The People didn’t request anything close.

That’s right, the People actually requested leniency: 90 days in County and an additional 200 hours of community service. For a woman who broke a guy’s bones, left him in the street, and then put in deliberate effort to lie to the cops about it. I remain furious that the ADW charge didn’t stick.

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Great piece about an 18-year old competitor in Saturday’s Hillclimb World Championships, who almost literally climbed out of her deathbed to become one of the top young American riders.

Hannah Jordan suffers from an unknown metabolic disorder that prevents her body from storing glucose; when she started on an intravenous formula from a Santa Barbara company, she began to thrive — and kick ass on her bicycle.

She’ll compete in Phil Gaimon’s hillclimb competition on Gibraltar Road with the feeding tube attached, then may train for international competition at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs CO.

And yes, her tube has been approved for competition.

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Four Boston kids were extremely lucky to avoid serious injury when someone drove directly into them as they stood with their bikes between two parked cars, then sped off with at least one of the bikes still stuck beneath the car; a man says the driver may have been his daughter.

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CiclaValley’s Zachary Rynew nearly gets impaled by someone’s pool cleaner.

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LA’s People for Mobility Justice needs your support for this year’s fundraiser.

https://twitter.com/ElRandomHero/status/1184226060696604672

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

An English bicyclist warned other riders to stop if a car pulls up next to them traveling at the same speed, after he was pushed off his bike by a passenger in a passing car.

Life is cheap in the UK, where a 70-year old driver got two and a half years behind bars for using his car as a weapon to intentionally run down a bike rider and flee the scene — then came back to take pictures of his victim lying broken and bleeding in the street.

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

English police are looking for a hit-and-run bike rider who injured a woman getting out of a car when they collided as he was riding illegally on the sidewalk.

There’s a special place in hell for a Japanese man who rode his bike up from behind a bike-riding 17-year old girl and groped her breast as he rode past, telling police he just couldn’t control his lust for her. Which should be read as a confession from a total asshole.

Police in New York are investigating an apparent hate crime, after a man on a bicycle allegedly slapped a pedestrian in the face and called him “a dirty Jew.”

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Local

South Central bike riders marked the seventh anniversary of the still-unsolved hit-and-run death of Benjamin Torres as he was riding his bike to work in Gardena. I hope whoever did it can live with the guilt of murdering another human being; I know I couldn’t.

Traditionally bike-unfriendly USC now has yellow-jacketed officers to encourage bike riders, skateboarders and scooter users to hop off before crossing the school’s Hahn Plaza, where they’re all banned.

Someone with a sense of humor offered a tongue-in-cheek response to traffic safety deniers Keep Pasadena Moving’s highly biased survey about streets and transportation in the Rose City. Thanks to Topher Mathers for forwarding today’s best laugh.

 

State

Republicans are complaining about funding from California’s recent gas tax increase going exactly where voters were told it would, with some funds going to transit and active transportation projects instead of being used strictly for road repairs.

Streetsblog says Gavin Newsom’s veto of the state’s Complete Streets bill stinks, and that Caltrans’ reasoning for fighting it is “hogwash.” Someone suggested that we should now call getting hit by driver on a Caltrans-controlled street “getting Newsomed,” just like we called a close pass “getting Jerry Browned” after he repeatedly vetoed the three-foot passing law.

Virgilio Lemus Garcia, the 60-year old victim in Sunday’s Santa Ana hit-and-run, remains in grave condition; police are looking for a dark blue mid-’90s, four-door Honda Civic with probable front end damage and a possible shattered windshield.

Caltrans unveiled plans for a bike lane paralleling I-5 through Encinitas; needless to say, some people — including one bike activist — weren’t pleased.

Apparently never having heard of induced demand, Caltrans will close San Diego’s Friars Road this weekend in preparation for adding a fourth lane in each direction, along with sidewalks and bike lanes. Hopefully, they’ll also consider how the hell pedestrians are supposed to cross that massive monstrosity.

Faux-Danish city Solvang has adopted a new bike plan; needless to say, some residents aren’t happy about it.

For once, bikes get an equal footing with cars. Even if it’s only a benefit show for a Los Gatos art museum. Thanks to Robert Leone for the link.

Sad news from San Jose, where a man died nearly three months after he and another man were hit while riding their bikes by a woman pulling out of a parking lot; the other man died at the scene. Seriously, how fast do you have to be driving to kill two people — let alone while exiting a parking lot?

It was the driver who lost his this time, after a San Jose motorist clipped a bike rider and crashed into a pole; the man on the bike was uninjured.

A San Francisco bike shop put a robot in charge of inventory so salespeople can spend more time with customers.

San Francisco’s Municipal Transportation Authority votes unanimously to ban cars from the city’s iconic Market Street. Proving that it can be done on this coast, too. Are you listening, Mayor Garcetti?

 

National

Apparently, it’s okay to be nuts for nuts. But don’t eat too many because they can cause kidney stones, as I learned the hard way.

A new survey from Lime says scooter users don’t want to ride on the sidewalks, but do it anyway because they don’t feel safe on the street. Which is exactly the same reason many bike riders do. And the answer isn’t threatening or ticketing them, it’s building more and better bike lanes.

Seriously? LifeHacker belatedly discovers CO2 cartridges and figures they’re some sort of tire-filling hack.

This is exactly what we need in Los Angeles. A Tucson bike mechanic has developed an interactive map of low-stress residential streets connected with signalized intersections. It’s easy to find relatively low-stress streets in LA; the hard part is putting together a route with traffic signals to get you across LA’s many multi-lane traffic sewers.

Denver is losing its combination cafe, bar and bike shop at the end of the month.

A Colorado woman is riding four days, 158 miles and 8,000 feet of climbing over a high mountain pass, with a man suffering from cerebral palsy in tow.

There’s a rift in Iowa’s long-running RAGBRAI ride, as the entire staff resigned to start a new, seven-day ride across the state, in anger over how the newspaper sponsoring RAGBRAI handled racist tweets by the beer sign guy who raised $3 million for a children’s hospital.

Kansas City’s mayor wants to rip out a new protected bike lane less than a month after it was installed, saying it’s made things very difficult for businesses and residents. Apparently, it must have been installed on a whim, without any studies, since he wants to remove it the same way; any change to a roadway requires time for people to adjust to it before you know how its going to work out.

That’s more like it. A Wisconsin man faces up to 15 years behind bars and another 10 years of extended supervision after accepting a plea in the DUI hit-and-run death of a bike rider.

I want to be like him when I grow up. An 89-year old White Plains NY man is back on his bike and preparing for his 20th annual 30-mile charity ride, just two years after heart surgery.

Queens bike riders complain about a terrifying, treacherous but critical route across the borough, after a man becomes just the latest bicyclist to be killed in New York; Streetsblog says if the city can’t protect a veteran rider like the man killed on Sunday, it can’t protect anyone.

A New York public advocate calls for a single unified plan to address bike lanes, homeless shelters and affordable housing, rather than uncoordinated plans for each.

Blackish star Tracee Ellis Ross is one of us, as she takes a bikeshare ride on Gotham streets in a dress and high heels.

A Philadelphia bicycle delivery worker says he stabbed a racist, road-raging driver in self-defense, after the other man threatened to “beat the black off” him, tackled him and lifted him up in the air; he faces a charge of voluntary manslaughter, a big reductio from the original charge of first-degree murder.

It’s no surprise that bicyclists are riding on Orlando, Florida walkways when there’s no safe place to ride on the streets. And no surprise the city is the nation’s most dangerous place for bike riders and pedestrians.

 

International

Wired calls the new Van Moof the ultimate ebike. Although it seems like what they really liked was the extra power from the boost button.

The London terrorist who intentionally drove at multiple bike riders, police officers and a pedestrian outside the British Parliament has been jailed for life.

An English thief got four years and three months for seriously injuring a bike rider on his way to church, while fleeing police after bungling a burglary.

The wife of an American diplomat — or maybe a spy — who claimed diplomatic immunity to flee the UK after the hit-and-run death of a young motorcyclist admits she was driving on the wrong side of the road, and wants to meet the man’s parents in New York to take responsibility for his death. But not, apparently, return to Britain to face charges.

A new British study shows a cheap, widely available drug could save hundreds of thousands of lives worldwide if given in the first few hours after a head injury; the medication, called tranexamic acid, costs the equivalent of less than $8 in the UK. Which means it will probably sell for a couple thousand dollars a dose in the US.

A woman in the UK says she overcame her crippling anxiety by learning to ride brakeless in a velodrome.

My favorite Scottish bike blogger goes riding in the City of Lights.

A pair of Afghan men rode their bikes 225 miles to call for peace in the war-torn country.

Two Indian brothers rode a tandem nearly 400 miles from Kolkata to Darjeeling, despite one having a leg crippled by polio since childhood.

 

Competitive Cycling

Legendary cyclist Eddy Merckx was in a Belgian ICU with a serious head injury he suffered in a fall while riding with friends on Sunday; the 74-year old, five-time Tour de France winner and noted bikemaker is considered by many to be the greatest rider of all time.

CyclingTips examines the cancellation of a WorldTour bike race through the gleaming towers of Hong Kong due to the protests in the troubled city. Is that enough to get this site blocked by Chinese censors, or do I have to try harder?

Bicycling says gravel is the new American road racing, while Cyclist says ‘cross may be the way to get more women into racing.

Next year’s Tour de France will feature all five of the country’s mountain ranges, as well as the shortest longest stage in Tour history.

Chris Froome could follow Greg LeMond in bouncing back from a life-threatening injury to win another Tour, especially if this year’s winner, Egan Bernal, agrees to support him in the race.

A 22-year old Australian driver has pled guilty to killing 23-year old pro cyclist Jason Lowndes while he was on training ride, after prosecutors dropped a distracted driving charge, accepting that she may have been using her phone moments prior to the crash, but not when she hit him.

 

Finally…

Fifty miles short of the goal, but still a wheelie long record. You may need your next e-scooter more than it needs you.

And it’s not a record jump if you don’t stick the landing.

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Thanks to John Hall for his generous donation to support this site, and help keep SoCal’s best bike news and advocacy coming your way (nearly) every day. 

I know I’ve said this before, but if everyone who visits this site today gave just $10, it would be enough to fund my work for a full year.

And maybe even get a new Corgi.

 

Category: General / Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Morning Links: Hermosa Beach sharrows fight, and what the hell is going on with LADOT and the Arroyo Seco Bike Path?

July 18, 2019 / / Comments Off on Morning Links: Hermosa Beach sharrows fight, and what the hell is going on with LADOT and the Arroyo Seco Bike Path?

A bike-raging Hermosa Beach bicyclist could face charges for attempting to punch a motorist.

Then again, so could the driver.

The incident started when the guy on the bike complained that the driver passed too close while he was riding on the city’s sharrows. Then allegedly attack the other man after he stepped out of his car.

Police officials say the incident is still under investigation, but that both men could be responsible for the incident.

Meanwhile, the man who shot the video says he rides a bike too. But thinks the sharrows make bike riders “feel entitled to more than common sense would allow.”

Even though that’s the exact purpose of sharrows, to demonstrate to everyone that bicyclists are entitled to ride in the lane, and just where they should be positioned.

And even though sharrows don’t give bike riders any rights we don’t already have on virtually any other street.

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Good Twitter thread asking what the hell is going on with the seemingly endless closure of the Arroyo Seco Bike Path in Gil Cedillo’s 1st Council District, as LADOT insists they’re working on it.

And the LACBC politely responds, not very hard.

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Thanks to Opus the Poet for forwarding this educational video on how to throw a monkey wrench into the usual auto-centrism.

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Bakersfield bike riders go on their monthly full moon ride.

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If you think riding the cobbles of the spring classics are rough, check out this ride from the Åre Bike Park in Sweden.

But you might want to take a little Dramamine first.

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Now this is a mountain bike race.

https://www.singletracks.com/blog/mtb-videos/watch-2019-mountain-of-hell-mountain-bike-race/

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Sometimes it’s the people on bikes behaving badly.

A Wyoming man suffered serious injuries when he was literally run over by someone on a bicycle, as proven by the tire tracks on his chest.

Wichita KS police are looking for someone on a bicycle who shot the windows out of cars with a BB gun.

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Local

LA officials unveil three proposals for a major new park on the former Taylor Yards site along the LA River.

Dubai’s Open Skies magazine visits a recent CicLAvia, questioning whether it means an end to LA’s love for cars. We should be so lucky.

 

State

A San Diego TV station demonstrates how to rewrite a NIMBY press release without adding any information, while tossing in an anti-bike tweet from one of their news people for good measure. Thanks to F. Lehnerz for the heads-up.

An op-ed in the Desert Sun lists all the NIMBY reasons why the 50-mile CV Link trail around the Coachella Valley is a bad idea. Seriously, folks, it’s just a bike path.

The Ojai Valley Bike Trail will be closed fo five months for drainage repair work, starting on the 15th of next month. Ever notice that they seldom seem to close the roadways drivers use for months at a time?

 

National

Bike Snob’s Eben Weiss says if government officials really want to save the environment, they should forget electric cars and start subsidizing ebikes.

A bike commuting fashion writer offers tips on how women can dress to ride a bike, with nary a spandex in sight.

A self-described avid bicyclist insists bikes don’t belong on the streets, and says Las Vegas should start building wider sidewalks that bike riders can share with walkers and joggers. Aside from the obvious conflicts of sharing sidewalks, that begs the question, if bikes don’t belong on the streets, where does he ride now?

A memorial sculpture composed of multiple ghost bikes honors the eight bike riders killed in Nevada in 2017.

Once again, a bike rider is a hero, as a Kansas man who was out riding with his wife teamed with a cop to rescue a teenage girl trapped in a river.

There’s a special place in hell for the grown men who punched an eleven-year old Nebraska boy in the face to steal his bicycle.

There’s a good reason why business was buzzing at a Texas bike shop.

A Chicago weekly questions whether fears of reckless cyclists are overblown. Gee, you think?

A New York website says the city should take a page from London to make it safe for bike riders.

New York’s leading alternative transpiration advocacy group is looking for a communications associate.

When a New Jersey woman’s car broke down, a group of bike cops who were training nearby were happy to give her a push.

Heartbreaking story from Atlanta, where a married man who had just graduated college with two degrees — paid for by Starbucks, his employer — was killed by a drunk driver as he rode his bike to work at 5 am.

A report from a Georgia public radio station says Atlanta’s rapid growth and lack of safe infrastructure is putting bicyclists and pedestrians at risk, with crashes up 53% in ten years.

More heartbreaking news, this time from Florida, where a 17-month old toddler is dead, her mother in a wheelchair and her father still in a coma, 46 days after a driver jumped the curb and slammed into the family as they were riding on the sidewalk to help the child fall asleep. A GoFundMe account to help pay their medical expenses has raised nearly $45,000 of the $100,000 goal.

 

International

Thirteen bike bells to help drive Quasimodo crazy, and tell other road users that an angel just got its wings.

If you build it, they will come. Despite the usual arguments that no one would ever use it, a 10-year old separated bike path across a Vancouver bridge has proven hugely successful, becoming the busiest bike lane in North America, with over a million bike riders a year.

Speaking of Vancouver, the city is dealing with a rash of bicycle chop shops.

A woman who was injured in a terrorist attack outside London’s Houses of Parliament while riding her bike to work has been too frightened to ride her bike ever since. The driver was convicted of intentionally plowing his car into a group of bike riders waiting on a red light, before attempting to hit a pair of police officers.

Former London mayor and possible prime minister Boris Johnson is accused of lying during a debate about the bike he rode while mayor having been stolen; he’d previously said it died of old age.

Life is cheap in Great Britain, where a woman walked with a bare slap on the wrist for killing a renowned conservationist because she “just didn’t see him” as he rode his bicycle across the street.

An English e-bikeshare program was scrapped after vandals destroyed the bikes, making it financially unfeasible to go on.

An Irish group calls for separated bikeways because too many women feel judged due to intimidating behavior by men and boys on the road.

Your next Dutch bike could be a shaft-driven ebike that never needs charging.

An Indian website looks at how Hero Cycles got the country on wheels following its independence from the UK.

 

Competitive Cycling

A Denver op-ed calls for equality for women in pro cycling, starting with next month’s Colorado Classic women’s stage race.

London’s Telegraph says Julian Alaphilippe may be a genius on his bike, but questions how long he can hold onto the yellow jersey in the Tour de France.

Cycling Tips ranks the top four mountain bike jumps over the Tour de France.

The weirdest rules of the world’s greatest bike race.

 

Finally…

One reason it’s better to be a road cyclist than a mountain biker: roadies hardly ever run into bears. Evidently, Alfred Hitchcock was right about the birds.

And a letter to the editor from a self-identified non-Luddite says roads were built for horses, bicycles and streetcars, not cars.

Then again, it was written in 1908.

 

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

Morning Links: Cross-country bicyclist killed in Mississippi, dueling Purdue right-of-ways, and bike video Thursday

November 15, 2018 / / Comments Off on Morning Links: Cross-country bicyclist killed in Mississippi, dueling Purdue right-of-ways, and bike video Thursday

Once again, a bicyclist has been killed on a fundraising ride across the US.

Thirty-two-year old bike rider James Dobson was 44 days into a cross-country ride to raise $10,000 to fight childhood cancer when he was apparently run down from behind in Mississippi.

His GoFundMe page has already beaten that goal, bringing in over $14,000 in the last month — some of that in the last few days as word of his death has gotten out.

Police blamed low visibility and a hill that obscured view of the roadway for the crash. Needless to say, no charges have been filed.

The last entry on Dobson’s vlog was made on Monday, one day before his death.

There’s something seriously wrong when anyone has to risk their life just to ride a bicycle, whether across the country or around the block.

Photo from James Dobson’s GoFundMe page.

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No bias here.

Melissa McCurley forwards a story from last month, where police at Purdue University bent over backwards to exonerate a driver who left-crossed a bike rider.

Investigators somehow concluded that both the victim and the driver had the right-of-way, because both had green lights.

Even though that’s technically impossible, since right-of-way rules require drivers to yield to oncoming vehicles before turning.

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Nothing like landing on your feet after an ill-considered pass.

No, literally.

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Bike-riding BBC broadcaster Jeremy Vine gets caught in a squeeze play, barely avoiding a dooring at the same time he’s passed too close by a van driver.

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A group of Russians disguised themselves as a cardboard school bus in an effort to get around a ban on pedestrians on a highway bridge.

Thanks to Norm Bradwell for the link.

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This is what dedicated bus lanes — which bicyclists are also allowed to use — look like in the City of Angels.

Which explains why you don’t see a lot of bikes there.

https://twitter.com/wscism/status/1062887335434477568

Maybe if Los Angeles was as progressive as the city seems to think it is, they might deputize a few bike riders to deal with blocked bus lanes and bike lanes.

Like a DC councilmember is actually proposing.

Although the odds of that happening here would have to improve significantly just to reach zero.

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You might want to save this advice for those three or four days each year when we actually have winter here in Los Angeles.

British time trial champ Alex Dowsett offers ten tips for better winter riding.

And Canadian Cycling Magazine provides five ways to have fun on your bike while it’s wet and cold.

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Bicycling takes a look at the real world benefits of bicycling, and how it’s helped change people’s lives.

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Local

LA Weekly says the My Figueroa Complete Streets project is officially open, and traffic is flowing smoothly.

A meeting will be held tonight to discuss street improvements on Reseda Blvd, which could use them.

Bike SGV is looking for a part-time outreach assistant.

Speaking of Bike SGV, the San Gabriel Valley bike advocacy group is offering a free Traffic Safety 101 class in Duarte this Saturday.

 

State

Heartbreaking story from San Diego, as the public television station investigates the pain caused by bike safety delays for people affected by traffic deaths. At least San Diego is doing something to improve safety, unlike a certain city a few hours to the north.

San Diego County has received a $75,000 grant for bicycle and pedestrian safety education. Which is great, as long as they teach drivers how not to kill us, instead of just teaching us how to not get run over.

The San Diego Padres host their annual Padres Pedal the Cause  fundraising ride to fight cancer this Saturday.

A driver describes how a woman slammed into the side of her van when the brakes on her bike failed on a steep Cambria hill.

A Lompoc driver cuts out the middleman, and crashes into a bike shop and its bicycles before they’re even sold. Thanks to Michael Young for the heads-up.

Plans to remake a San Mateo avenue could include a bike path, protected bike lanes, regular bike lanes and sharrows. Sounds like the engineers couldn’t decide what treatment to use, so they just went with all of the above.

A temporary Menlo Park bike lane will be made permanent after it succeeded in getting drivers out of their cars and onto bicycles.

The rich get richer. San Francisco is building a one-mile East Bay bike path connecting with the city’s San Francisco Bay Trail, adding to what will eventually be a 500-mile pathway. Yes, 500 miles around the bay, which is a little less than ten times longer than the LA River bike path, which will be the longest path in the Los Angeles area when and if it ever gets finished.

A Sacramento driver with an extensive criminal record has been arrested in the hit-and-run death of a 14-year old boy as he walked to school, insisting it was an accident and he’s “not a monster.” I beg to differ; anyone who could leave another human being to die in the street — especially a kid — deserves that description. And it’s a crash, not an accident, which implies no one was at fault.

 

National

The wild west days of dockless e-scooters may be about to end, as at least a dozen states will take up proposals to regulate them.

Even if self-driving cars work, they could prevent walkable, livable — and yes, bikeable — communities.

Bike lawyer Bob Mionske completes his look at how to protect yourself from liability for group rides.

Bicycling offers advice on how to avoid dehydration on your bike, saying if you wait until you’re thirsty to drink, it’s already too late.

A new survey shows Americans have fallen out of love with their cars, especially Millennials, who would rather do something more productive.

Two of the three Portland men who booby trapped a bike path, injuring a woman bicyclist, appeared in court to file not guilty pleas — despite telling the police they did it to “fuck with the homeless” because “we don’t want them around here.”

Residents of Washington’s Bainbridge Island rejected a tax increase to improve access for bike riders and pedestrians.

Joe Linton sends word that Arizona’s new Democratic senator is one of us.

Bike-friendly Madison WI is looking for a new pedestrian bicycle administrator. Which sounds like someone in charge of making people walk their bikes. But probably isn’t.

Now that’s more like it. Plans for a 1,015-space parking garage in New Haven CT have been revised to include 240 spaces for bicycles. Now if they just flipped those numbers, they might be onto something.

Be glad you’re not in New York, where the NYPD belies the city’s bike-friendly image by parking in the bike lane to threaten bicyclists.

 

International

Carlton Reid says the 70-year old film classic Bicycle Thieves, aka The Bicycle Thief in the US, shows how easily a stadium can be emptied — if the traffic is on bicycles.

Road.cc offers everything you always wanted to know about tandems, but were afraid to ask.

The Guardian asks what a smog-free city would look like. Hint: a lot of people on foot and bikes, and roads converted to parks.

A new study rebuts the rebuttal of a 2007 study, confirming that drivers pass riders who wear bicycle helmets closer than those without.

Canadian courts set a high bar for conviction on charges of dangerous driving, allowing killer drivers to walk without jail time.

Apparently, it’s open season on Toronto bicyclists, after a cop doored a bike rider while parked in a bike lane gets off without even a slap on the wrist; investigators write it off as just a “momentary lack of attention.”

A Nova Scotia man is keeping children’s wheels turning in Uganda by shipping spare bike parts to the African country.

An English coastal town spent the equivalent of $15,000 to install speed cameras on a beachfront bike path just to tell riders they’re going too fast.

The Grinch is real. A parliament member on Britain’s Guernsey Island proposes freezing gas taxes, and making up for it by taxing bike riders the equivalent of up to $260 a year.

Paris reaches an agreement with surrounding towns to ban all diesel-fueled vehicles built before 2010 within seven years.

A Palestinian man has been sentenced to four months in prison by an Israeli military court for the crime of riding his bicycle during a protest.

Experts say most Aussie drivers either don’t know about the country’s equivalent to the three-foot passing law, or don’t care. My money is on the latter.

Good piece from an Aussie writer, who says he used to hate bicyclists and thought they shouldn’t be allowed on the roads — until he became one. Now he fears the bigoted, dehumanizing comments his wife and sister read after a rider is killed.

Hangzhou, China, with a population of 10 million people, is fighting chronic air pollution by eliminating the use of coal, and returning to the age of bicycles.

 

Competitive Cycling

About time. Women’s WorldTour riders will receive maternity leave and minimum salaries for the first time.

Plans by ex-Tour de France champ Floyd Landis to sponsor a Canadian cycling team may go up in smoke, thanks to Canadian cannabis laws.

American cycling legend Nelson Vails describes how he became the first African American Olympic cycling gold medalist. And how he rode 1,000 miles with congestive heart failure, nearly dying next to an Iowa cornfield.

Now you can buy the high tech bike chain developed for the British Cycling Team for your own fixie. As long as you’re willing to spend $350.

This is what a 184 mph bicycle looks like.

 

Finally…

Build your own DIY bespoke bamboo bike. No, that wasn’t Taylor Swift on a Lime scooter.

And gotta catch ’em all — even if that means mounting 15 smartphones on your handlebars to play Pokemon Go.

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We’re just one week away from the official kickoff for the Fourth Annual BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive. 

But in the meantime, you can support this site by telling your favorite local bike shop, donut shop, microbrewery or any other kind of business to support LA’s best bike news and advocacy by advertising on BikinginLA.

Just tell them to contact ads @ bikinginla dot com for a rate sheet or more information.

 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , ,

Weekend Links: Better safety means more riders or vice versa, caught on video 3x, and a hit-and-run AZ cyclist

March 1, 2015 / / Comments Off on Weekend Links: Better safety means more riders or vice versa, caught on video 3x, and a hit-and-run AZ cyclist

A new report raises kind of a chicken and egg question, finding cycling is safer in nations with the most people on bikes.

So is it safer because more people ride or do more people ride because it’s safer?

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Caught on video:

After a San Francisco cyclist slaps the back of a minivan when he gets cut off, the driver gets out and goes ballistic. With his kid in the car, no less.

Chilling security cam video catches an Australian rider getting doored seconds before he’s killed by a passing truck.

And pro cyclist Peter Sagan pulls yet another bike trick by playing bicycle golf with a teammate.

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I think most of us would agree that hit-and-run drivers are heartless assholes.

So what does that make hit-and-run bike riders like the Arizona cyclist who left an 81-year old man fighting for his life?

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Local

Better Bike questions whether the Biking Black Hole will ever update the 1977 Beverly Hills bike master plan, the one that called for routing bike riders through the city’s downtown alleys.

The very busy and prolific CiclaValley reports on the recent San Fernando Valley Transit Summit.

A Malibu entrepreneur with Asbergers raises $3.6 million on Indiegogo to build a more affordable e-bike.

It looks like Harrison Ford is one of us. And he flies a pretty nifty plane, too.

 

State

A coalition of advocacy groups calls for California to nearly double funding for active transportation.

Retired pro Jens Voigt has been selected as ambassador for this year’s Amgen Tour of California.

A survey asks if Santa Ana cyclists feel invisible while riding in the city. The correct answer is probably yes.

A Fresno bike rider is lucky to escape with minor injuries after he’s rear-ended when a pickup driver took his eyes off the road for an undisclosed reason.

San Francisco police shoot and kill a bike thief who was using a knife to jack a rider’s ride.

A Marin Eagle Scout’s plan to put out emergency supplies for mountain bikers comes under attack from conservationists, evidently because patching a flat is worse for the environment than walking your bike out.

A Sausalito bike thief armed with a remote steals a $15,000 Cervelo from inside a parked car.

Someone should give him a time out. A Vacaville editor says cyclists who oppose California’s proposed mandatory helmet law are acting like children and should be treated that way.

 

National

Sports Illustrated discovers America’s first black world champion and one of the greatest bike racers of all time.

Bike riders report more errors on Google Maps than anyone else. Maybe because Google makes more mistakes routing riders.

The Apple watch isn’t even out yet, and already there’s a handlebar mount for it.

A Seattle cyclist reclaims his stolen bike after spotting it for sale online.

A Provo UT writer gets it, explaining why car lovers should embrace the city’s coming bike lanes.

A Chicago advice columnist applauds a woman for threatening to divorce her husband for not wearing a bike helmet if he ever gets hurt.

Minneapolis will get ten new protected bike lanes this year, which is nine or ten more than LA has, depending on your definition of protected.

A St. Petersburg writer says if you don’t want your bike stolen, don’t be like her.

 

International

Cycling Weekly offers up 13 things your friends don’t understand about cycling; actually, they really mean pro bike racing.

That supposedly unstealable bike developed by Chilean college students goes from concept to Indiegogo campaign this week.

Despite the bike boom, Brit riders are still disproportionately young and male, maybe in part because London cyclists aren’t getting the separated bike lanes they were promised. Then again, who is?

Israel opens a 186 mile mountain bike path through the southern part of the country.

 

Finally…

This is not the proper use of a bicycle wheel, as a reckless driver in the Netherlands jumps out and uses one to beat the pedestrian he nearly ran over. Proof that crime doesn’t pay —  a Brit bike thief is fined £1,800 for making off with the titanium mountain bike he sold for just £20.

And evidently, they have bike riding dogs in Santa Cruz. But they don’t seem to be any safer on the streets than the rest of us.

 

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