It was a quiet weekend on the bike news front, as most riders appeared content to sit out the storms sweeping the nation.
Except for those crazy ‘cross riders competing in snowy Connecticut.
Cannondale’s Stephen Hyde overcame a bad start and last-lap flat to win the men’s national cyclocross championship. It was a good day for people named Stephens, as Colorado’s Denzel Stephenson takes the US men’s junior cyclocross championship.
And needless to say, the unbeatable Katie Compton took the women’s title, winning her lucky 13th consecutive national ‘cross crown.
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Brit sports site Rouleur has posted their entire 12-part 2014 interview with Lance Armstrong, America’s most famous disgraced athlete since Shoeless Joe Jackson.
Chris Froome says he rejected a medical exemption to use a banned drug during the 2015 Tour de France on moral grounds.
A pair of Irish cyclists hope to become the first duo from that country to finish the Race Across America, aka RAAM.
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Local
A funeral will be held on Thursday for an LAPD officer killed in an off-duty collision last week; she was one of us, serving as a bike cop before being promoted to field training officer last year.
The LA County Sheriff’s Department’s says they’ve stopped the problem of bike thefts at Expo Line stations in Santa Monica.
State
Bike theft is down slightly in Seal Beach, even as it goes up statewide, making up 5.6 percent of all larceny-theft.
A Palm Springs charity radiothon raised $77,000 to buy and assemble 400 bicycles for fourth grade children.
A SoCal cyclist drops the first of her three-part series on riding three bikes one three iconic rides over three years, starting with a solo climb on Gibraltar above Santa Barbara.
Fresno will pay $675,000 to settle with the family of a bike rider killed in a collision with a police cruiser while fleeing from a traffic stop; the lawsuit claimed the officer intentionally bumped his bike, then ran over him when he fell in front of the patrol car.
Now that’s more like it. The driver who intentionally ran down three Sacramento cyclists during a daylong crime spree gets a well-deserved 35 years in prison; he also struck one motorcycle rider and tried to hit another.
National
Ann Arbor, Michigan approves a five-foot passing law, requiring motorists to give at least five feet, not the usual three, when passing a bicyclist, pedestrian or wheelchair user.
Boston takes Vision Zero seriously, dropping its basic speed limit to 25 mph today in an effort to save lives. Now compare that to Los Angeles, where our nascent Vision Zero will have to address much higher speed limits and drivers who feel free to ignore them.
Baltimore opens a new bikeshare system in which four out of ten bicycles are ebikes.
A Charlotte NC writer tells the auto-centric county to butt out on plans for a bike lane on the Ashley River bridge that has already been approved by the city, noting that they could expect to be sued the next time someone gets hurt there.
International
A new Canadian study shows that walkable — and by extension, bikeable — neighborhoods result in lower rates of obesity and diabetes. Which means that safer bicycling infrastructure is a public health issue.
Life is cheap in British Columbia, where a drunk driver gets just 45 days for a wreck that left a bike rider with near-fatal injuries.
The Guardian offers a look inside the secret world of a London bicycle courier.
A British cyclist wants to apologize after taking her anger out on the Good Samaritan who tried to help her following a crash.
A Brit business site says self-driving cars could spark a cycling revolution, but only if they can overcome problems recognizing people on bikes. Then again, others have predicted a far more dystopian future for bicyclists in a world of driverless cars.
Paris will make a major investment in bicycling infrastructure, declaring 2017 the year of the bike; the city’s mayor pledges to cut the number of cars in the city center by half.
Nice. A Swedish woman spent Christmas Day and the day after riding just under 400 miles to raise the equivalent of over $2,400 for UNICEF.
Five-thousand Russian cyclists were expected to turn out in 13° below zero weather for a five mile ride along the Moscow River; however, only around 500 actually showed up.
Finally…
Most bike thieves at least have the decency to wait until the bike goes into production. Ebikes may offer some advantages, but calling out the bomb squad isn’t one of them.
And if you hear the bell, it may be just a tad premature to celebrate your victory.
