Before we get started, after a couple of decades, I’ve finally gotten around to designing some t-shirts for this site.
The site is still rough, while I figure out how to do stuff on there. And I only have a few designs up at the moment.
But if you want to check it out, I’d appreciate any feedback on the shirts. And if you see anything you like, I’m offering a 20% discount until it officially launches at the end of this month.
So let me know what you think. Or better yet, send me a selfie wearing one.
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Let’s start with a quick correction.
Earlier this week, I wrote the following:
The Long Beach Post — which is, in fact, here in the SoCal one — reports the city is ready to move forward with the 2.66-mile, $22 million Orange Avenue Backbone Bikeway.
The project, which also includes “15 new or relocated bus stops, 10 upgraded crosswalks with flashing beacons and five fully protected intersections,” is expected to be competed in two years.
The city is also raising the speed limits on 24 arterial streets to dangerously high levels, thanks to the state’s deadly 85th Percentile Law.
A representative of the City of Long Beach reached out on Wednesday to say the LB Post had misinterpreted the story, and the city wasn’t raising speed limits on the 24 arterial streets, but merely keeping them the same.
I apologize for the error.
But the damn 85th Percentile Law still has to go.
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This is who we share the shopping aisles with.
As we mentioned the other day, a couple of e-hooligans rode their electric motorbikes — not ebikes, thank you — through an Orange County Walmart, terrorizing shoppers.
While the teen miscreants are still unidentified — which is surprising, given the clear look we get at one of their tender young faces — the media is responding in predictable fashion, blaming the problem on ebikes.
The Los Angeles Times went so far as to label teenagers on electric motorbikes the “new Hells Angels.”
Although we do owe a thank you to the LA Times for patiently explaining what is, and what isn’t, an ebike, and making clear that anything that goes over 28 mph and doesn’t have pedals, isn’t one.
The question is whether the genie can be pushed back into the bottle — both in terms of reining in these modern-day Wild Ones metaphorically terrorizing Hollister all over again, nearly 80 years later, and whether ped-assist ebikes will ever regain their reputation as bicycles.
I wouldn’t count on it.
Thanks to Eric and Malcomb for the heads-up.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
Barcelona will banish private dockless bikeshare services like Lime and Voi from the city, after the mayor called them “a mess” — even though the public bikeshare isn’t available to the city’s many tourists.
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Local
No news is still good news, right?
State
A Redondo Beach man is taking part in the Tour de France Cure Leukemia ride in honor of his daughter, who finished her high school education and went on to college despite suffering from chronic myeloid leukemia.
La Mesa is the latest SoCal city to ban Class 1 and 2 ebikes for anyone under 12-years old.
This is who we share the road with. Police arrested a 24-year old San Bernardino man for the fatal hit-and-run that set a 73-year old motorcyclist from Redlands on fire.
National
A jazz saxophonist, Saturday Night Live set-builder, and father of twenty-somethings is riding from Los Angeles to New York City on his first Trans America Ride to raise funds for The Trevor Project and Lambda Legal.
A professional darts player from the Netherlands completed a 3,644-mile ride across the United States, raising more than $14,000 for the Dystonia Medical Research Foundation, the neurological movement disorder that has at least temporarily derailed his professional career.
Tragic news from my bike-friendly Colorado hometown, where a man riding an ebike was killed by a driver in a T-bone collision, just days after his father died of Stage IV kidney disease. Note to 9News — when someone is killed by a driver, it’s a collision, not an ebike crash. And it really doesn’t matter what kind of bike he was on.
Life is cheap in Jefferson County, Colorado, where a 74-year old driver walked without a day behind bars for killing a 60-year old bicyclist, father of four, a veteran, transplant survivor and church youth group in a left-cross collision — even though he only faced 90 days behind bars, and the victim’s family only asked for six.
A Chicago public media group considers how the city can build safer streets for bike riders and pedestrians, as a representative of the Active Transportation Alliance reminds drivers that their trip isn’t more important or urgent than anyone else’s.
Members of the Cherokee tribe are passing through Southern Illinois on the annual Remember the Removal Ride, following the northern route of the infamous Trail of Tears.
Illinois could soon require a driver’s license, insurance, registration and title for anyone riding a Class 3 ebike, which a TV station says can travel over 28 mph. Actually, Class 3 bikes are at capped at 28 mph; anything that goes faster than that is an e-motorbike. But hey, thanks for playing!
An Ohio man is spending his retirement refurbishing and reselling bicycles to benefit the local Humane Society.
Heartbreaking news from Massachusetts, where a five-year old preschool student was killed by a driver while riding his bike Wednesday afternoon; a crowdfunding campaign has raised over $91,000 for his family.
“Nearly” every one of the candidates running to replace Rep. Jerry Nadler in Manhattan’s 12th Congressional District supports a two-way bike lane bisecting the island on 72nd Street. I say find the one woman who doesn’t, and let her try to bike across the city without it.
New York’s 750-mile Empire State Trail injects over $1.78 billion in economic activity into the New York State economy annually. Which is one more reason California needs a decent bike trail traveling the length of the state, from Oregon to the Mexican border.
A 51-year old government librarian has spent every day for the last week and a half riding his bicycle to the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC to take a selfie showing Trump still hasn’t taken his name off it, despite today’s deadline to remove it.
A 46-year old Maryland driver faces charges for vehicular homicide, vehicular assault and DUI after the hit-and-run crash that killed a 52-year old man riding in a painted bike lane.
International
Study International recommends eight bike-friendly cities for international students, most of which are the usual suspects.
Not only did those three men from Argentina make it to Kansas City on time to see their country’s team play in the World Cup after an 11,000-mile bike ride, they even got free tickets to the team’s first game.
He gets it. A British Columbia man says all bikes are good bikes, and if “you are out pedaling and smiling, then it doesn’t matter what you ride.” Which is kinda like all dogs are good dogs, but with wheels.
Seriously? If you have a Canadian-made Carbo folding ebike, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission is urging you to stop riding it and dispose of it immediately because…they were shipped without rear reflectors, and some models don’t have chain guards. Apparently, it’s impossible to add those things yourself.
The British government plans to spend the equivalent of over $6 billion on active transportation over the next four years, with an aim of at least 55% of shorter trips to feature some form of active travel, arguing that it’s time to stop dividing bicyclists and drivers into different categories.
A new report from the UK says a “lost generation” lacks the confidence and skills to even ride a bike.
A travel website say an 81-mile bike-and-train loop in France’s “overlooked Cévennes region” is all about gorges, gîtes, and farm lunches. Sign me up.
They’re getting serious in Luxembourg, where a man was fined the equivalent of $346 for riding his bicycle across a road with his phone in his hand.
She gets it, too. A Filipino woman says the new independence movement is on two wheels.
Competitive Cycling
Flo Bikes explains how to watch the USA Cycling Pro Road National Championships next month, from Charleston, West Virginia.
Velo says the uphill finish at the Griffith Observatory for the ’28 Olympics road race course means the race won’t be decided by a bunch sprint.
Zwift, Canyon Bicycles and Pedal Mafia launched a new North American U19 development team, with a goal of putting an American atop the podium at the Tour de France or Tour de France Femmes within a decade.
Finally…
After the Tour, there’s really nothing left but riding across the Mediterranean. If you’re a thrice convicted felon riding a bicycle while carrying illegal drugs and stolen credit cards, put a damn rear light on it, already — and don’t threaten a cop with your slingshot.
And that feeling when the bike lane is too narrow for the symbol indicating it is one.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin.
