ebikes Archives - BikinginLA

Tag Archive for ebikes

Fatal bike and ped hit-and-run rates rise, 45 years in random fatal beating of Florida bike rider, and a look at SoCal’s killer highway

July 14, 2026 / bikinginla / One comment

Happy Bastille Day to all who celebrate! Although how happy will be determined by today’s le Mondial, mais non?

We’re going to do something a little different today. Too many important stories have involved too much work on my part, leaving no time for the links that usually follow. At least not if I want to get any sleep at all tonight.

So we’ll discuss the big stuff today, and circle back to the more extraneous links tomorrow, if that works for you.

Besides, my internet connection is starting to feel like molasses, so I want to get this up before it goes down.

………

It’s not your imagination. Or mine, in this case.

According to a press release from a bicycle legal group, bicyclists and pedestrians are far more likely than drivers to be the victims of a hit-and-run.

Cyclists are increasingly being struck by drivers who flee the scene, according to a 2026 analysis of federal crash data released today by Bicycle Accident Lawyers Group (BALG). In 2023, 1 in 5 U.S. cyclists injured in traffic was hit by a driver who left the scene, and more than 70% of everyone killed in a hit-and-run that year was a pedestrian or cyclist. Hit-and-runs reached an all-time high that year, and many injured cyclists have no identified at-fault driver to hold liable, according to the firm’s review of AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data.

The trend is moving against cyclists even as U.S. roads overall grow safer. Fatal bicycle hit-and-runs rose 63% between 2017 and 2023, from 168 to 274 deaths, outpacing the 45% increase in overall cycling fatalities, the BALG analysis found. After 2020, total traffic deaths began to fall while bicyclist hit-and-run deaths kept climbing, a sign that safety gains reached drivers inside vehicles first.

The scale is significant. More than 919,000 hit-and-run crashes were reported in 2023, about 15% of all collisions. Cyclists are among the most exposed: nearly 1 in 4 cyclists killed in traffic that year died in a hit-and-run, up from 1 in 5 in 2017.

That corresponds with what I’ve found writing about bicycling deaths, consistently finding that somewhere between a quarter and a third of all fatal bicycling crashes each year involve a hit-and-run driver.

It’s clear that drivers are far more likely to flee in a collision after hitting something soft, like a human being, than they are after hitting something hard, like another motor vehicle. If only because their car or truck is more likely to be disabled after striking another motor vehicle.

Which could explain why there is so little urgency around the issue, and why so little is being done about it. Because if it’s not a problem affecting the great mass of people in their big, dangerous machines, then it’s not really a problem at all.

At least not for the people who could do something about it.

Then there’s this little bit of information.

Accountability remains rare even in fatal cases. A large share of hit-and-run drivers are never identified, and in New York City police solved just 324 of 6,652 nonfatal hit-and-run cases in 2020, about 1 in 20, according to NYPD figures.

That’s some damned impressive detective work, at least compared to Los Angeles, where the rate of drivers identified and convicted of nonfatal hit-and-run crimes is reportedly somewhere south of 1%.

………

Talk about gut-wrenching.

A 21-year old Florida man was sentenced to a well-deserved 45-years behind bars for a random crime spree that included beating a bike rider to death with a tire iron when he was just 17-years old.

Savonne Morrison was convicted of manslaughter, rather than first-degree murder, for driving the getaway car in a 2022 crime spree that started when his nextdoor neighbor recruited his help to beat up the new boyfriend of the neighbor’s ex-girlfriend.

But she wasn’t home, so his neighbor, Jermaine Bennett, started drinking and using coke, then set off on a vandalism spree by smashing random cars with a tire iron.

That continued until they spotted an 82-year old man walking alone in front of a St. Petersburg carpet store. Bennett got out of the car on a pretext of asking the man for directions, then repeatedly hit him with the tire iron, knocking him out with the first blow. Fortunately, he survived the attack.

That can’t be said for their next victim. Forty-nine-year old Jeffrey Chapman was riding his bike when Bennett again jumped out of the car and knocked Chapman on his bike with the tire iron. They then took turns beating Chapman to death, before driving off with his wallet.

Bennett eventually pled guilty to murder, and was sentenced to life in prison.

For whatever reason, the jury didn’t convict Morrison on a 1st degree murder charge, instead convicting him of manslaughter.

However, Morrison was on probation at the time of the attack for a violent carjacking when he was just 15 years old, when he and a group of friend used a girl they were both dating to lure another boy to come meet her. But when he arrived, Morrison and the others pistol-whipped the boy, forcing him out of the car, then driving over him as they took off in his car.

As a result, the judge gave Morrison the maximum of 15 years for manslaughter, and another 30 for violating his parole on the carjacking charge, to be served consecutively.

Florida law requires serving a minimum of 85% of a prison sentence in most cases, meaning Morrison will be at least 59-years old when he gets out.

Somehow, that doesn’t seem like enough.

………

She gets it.

Los Angeles Times columnist Robin Abcarian took a look at the Malibu section of Southern California’s killer highway on Sunday.

The stretch of Pacific Coast Highway that spans the length of Malibu is one of the most storied roads in the world and also, tragically, one of the bloodiest. As someone who frequently drives PCH between Santa Monica and Trancas, I often hold my breath for fear that some spacey tourist or distracted teenager will wander off the beach and into my path. Or that a car will back out of a driveway right into me. Or that a driver ahead of me will spot an open space on the shoulder and slam on the brakes to back into the spot. I am in awe of the brave cyclists willing to risk their lives for the sake of a beautiful ride.

Me too, sadly.

She goes on to discuss the 2023 documentary 21 Miles in Malibu made by Hollywood producer Michael Shane, whose 13-year old daughter Emily was killed in 2010 “by a reckless, suicidal motorist” as she walked to meet him after a sleepover.

Three years ago, Shane, a film producer best known for “Catch Me if You Can” and “I, Robot” made “21 Miles” to shine a light on the extraordinary dangers of having a five-lane state highway running through what is essentially a residential neighborhood. The hour-long documentary, which won several film festival awards, aired Thursday on PBS SoCal and will be available on the PBS app and website.

“Being on this roadway,” says Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Det. David Huelsen in the film, “is probably the single most dangerous thing you’re gonna do on your vacation.”

Or any other time, for that matter.

After years — okay, decades — of work by safety advocates of all stripes, Caltrans is finally making improvements to the deadly highway, retiming traffic lights and adding roundabouts to deter speeding. And ten automated speed cams will come online this fall, part of a pilot program authorizing them in Malibu, Long Beach, Los Angeles and Glendale, as well as three cities in Northern California.

But as Abcarian points out, the fines are way too low.

Shane thinks the fines are ludicrously low, and I agree.

“If you got a $1,500 ticket instead of a $200 ticket, you might think twice about going fast, because it’s going to cost you,” he said.

………

As long as we’re discussing the LA Times, I saw one opinion piece that went the news equivalent of viral, as former Times opinion editor Paul Thornton’s smartly thought-out column from the Golden State newsletter was picked up by news sites across the country, including CalMatters.

Thornton argues that making ebikes safer is smart. But smothering them isn’t.

Electric bikes are powering an urban transportation revolution. They flatten hills, haul cargo and people, and offer an alternative to driving that doesn’t involve breaking much of a sweat or waiting for a bus.

I’ve experienced these wonders firsthand. For the last three years, I have used an e-bike — an electric-motor assisted bicycle — to do everything from commuting 23 miles across Los Angeles for work to meeting up with friends at places where finding a parking spot takes longer than the drive over. In a city choked by traffic and pollution, calling these machines liberating isn’t an overstatement…

Lawmakers in Sacramento have introduced at least eight bills this year targeting e-bike safety. One would have added licensing and registration requirements for most e-bikes; anotherwould have rewritten the state’s classification system, making most e-bikes already rolling on California streets illegal.

Thankfully, those bills died, and with them a level of regulation that could throttle an efficient, clean and fun transportation option in California, and hamper a technology that is already driving the majority of revenue growth in the bicycle industry.

He goes on to make the case that Sen. Catherine Blakespear’s Senate Bill 1167 hits the the right notes, with the right restrictions to improve safety without killing the golden e-goose.

Done intelligently, safety regulations do not have to curtail e-bike adoption and all the upsides these joyous devices bring to cities clogged by traffic. Policies crafted using data instead of panic might actually lure more people out of their cars and onto two wheels.

It’s more than worth taking the time to read it. Because he’s right.

………

They get it.

In an extensive letter to the editor that’s really more of an op-ed, a pair of Edmonton, Alberta physicians make the case for maintaining a connected bike network, in the face of rumored provincial legislation that would restrict current and future urban bike lanes.

They argue that bike lanes make the city healthier for everyone, not just the people who choose to ride.

I won’t get into all their arguments here, though it is worth a few minutes to read the entire letter.

But they close with this.

As with public policy in any area, the devil is in the details of implementation: Any change could have negative impacts for some citizens. This reality underscores the critical importance of local involvement in decision-making that balances the pros and cons of any specific policy proposal, in order to arrive at the best possible solution for the people who are most impacted. Neighbourhood and municipal policies imposed by higher levels of government do not make sense.

As physicians, we advocate strongly for the development and maintenance of infrastructure to support and encourage active transport by bicycle, including a connected network of protected bike lanes. We support the right of Edmontonians to make the decisions that best meet our needs.

………

I learned a long time ago not to trust social media. So does anyone know how accurate this video is?

Twitter post

According to the Daily Dot website, commenters go on to criticize California for having the nation’s highest tax rate, which is true. Although the overall tax burden places it lower, somewhere in the top ten states.

One even calls the pathway a death trap. But as unsightly as it is, graffiti does not a death trap make. For that, you usually need motor vehicles

Which are absent from this video, anyway.

………

Calbike says a Lathrop woman made a simple request for the city to hold a free community bike and traffic safety education event at City Hall during National Bicycle Safety Month. It was her attempt to be proactive before something bad happened, after her family had too many close calls while riding their bikes.

Which then became a reality when the driver of a city vehicle cut off her seven-year old daughter as she was riding her bike in a crosswalk, forcing her to crash into the side of the vehicle.

Camryn was not seriously hurt, which is fortunate. But that does not mean the incident should be brushed aside. A child should not have to be badly injured before a city takes repeated warnings seriously. For Cortez, the crash was terrifying and enraging because it felt like the very scenario she had been trying to prevent. For months, she had been telling officials that children biking and walking in Lathrop were at risk.

What followed, Cortez says, has been its own kind of burden. She wants to know what happened. She wants records preserved. She wants clarity about whether the driver was working at the time. But more than anything, she wants the city to stop treating a preventable safety failure like an isolated incident.

“I can sue them all I want,” she told CalBike, “but then I would just be a rich person in an unsafe neighborhood.”

………

Speaking of Calbike, the statewide bicycle advocacy group made a statement yesterday opposing Proposition 45 on the November ballot, even though at first blush it would seem to benefit bikes.

The measure would accelerate review for a broad category of projects, including transportation. It would impose stricter deadlines, limit the alternatives agencies must consider, and restrict judicial review. But the same reduced friction available to a bikeway or transit project would also be available to a highway expansion, and in a state that often seems more eager to widen a doomed highway than expand transit, it is not hard to imagine this will result in more sprawling freeways than verdant bikeways. That is why CalBike opposes Proposition 45…

The initiative’s central mistake is treating transportation as a single public good. A bus lane, a protected bikeway, and a freeway widening can all be described as infrastructure, but they do not produce the same future. Yet, Proposition 45 would place both in the same expedited category, blind to induced demand or driving alternatives. Reduced friction does not operate in a vacuum. California’s highway-building institutions already have money, plans, political allies, and decades of momentum. Open the gates equally and the results will not be as lopsided as they have always been.

As much as we need new bikeways, and would benefit from a faster review process, the last thing we need is more and bigger highways.

And as Calbike points out, it’s the people who build highways who have all the money and lobbyists.

………

I was halfway through a story from a Michigan public radio station about a Los Angeles actor who rode his bike 3,500 miles to his hometown of Lansing, Michigan, to deliver a letter from his daughter to his 101-year old father, before I realized I knew him.

“I was looking for a way to kind of connect my family,” Nichols said. “My two daughters, I was such a part of their upbringing, and with my dad…he was so involved with my upbringing, and I sort of wanted to connect them.”

Nichols started his journey on May 15, where he rode across the Golden Gate Bridge through a path that took him through Oregon. His weeks have been spent travelling bike trails through Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.

On Monday, he arrived in Michigan through the SS Badger, where he will be biking from Ludington to the finish line, East Lansing. He said he plans to be back to his dad on Monday.

The original plan was to go through the Upper Peninsula and over the Mackinac Bridge, but his trip was interrupted.

“I did have to take a short break in the middle to go home to Los Angeles to shoot a movie, and then I flew right back and got back on the bike, and kept going,” Nichols said.

I admit, I didn’t pay any attention to the guy’s name until I got further down, and read this.

Nichols settled in Los Angeles years later after starting his acting career in New York.

But outside of his acting career, Nichols cohosts BikeTalk, a radio show advocating for safer spaces for people to travel on bikes. Nichols has documented his entire journey through the show.

“Our audience is following Taylor’s journey after maybe having listened to Taylor as a co-host on Bike Talk for several years, now he’s up and moving around the country,” Nick Richert, BikeTalk co-host, said. “He’s embodying everything that we’ve been talking about on the show.”

It was only then that I realized they were talking about our own BikeTalk’s Taylor Nichols, someone I’ve traded emails with for years about various bike stories. And I’ve spoken with Taylor and Nick on BikeTalk many times over the years, until my health problems and the assorted meds I take for them made me stop doing live interviews.

Because I can control and edit what I say on here, so I don’t usually make too much of a fool out of myself. But live, I’m prone to memory losses and misspeaking, making TV and radio too much of a minefield for me.

I also confess it’s been awhile since I’ve listened to the program, even though I remain a fan, and host a free public service ad for them over there on the right.

So I wasn’t aware of Taylor’s journey. And confess to being gobsmacked when I realized who they were talking about. Which is a word I don’t use often.

Or ever, even.

But I’ll let Taylor have today’s last words.

“I decided that I would just do it as a way of showing that the bicycle is not just a toy, but is an actual tool of transportation,” he said. “And that if we can create safe places for people to bike, we can break our dependency on oil and automobiles and things like that.”

Amen to that.

Category: Morning Links / Tags: bicycling, bicycling deaths, Bike Talk, Calbike, Catherine Blakespear, ebikes, Florida, hit-and-run, Los Angeles, Los Angeles Times, Malibu, murder, Paul Thornton, PCH, Robin Abcarian, SoCal's killer highway, violence against bicyclists

Livability versus yelling at kids on your lawn, Calbike urges SB 1167 support, and one year since Ackerman killed in WeHo hit-and-run

July 9, 2026 / bikinginla / No comments

Okay, so let me start with a (relatively) brief rant. And don’t worry, I’ll get to the point eventually.

Because I now find myself at that golden age when I metaphorically yell at kids to get off my lawn.

I did that this afternoon, when I spotted — and heard — someone setting off extremely large and extremely illegal fireworks from the roof of the building next door.

And yelled loudly off the balcony regarding where they could put their explosives, assuming they were the same jerks who set off two literal bombs at 4 am Wednesday night, shaking our windows, waking my wife and terrifying the corgi, who ran off to hide in the closet for the rest of the night.

Bombs so loud, my phone lit up with people on Citizen and Ring Chat complaining about the noise half up to a mile away. Although some people assumed it was gunshots, because Los Angeles.

But that’s the problem. Because the past few years, we’ve been dealing with noise from illegal fireworks any and every time of the day and night, virtually every day of the fricking year.

While I didn’t agree with Spencer Pratt about much during his brief run as a national political celebrity, he was right about the quality of life here in Los Angeles being in the toilet.

Streetlights are out all over town. Trash piles up everywhere, and God forbid you should try to find a trashcan to throw something away. Storefronts sit empty on every block. Our streets are so rutted and potholed, many are virtually impassible.

Seriously, take North Fairfax. Please.

I could go on…and on. But you undoubtedly have your own complaints. And yet no one seems to be doing anything about it.

In fact, our elected leaders seem dedicated to doing exactly nothing.

Like quashing police reform and proposals for ranked choice voting and expanding the city council, despite overwhelming public demand. And actively blocking Measure HLA, which passed by a two-thirds majority.

See, I said I’d get to the point.

The things that could improve the safety, vitality and livability of this city are the very things no one in our elected city leadership seems to give a damn about.

We’re now down to two candidates for Mayor of Los Angeles, and 16 people running for city council.

I’m not going to tell you who to vote for. But when you mark your ballot this November, don’t just bike the vote. It should be a given by now to vote for someone who will support your right to ride a bicycle comfortably, and return home safely.

But more than that, vote for someone with a commitment to make this city more livable — and tells you exactly how they plan to do it.

Because I’m done with promises. We’ve had over 20 years of promises, and things haven’t gotten any better. It’s long past time when our leaders acted in our interest, and not theirs. And I’d really like to see Los Angeles make this damn list while I’m still around to enjoy it.

And I don’t want to be that guy shaking my fist and yelling at the kids to get off my lawn.

Okay, rant over.

Today’s photo of the rockets red glare doesn’t begin to capture the sound of bombs bursting midair at 4 am.

………

Speaking of livability, the ready availability of electric motorbikes sold under the guise of ebikes, and the underaged hooligans on them, seem to be at or near the top of everyone’s list these days.

Encinitas State Senator Catherine Blakespear’s SB 1167 is designed to address that problem without throwing the ped-assist ebike baby out with the bathwater.

Here’s is what Calbike had to say about it in an email I received yesterday

This year, California lawmakers considered a wave of proposals responding to concerns about electric devices. The most burdensome approaches, including new license plates and registration systems for legal e-bikes, have fallen away.

There is a reason why SB 1167, the Truth in Biking Bill is still moving, and passing every benchmark in decisive fashion. Because it takes the simpler approach: make companies tell people the truth about what they are buying, because an honest, fair marketplace is better for all involved.

Ask Speaker Rivas & Chair Wicks to Advance SB 1167

SB 1167 does not ask the DMV to build a new registration system. It does not impose new licenses, plates, or fees on people who ride legal e-bikes. Instead, it relies on definitions California already has. Devices that are too powerful or fast to qualify as legal e-bikes must be accurately marketed, labeled, and disclosed to buyers. That is easier for the state to maintain, easier for responsible businesses to follow, and easier for families to understand.

This practical approach has earned unanimous support at every major vote, including a 15–0 vote in the Assembly Transportation Committee. SB 1167 is now before the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

Please ask Speaker of the Assembly Robert Rivas, and Chair Buffy Wicks to advance SB 1167 to the Assembly floor.

Send your message

California does not need to build an expensive new system around legal e-bikes. It needs clear rules and honest information at the point of sale.

Thank you for your support,

Kendra Ramsey

Executive Director

………

Tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of the hit-and-run that took the life of Blake Ackerman as he rode his bike home from work on Fountain Avenue in West Hollywood.

Maybe it hit me harder than most because it was so close to my apartment. Someplace I’ve walked, biked and driven by countless times since moving to Hollywood a decade ago.

Or maybe it’s because we’ve fought so long to improve safety on Fountain, and finally seemed to be getting somewhere.

Or maybe just because it was all such a fucking needless waste of a young man’s life.

Or maybe just all of the above.

I’ve placed flowers on his ghost bike several times over the past year to let his loved ones know we still remember, and care.

I plan to walk over tomorrow and place artificial tropical flowers on his ghost bike — tropical because he loved Hawaii, and artificial because they last longer. And say a prayer to tell him how just how very, very sorry I am.

Nothing would make me happier than to walk over and find his bike already covered with flowers, real, fake or otherwise.

But I’ll still do it, even if I’m the only one.

………

A European ski instructor and bicycling fan ranks the top five mountain passes in the Alps, for your next two-wheeled journey for fame and glory.

………

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

No bias here. An op-ed in the Tennessee Conservative — already a bad sign — argues that the best way to piss off bike riders is to criticize them, then goes on to do exactly that, taking riders to task for legally exercising their right to ride on the roadway. Which means he’s undoubtedly right by pissing off bicyclists for criticizing them when he’s undoubtedly wrong.

Bike riders in the Scottish Highlands are complaining about a “daft and dangerous” decision to remove an important stretch of bike lane near the city center, arguing that it will hit disabled bicyclists the hardest. Even if American drivers don’t believe disabled bike riders even exist.

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

Two Vermont men were fined $35,000 and ordered to remove any remaining trace of an illegal bike trail they built in a state forest over a five-year period, chopping down 350 trees and drilling into rocks to make the trails. Let’s hope that includes replanting the trees, and at least giving the rocks a nice apology.

Police in Western Australia are looking for a 53-year old hit-and-run bike rider who plowed into a 64-year old woman while riding on the wrong side of the road, leaving her with a “difficult journey ahead” after she was taken off life support; the bike rider stopped to assist the victim, but left before police and paramedics arrived.

………

Local

Streetsblog’s Joe Linton calls on bicyclists to provide input in an online survey about Carson’s ambitious Bicycle Action Plan. Although if it’s actually ambitious, I like it already.

State

San Diego avoided disastrous cuts to transportation in the city budget, with a modest half-million dollars to fix the city’s 15 most dangerous intersections, while avoiding the mayor’s plan to cut the Department of Transportation’s entire Multi-Modal Team.

San Diego’s new ebike restrictions will go into effect next month, banning anyone under the age of 12 from riding an ebike, and reinforcing helmet requirements and prohibiting a second rider without a seat built to accommodate two people. Which strikes me as decidedly underwhelming, but what the hell do I know?

The Santa Barbara County Association of Governments, aka SBCAG, is asking bike riders to review an AI-generated bike map. Apparently, they want to confirm it doesn’t have any extraneous legs or fingers, or any other added AI generated errors or hallucinations.

A Bakersfield woman was driving at three times the legal alcohol limit and with a driver’s license that expired two-and-a-half years ago when she hit and killed a 66-year old man riding a bicycle last month.

A new study from a San Francisco professor shows that only protected bike lanes actually cause an increase in bike ridership, unlike sharrows or painted bike lanes.

Sacramento police issued 31 traffic citations during a four-hour bike and pedestrian safety operation, apparently all to drivers.

Bike co-op Sacramento Bike Kitchen will mark their 20th anniversary this weekend with free music, bike polo and beer. And no, the beer isn’t free, or I’d be on my way already.

National

Oregon is considering a proposal to link an existing 20-mile bike path to the famed Rogue Valley wine country.

A Eugene, Oregon middle school teacher rode his bike 1,650 miles down the Left Coast from Canada to Mexico in just seven days, but missed in his effort to set a new world record by a day and a half.

Denver bike riders are fundraising to collect $4,500 to buy a bike-towed street sweeper to clean debris from the city’s bike lanes.

There’s some good news from Detroit today, as the five-year old boy shot by a stray bullet while riding his bike with his father is recovering from his injuries.

An Ohio writer says yes, it matters to see Black riders on the state’s trails.

The NYPD marked the 4th of July by diverting pedestrians from a walkway onto a bike path, with no explanation for where people on bicycles were expected to go; Streetsblog complains it’s another example of the city treating cars like transportation but bicycles like toys.

Streetsblog says it only took New York the deaths of two bike riders to update the pavement markings on the Queensboro Bridge bike lane to reflect a new a pedestrian-only path on the opposite side of the bridge, calling the move “too little, too late.”

Leonardo DiCaprio and his girlfriend, Italian model Vittoria Ceretti, are both one of us, riding bikeshare bikes together through the streets of New York, where they bumped into convicted musical plagiarist Robin Thicke. But hopefully not literally.

Heartbreaking news from Tennessee, where an 86-year old man was booked for last month’s fatal hit-and-run that left a bike-riding woman lying badly injured in a ditch. Once again raising the question of how old is too old to drive, and who should make that decision in a society built around the need to drive.

A DC writer issues a “coward’s guide” to bicycling around the city.

International

If you build it, they will come. A new study in the Journal of Transport & Health shows that building a bike lane or park within about 550 yards of residents’ homes in São Paulo, Brazil was a key factor in keeping them active and encouraging cycling. To which LA drivers shout in unison, “But Los Angeles isn’t São Paulo!”

Cycling Electric says a new cargo bike may be the most advanced one yet. Then again, it should be with a $9,300 price tag.

Road.cc joins the fight over media descriptions of illegal electric motorcycles as ebikes, after police seize “ebikes” that can reach 72 mph.

A writer for Streetsblog says if you want safer roads, all you have to do is take a European vacation.

Three Indian men face charges for stabbing a 30-year old man to death in a petty dispute over whether he had hidden one of the men’s bicycle. As we’ve said before, no bike is worth a human life. Just walk away, for god’s sake.

A Norwegian artist and adventurer is nearing the end of her 300-day epic bike tour through the African continent.

Japanese soccer star Kaoru Mitoma injured a woman riding a bicycle, after both he and the victim allegedly went through a four-way red light on the walk signal.

Competitive Cycling

No charge among the favorites for this year’s Tour de France, as a late bike change allowed Jonas Vingegaard to finish with the same time as Tadej Pogačar, thanks to the Tour’s three-second rule, which oddly has nothing to do with eating something that fell to the tarmac within three seconds; Norway’s Torstein Træen continued his unlikely stint in the yellow jersey with an eight-minute lead over Vingegaard and Pogačar.

British Paralympic cycling star Dame Sarah Storey is calling it a career at age 48, as her 74 world and Paralympic medals make her the most successful British athlete, disabled or otherwise.

Finally…

Blocking an unofficial bike trail with a bolder Boulder boulder. That feeling when bike lanes are “DEI.”

But at least we aren’t tied for dead last in the new City Ratings.

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin.

Category: Morning Links / Tags: bicycling, Blake Ackerman, Catherine Blakespear, e-motorbikes, ebikes, elected officials, ghost bikes, hit-and-run, livability, Los Angeles, Mayor of Los Angeles, safety, SB 1167, WeHo

The endless battle of good versus evil, ebikes and regular; 600 turn out for first-ever Bike the Coast Ventura; and goodbye Mr. Hockney

June 15, 2026 / bikinginla / 2 comments

Why, pray tell, does it have to be an endless battle of regular bikes and pedestrians versus ebikes?

Take this story in The Guardian.

Please.

In a story headed :

Vicious cycles or transport revolution? The ebike battle raging in Queensland

The paper argues,

Aggrieved pedestrians and push-bike riders are pitted against those who see e-mobility as a ‘once in a generation’ chance to change the way we travel around cities

Somehow, we have to choose one side or the other, as if it’s not possible to have a “once in a generation” opportunity to change urban transportation, while acknowledging that the lack of effective regulation has allowed things to get out of hand.

Like this story from Virginia Beach, Virginia, where a 15-year old boy fled from multiple cops and a police helicopter on an illegal electric dirt bike with whopping 16,800-watt motor and a top speed over 59 mph, while on probation for doing exactly the same thing three previous times.

Or the recent case here in Orange County, where a 14-year old boy killed an 81-year old Vietnam vet while doing wheelies on an illegal e-motorbike, leading to charges against the boy’s mother, who had ignored previous warnings from police.

Never mind the beatdowns various people have suffered for berating, or just trying to ride an e-scooter through, teen e-moto gangs.

Let alone this story from Ebike Tips, where a writer gets hit by a hit-and-run rider on an illegally modified ebike while riding his own — legal — ebike, and questions how critical he can be when his own bike comes close to crossing the line.

On the other hand, at least he knows enough to stick around after a crash.

The result has been laws like New Jersey’s “crazy” crackdown on ebikes by requiring a license and registration for all ebikes, with no distinction between Class 1 ped-assist ebikes and illegal electric motorbikes.

Or Dublin cracking down on all bicycles on a pedestrianized shopping street when the real problem is illegal mopeds.

Even a town near bike-friendly Utrecht in the Netherlands is experimenting with a two-week 12.5 mph speed limit for bicycles on a bike path, leading to a revolt from some acoustic bike riders.

Lumping all ebikes together in the public mind inevitably leads to a crackdown on every type of ebike, when the problem is only caused by a subset of riders on ebikes that have been illegally modified to exceed permitted speeds, or on electric motorbikes and dirt bikes that aren’t legally allowed on the roads as it it, at least without a driver’s license and/or motorcycle license.

The obvious solution is to crack down on the electric mo-peds, motorbikes and dirt bikes — and riders — who are actually causing the problems, without killing the “once in a generation” opportunity we have to make a real change.

The responsibility lies with the various legislatures to create a clear distinction between the two, lightly regulating the one while restricting the other.

If they can do that, we have an opportunity to make a significant dent in driving rates, with consequential benefits to traffic, road wear and tear, pollution and public health.

If not, we’ll butcher the golden goose and fry its eggs for breakfast.

Photo of electric non-motorbike by Cely for Pixabay.

………

I got the following press release yesterday about Saturday’s first-ever Bike the Coast Ventura. And since I’m getting lazy in my old age, I’m simply reposting it for you here.

Bike the Coast Ventura Welcomes Nearly 600 Riders at Inaugural Event

Riders of all ages and experience levels rode through the scenic coastal city, ending at the finish festival featuring local vendors and musicians

VENTURA, Calif. – The inaugural Bike the Coast Ventura hosted nearly 600 riders on June 13, welcoming participants of all ages and experience levels to ride through the scenic City of Ventura. The event partnered with local businesses and organizations to ensure that the Ventura community charm was truly highlighted throughout the event. The field of riders included Ventura locals, loyal participants of Bike the Coast San Diego, the event’s sister ride that takes place in the fall, and cyclists who traveled from Northern California, Las Vegas, and Arizona.

This year’s sponsors and partners included Visit Ventura, Downtown Ventura Association, Ventura Coast Brewing Company and Ventura Coast Cycling. The event also partnered with local charity organizations, including The Los Angeles Chapter of National MS and the Downtown Ventura Foundation. The 2026 event contributed over $6000 for their charity partners.

“When we chose Ventura as the host city for Bike the Coast, it wasn’t only because of the incredible views and scenic routes; it was also because of the incredible community,” said Mike Bone, president and CEO of Spectrum Sports Management, producer of Bike the Coast Ventura. “The Ventura locals really showed up for us throughout the planning stages and all the way up to race day. We look forward to future years of hosting this event and showcasing this amazing community.”

Participants took part in one of the three course options: the Metric Century 65-mile ride, the 40-mile ride or the rider’s favorite 20-mile family ride. Participants of the Metric Century 65-Mile ride were taken on a tour of the coastline with some hills in neighboring cities. The 40-mile and 20-mile riders were also treated with constant ocean views along their rules of the road routes. All participants wrapped up at the finish line in Promenade Park, which featured the Finish Festival that has coined the slogan, “Come for the Ride – Stay for the Party”. The free Finish Festival hosted the Ventura-based band The GAMBLE, and featured various local vendors offering food, drink and cycling-focused products and services.

For more information on Bike the Coast Ventura, visit www.bikethecoastventura.com. Follow the event on Instagram and Facebook.

………

Goodbye to the late, great LA artist and lifelong bicyclist David Hockney, from his native England.

Bluesky post

………

Local

For the third day in a row, I got nothing.

State

Off-Road.cc offers an ode to mountain biking pioneer Charlie Cunningham, who died earlier this month at age 77.

San Francisco’s Bicycle Advisory Committee held its last meeting this past week, shutting down after 35 years because the city decided it was redundant because the MTA now has a Sustainable Streets Division, “with teams focused on active transportation, employs full-time bike planners and engineers, and integrates biking into multimodal planning.” Which all sounds good, but doesn’t take the place of informed advice from a citizens committee representing the voice of the public.

National

A website called Straight Arrow News looks at the America Bikes Act, saying it’s gaining traction but critics are trying to pump the brakes — but only the only critic they cite is a Missouri bicycle retailer who says ebike voucher programs have created complications for retailers, domestic bike manufacturing isn’t economically viable, and replicating European bicycle networks nationwide would be difficult. Oh, well if it’s going to be hard, let’s just give up now.

Velo offers the dietary and training fixes you need to avoid having your skeleton “turn into chalk,” as UCI calls bicycling ‘perfect storm’ for bone loss. I lifted weights and watched my calcium intake for decades, but was shocked to end up with osteoporosis in my hips, anyway.

Good news for bike couriers and pedal-cab drivers, as the IRS includes both in the new exemption on taxing tips.

A Seattle op-ed calls on the city to move faster on implementing a bike network, two years after voters approved a historic $133.5 million investment in bike infrastructure and programs.

The Chicago Sun-Times explains how their photographer captured an outstanding photo of a memorial ride for a fallen bicyclist, perfectly reflected in a pool of water.

Um, okay. After man in Shelter Island NY was nearly run off the the road by a driver while riding his bike, he was relieved to discover than not only was there already a three-foot passing law, but there were already signs in place informing drivers of the fact. Which apparently did nothing to prevent that driver from buzzing him at close range.

New York Mayor Mamdani made history by becoming the first sitting mayor to join the other 32,000 riders taking part in the 5 Boro Bike Tour for the entire route. Which raises the obvious question of whether the other mayors didn’t take part, or just didn’t have seats on their bikes, forcing them to stand the whole way.

A Japanese business student studying in the US is riding his bicycle 1,200 miles from Pittsburgh to Dallas to watch his home team play in the World Cup.

A New Orleans website offers highly edited photos of the city’s World Naked Bike Ride. Or as the rest of the denizens of that city called it, Saturday.

International

The latest Lumos helmet combines built-in lights with an intercom system allowing up to 15 riders to communicate, offering obvious safety benefits for group rides.

Toronto held not one, but two separate editions of the World Naked Bike Ride, encouraging “freedom and body resistance for queer, trans, and feminist folks in the city.” Apparently, the usual idea of calling attention to bicycle safety and fossil fuels isn’t a factor there.

One thousand London bicyclists took to their bikes in the buff, or some variation thereof, for more traditional reasons, as protest against car culture and other linked themes, while also demonstrating against global oil dependency and celebrating their bodily freedom; the event was moved from Saturday to Sunday to avoid disrupting the annual Trouping of the Colour.

Oops. Former Aussie pro cyclist Rohan Dennis was stopped for driving, with his kids in the car, despite a five-year driving ban imposed as part of his extremely lenient sentencing for the death of his wife, former Olympian Melissa Hoskins.

Competitive Cycling

Mexican cycling star Isaac del Toro won France’s eight-day Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes on the final day by winning his second successive stage in a mountaintop finish; meanwhile, pre-race favorite Paul Seixas saw his Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes hopes dealt a major blow when he had to fight his way back from a bloody crash on the penultimate day.

A Paris Olympian is back on the track again, after trapped spinal fluid nearly ended her cycling days a year ago, preventing her from even completing simple tasks like tying her shoes.

Cycling News analyzes how the women’s WorldTour cyclists navigated a chaotic final lap of the Copenhagen Sprint, as Dutch star Lorena Wiebes held off countrywoman Charlotte Kool for the win.

Finally…

Even the damn coyotes are out to get us now. The Jekyls and Hydes of competitive cycling.

And nothing in the rules says you have to be upright when you cross the finish line.

Twitter post

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin.

Category: Morning Links / Tags: anti-ebike hysteria, bicycling, Bike the Coast Ventura, butchering the golden goose, David Hockney, e-moto gangs, e-motorbikes, ebikes, Los Angeles, ped-assist ebikes

Long Beach speed limits aren’t going up after all, and trying to stuff the e-motorbike genie back into the bottle — e-hooligans and all

June 12, 2026 / bikinginla / No comments

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.

………

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.

………

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.

Twitter post

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.

………

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.

………

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.

Reddit post

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin.

Category: Morning Links / Tags: 85th Percentile Law, anti-ebike hysteria, bicycling, e-hooligans, e-moto gangs, e-motorbikes, ebikes, Long Beach, Long Beach Post, Los Angeles, speed limits

Regan Cole-Graham ghost bike stolen from Playa del Rey, and errant driver kills woman inside Manhattan Beach laundromat

June 10, 2026 / bikinginla / No comments

Let’s start with a bit of heartbreaking news, after someone stole the ghost bike recently installed for a pregnant mother in Playa del Rey.

According to Streets Are For Everyone Executive Director Damian Kevitt, the bike placed in memory of 35-year old Regan Cole-Graham, a mother of two who was seven months pregnant with her daughter Ophelia, was taken shortly after the ghost bike for Blake Ackerman in West Hollywood was stolen, then recovered a few days later.

Which raises the question of whether someone is purposely removing ghost bikes, or if this is just a strange coincidence.

Only the ghost bike installed for her unborn daughter remains where they were placed.

If anyone finds it, contact SAFE with the information.

Cole-Graham and her daughter were killed by an elderly driver on Pershing Drive, where a road diet installed in 2017 was removed months later after backlash from angry motorists, mostly pass-through commuters from Manhattan Beach.

And yes, there’s not a pit in hell deep enough for any lowlife scumbucket who would intentionally steal a ghost bike, as if that’s somehow different than desecrating any other memorial.

Especially this one.

Ghost bikes for Ophelia and Regan Cole-Graham

………

This is the cost of traffic violence.

An innocent victim paid the ultimate price for a driver’s actions yesterday evening, when an errant motorist somehow slammed her SUV into a Manhattan Beach laundromat.

A woman inside was just washing her clothes when the SUV came flying in through the door of the business around 6 pm, fatally pinning her against one of the machines.

A witness reported the driver appeared to be an elderly woman, who tried explaining her actions by telling police her foot got caught on the pedal. If true, it adds even more fuel to the burning argument over how old is too old to drive a car.

Either way, it’s more proof that motor vehicles pose a deadly risk to everyone, on or off the roadway.

………

California State Senator Catherine Blakespear will host a 90-minute webinar this evening to discuss solutions to ebike safety, in conjunction with CalBike, PeopleForBikes, Streets For All and Streets Are For Everyone.

Blakespear is the sponsor of SB 1167, a much-needed bill that would clarify the definition of ebikes, and crack down on illegal electric motorbikes being misrepresented as legal ebikes.

Someone let me know how it goes, because I’ll be on a much-needed mental health break today, going to my happy place where cars don’t exist, and the deer and the antelope play.

………

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

A local councilor has called for vital improvements to a cycle track between Lancaster and Morecambe, England, calling the busy route “terrifying.” Even though it looks as good or better than most similar pathways in the US.

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

You’ve got to be kidding. Orange County Sheriff’s deputies were called when two teenagers decided to terrorize shoppers in a Foothill Ranch Walmart by riding their ebikes — actually electric motorbikes — up and down the aisles. One more reason why California needs to clarify the definition of ebikes to distinguish them from e-motos and dirt bikes.

A group of Singapore bicyclists were termed “too arrogant to use the lane provided for them,” despite politely riding single file and hugging the fog line — never mind that the bike lane, just the shoulder of the damn roadway — was likely littered with debris, or that there were a series of warning signs next to the bike lane just down the road. Because arrogance is the only possible explanation when people on bicycles do things that drivers don’t understand.

………

Local

No news is good news, right?

State

A Senior Chief in the US Navy is retiring after decades in the service, but taking the long way home by riding his bike alongside his dad from Portland, Oregon, to San Diego to raise funds and awareness for veteran mental health services.

Escondido police ticketed 53 drivers during a bike and pedestrian safety operation on Monday, along with ticketing five people riding bicycles; three drivers were arrested on drug and weapons charges, as well as an outstanding warrant for driving with a suspended license.

Eight people have been killed riding their bicycles in San Luis Obispo County over the past five years.

A kindhearted Delano cop bought a new bicycle for a woman out of his own pocket after her bike was stolen, and the suspected thief said it had been discarded and couldn’t be recovered.

Sad news from San Jose, where a man riding a bicycle was killed by a hit-and-run driver yesterday morning; the driver was arrested after crashing the stolen car into a lamppost a quarter mile away.

National

The New York Times lists five great North American cities for bicycling, including four in the US, and one in Canada. None of which is Los Angeles, of course.

People Magazine picks up the story of a 30-year old Seattle elementary school teacher who was killed by the driver of a garbage truck while riding his bike last week; a crowdfunding campaign has raised nearly $29,000 of the $35,000 goal.

A new ebike law went into effect in Washington State today limiting the use of ebikes by kids between 12 and 16, and designating any ebike capable of traveling over 20 mph as an electric motorbike.

Disgusting news from Arizona, where a 47-year old man was arrested for the hit-and-run death of a 25-year old woman riding a bicycle; the victim was also struck by two other drivers, not one of whom stopped.

A Colorado man explains why he rode a mountain bike up every one of the states legally rideable mountains over 14,000 feet elevation, just four years after getting sober from drinking himself “into oblivion.”

A newish bridge in Corpus Christy, Texas has been named the state’s scariest bridge for bicyclists, despite a ten-foot wide shared bike and pedestrian lane. Or maybe because of it.

This is how you get change. Hundreds of Chicago bicyclists took part in a “life-affirming” bike ride and die-in in memory of a city Complete Streets planner who was killed in a dooring while riding in a painted bike lane. I’ve never seen that many LA bike riders turn out for any protest or memorial except Critical Mass.

In the end, only a dozen or so bike riders joined with survivors of the Kalamazoo massacre to mark the 10th anniversary of the stoned-driving crash that killed five people on a weekly bike ride, and seriously injured four others, and finish the ride they weren’t able to.

Heartbreaking news from Virginia, where a 23-year old man was sentenced to life in prison for the drive-by shooting that killed an eight-year old girl as she was riding her bike outside her aunt’s home; a second suspect was sentenced to 25 years behind bars after pleading guilty, while a third man will go on trial next month.

International

He gets it. An editor for Cycling Weekly says he is very aware of his vulnerability when he rides a bicycle, like virtually every other bike rider, and doesn’t need to be pulled over by the cops for a reminder, when it’s the people in the big, dangerous machines who should be told how vulnerable we are.

London officials are accused of covering up a dramatic rise in bicycling fatalities and serious injuries, which outstripped the rise in bicycling rates, focusing on a decline in fatalities instead.

A British father and son completed a 400-day, 18,000-mile bike trip around the world, setting Guinness World Records in the process for the fastest bicycle circumnavigation of the world by a father and son, the longest bicycle journey by a father and son, and the most countries visited in a continuous bicycle journey by a father and son.

A UK pub owner waved off 108 bike riders, ranging from seven to 81-years old, for the pub’s 28th annual fundraising ride supporting a cancer foundation, a youth-engagement nonprofit, and a Cambodian anti-poverty fund.

A hit-and-run driver was arrested for running down a boy riding a bicycle in Kuala Lumpur; he was driving a sibling’s car with a valid driver’s license, despite literally being card-carrying mentally disabled.

More heartbreaking news from Australia, where a 47-year old man is awaiting sentencing for killing a nine-year old boy who was riding an ebike with his father, driving into the bike lane they were in while traveling over twice the speed limit, and with a BAC more than three times the legal alcohol limit; his mother turned off the boy’s life support while his father was still in a coma.

Competitive Cycling

LA officials revealed details about the road cycling and paracycling courses for the ’28 Olympics, which will start on the Venice boardwalk and finish at the Griffith Observatory, while the road cycling time trial and paracycling events will start at the LA Zoo, and also finish at the Observatory. Although it will be pretty hard to top the Sacré-Cœur de Montmartre climb from the ’24 Paris Olympics.

Finally…

Trying to make Electric Overland a thing, which sounds disturbingly like Electric Ladyland. Chances are, you weren’t riding a bike across the country when you were nine.

And no, there is nothing ironic about using new jersey barriers on a New York bike lane.

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin.

Category: Morning Links / Tags: bicycling, Catherine Blakespear, Damian Kevitt, ebikes, ghost bikes, Los Angeles, Ophelia Cole-Graham, Playa del Rey, Regan Cole-Graham, SB 1167, Streets Are For Everyone, the cost of traffic violence

Crackdown on illegal e-motos passes Senate, 2 dead in NY illegal e-scooter/bicycle crash, and road-rage driver shoots ebike rider

May 29, 2026 / bikinginla / No comments

My apologies for yesterday’s unexcused absence.

Wednesday was a very long day, and by the time I finally had a chance to write about the bicycling death in Santa Ana, it was too damn late to start on anything else.

On the other hand, this is the first time I haven’t had a migraine all week.

So there’s that, anyway.

Apropos of nothing, today’s photo is my coffee cup and a little light reading.

………

In late-breaking news — as in a 1 am press release — Streets For All and Streets Are For Everyone announced that SB 1167, which addresses the problem of illegal electric motorbikes being sold as ebikes by unscrupulous dealers, passed the state Senate and will move on to the Assembly.

Given the late hour, I’m just going to let you read the whole thing, rather than trying to rewrite it and edit it down.

This bill partially addresses the problem I’ve complained about for some time, that legal ped-assist ebikes too often get conflated and confused with illegal e-motos.

And this may be the first time I have so scrupulously used unscrupulous in any context on here.

California Senate Passes SB 1167 to Crack Down on Illegal E-Motos Fraudulently Sold as E-Bikes

SACRAMENTO — Recent news has seen a spike in reports of injuries or fatalities caused by “e-bikes,” such as 13-year-old Benson Nguyen or gangs of teenagers and young adults riding “e-bikes”. What is often missed is that most, if not all, of the vehicles being ridden are not legal e-bikes but are more correctly called e-motos (sometimes incorrectly called e-motorcycles). E-motos are high-powered two-wheeled electric devices that look similar to e-bikes or more like a cross between an e-bike and a motorcycle.

Under California law, legal e-bikes are limited to 750 watts and must fall within the state’s three-class e-bike framework.

But consumers, parents, schools, retailers, and law enforcement are increasingly encountering devices being fraudulently sold as e-bikes that can travel at much higher speeds – 30, 40, 50+ mph, and may legally require registration, licensing, insurance, or safety equipment.

SB 1167, legislation authored by Senator Catherine Blakespear of Encinitas, directly addresses the problem of e-motos and other high-powered electric devices being marketed and sold as street-legal “e-bikes” even when they do not meet California’s legal definition of an electric bicycle and are not street-legal. SB 1167 would make it clear that these devices cannot be falsely advertised or sold as e-bikes and can’t be ridden on the roads without proper registration, rider training, and safety features such as rear taillights, turn signals, and helmets.

Streets For All and Streets Are For Everyone (SAFE) today applauded the California State Senate’s unanimous 37-0 passage of SB 1167.

SB 1167 strengthens consumer protections by requiring clearer labeling and disclosure when a device does not meet the legal definition of an e-bike. The bill also requires every e-bike sold in California to include a visible frame label identifying its class and maximum assisted speed, making it easier for riders, parents, retailers, schools, and law enforcement to understand what kind of device is being used.

“The e-bike panic in California has too often missed the real problem. Legal e-bikes are helping people replace car trips, save money, and get around more easily — but high-powered electric motorcycles being sold as e-bikes create confusion, real safety risks, and reasonable public backlash. SB 1167 is exactly the kind of smart, targeted legislation we need: protect consumers, crack down on misclassified devices, and keep legal e-bikes moving,” said Marc Vukcevic, Director of State Policy at Streets For All.

Under SB 1167, e-motos up to 3000 watts of power would be categorized the same as a moped, requiring the same registration, driver training, and safety features (taillights, turn signals, front lights, etc.) in order to be legally ridden on the road. E-motos above 3000 watts would be classified as either a motor-driven cycle or a motorcycle.

“We know we aren’t going to be getting rid of e-motos. That genie is already out of the bottle. The point of SB 1167 is not to outlaw e-motos but to bring them back under the law and ensure they are being used in a way that is safe for the rider and those around them,” said Damian Kevitt, Executive Director at Streets Are For Everyone.

The legislation also improves incident reporting by requiring law enforcement to include e-bike label information when documenting crashes and other incidents. That improved data collection will help California better distinguish between legal e-bikes and other electric two-wheeled vehicles, ensuring future policy is based on the actual source of safety concerns.

E-bikes are an increasingly important transportation option for Californians. They help families replace car trips, give young people and older adults more independence, support workers who rely on affordable transportation, reduce emissions, and make biking a more practical option for longer trips and hilly communities. Streets For All and SAFE support policies that protect legal e-bike riders and responsible retailers while ensuring that e-motos sold are used safely, with proper registration, training, and safety features one would expect of any high-powered vehicle used on our roads.

SB 1167 is co-sponsored by Streets Are For Everyone, Streets For All, Calbike, and PeopleForBikes. The bill now heads to the Assembly for consideration.

………

Horrible news from New York, where two men were killed in head-on collision on the city’s Queensboro Bridge Wednesday morning.

No drivers or motor vehicles involved.

Instead, a 35-year old bike rider was hit by a 39-year old man riding the wrong way in the bike lane, on an illegal e-scooter capable of up to 53 mph. Both men died after being taken to a hospital.

A photo shows the carbon-frame Factor bike snapped in half, with the scooter embedded in between.

The scooter should have never been on the streets, where New York has a 20 mph speed limit for stand-up e-scooters, which is common in many cities and states; California has a 15 mph limit for throttle-controlled scooters.

Never mind that the rider wasn’t legally allowed in the bike lane, let alone riding salmon.

Now two people have paid the price for one man’s bad choices.

Thanks to Edward for the heads-up.

………

While we’re on the subject of horrible news, a Fairfax, Virginia man is fighting for his life after he was shot multiple times by a road-raging driver.

According to witnesses, the driver was chasing the ebike rider when he caught up to the victim at a stop sign, then got out of his car and fired several shots as the bike rider tried to back away.

Despite taking two to three bullets to the chest, the victim got back on his ebike and rode to the next town over, where a friend called 911. He was hospitalized in critical condition.

Police arrested the driver hours later. Possible charges will likely depend on whether the victim survives his injuries.

………

Calbike says the untenable ten-year delay in building active mobility projects in LA’s Boyle Heights, Skid Row and Wilmington, which could result in the loss of $100 million in state grants, shows why California has to fix its Active Transportation Program.

AB 2168, authored by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, would strengthen California’s ATP by making it more focused, more coordinated, and more accountable. The bill requires updates to the ATP guidelines to give greater emphasis to safe routes to transit, including projects that improve biking and walking access to transit facilities, school bus stops, transit station areas, planned stops, transit corridors, transit-oriented development areas, and underserved or rural areas.

The most important change in AB 2168 is also one of the most practical: it pushes California to stop treating active transportation as a small, separate category of transportation spending. The bill calls for commitments of State Transportation Improvement Program (STIP) funds to ATP-funded projects so California can scale up larger and network-level active transportation improvements. Committing STIP funds, which typically funded larger general roadway projects, to active transportation projects increases available funding for biking and walking infrastructure, increasing the reach far beyond the oversubscribed, underfunded ATP. In plain terms, that means ATP dollars should be used as a corollary, complementary piece for bigger investments, not as the only money available to build safer streets.

………

Personal injury attorney Steven M. Sweat emailed with a good reminder that California’s three-foot passing law was changed three years ago to require drivers to change lanes to pass a vulnerable road user when there’s a lane available.

Sweat has a guide to California bike laws on his website, in case you’re in need of a quick refresher.

But drivers still can’t legally put two wheels across the magic yellow line in the center of the road to pass a bike rider safely on a two-lane road, thanks to our outgoing governor’s overactive veto pen.

………

Bike Angeles rides the D.

Twitter post

………

If, like me, you’re still making last-minute decisions on local offices before Tuesday’s Election Day deadline, LAist offers a detailed Voter’s guide.

Meanwhile, Streets For All endorses Nithya Raman, my fellow corgi dad Kenneth Mejia, and Marissa Roy in the upcoming election.

Twitter post

……….

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

The head of a Florida homeowner’s association faces charges for chasing down a 12-year old boy who had just moved to the area, knocking him off his bicycle and throwing the bike in his car, in an extreme case of “you don’t belong here.”

Clean Technica says Berlin is ground zero in the war between bicycles and cars, following the progress Paris has made. To which LA drivers said “hold my beer.”

………

Local

Los Angeles officially opened Phase 3 of the Griffith Park Safety and Active Transportation Improvement Project, adding protected bike lanes, speed humps, new signage and traffic-calming measures along Crystal Springs Drive. Someone sent me a photo of k-rail barriers being removed in Griffith Park, but I seem to have lost the email, so please resend it if you can.

Metro approved a number of motions at Thursday’s board meeting, including a new budget that will continue to flush nearly a billion dollars down the induced demand toilet, along with a motion to move the plans for the LA river bike path forward with a lower-cost design that could possibly, maybe, kinda hopefully be finished in time for the ’28 Olympics. LA Mayor Karen Bass was also voted in as board chair for the upcoming fiscal year, though voters may have a say in that come November, if not on Tuesday.

State

Another Orange County mom could face charges for the sins of her son, after the teenager fled from cops attempting a traffic stop by riding against traffic at a high rate of speed and blowing through a red light, following several previous warning about his alleged illegal behavior.

The driver charged with killing six-year old Hudson O’Loughlin in a January Pacific Beach hit-and-run was formally charged on Wednesday, as 32-year old Tiffany Sanchez pled not guilty to felony counts vehicular manslaughter and hit and run causing death; in gut wrenching testimony, Hudson’s father said the boy was still alive and trying to move his bike following the initial impact, when Sanchez stepped on the gas and ran the boy over. And yes, this one still makes me cry.

Better news from San Diego’s Carmel Valley, where a 12-year old boy was moved from the ICU nearly a month after he was struck by a driver while riding his ebike; Mark Maldonado has shown significant improvement since he was removed from a ventilator and a medically induced coma. A crowdfunding page has raised nearly $21,000, while classmates at his elementary school raised over $1,800 with a bake sale and lemonade stand.

San Diego County health officials warn about the dangers of ebikes. Even though it’s only the illegal ones that cause the problems.

National

Even tiny and cold Nome, Alaska now has a bike bus with nearly two dozen students.

A former Chicago Peace Corps volunteer has helped send over 7,000 bicycles to Africa’s Kingdom of Lesotho since founding Bikes for Lesotho 13 years ago.

Sad news from Cleveland, where the landmark former home of a 143-year old bike shop was partially demolished when the building was declared unsafe, two years after the business had closed.

Damn. A Tampa, Florida man was struck and killed by a driver while riding his bike, just six months after surviving a cardiac arrest.

International

What could possibly go wrong? A pedestrian walkway in Oxfordshire, England will be widened slightly so bike riders can share the route, but for just a little more 400 feet — one and a third the distance of a football field — likely leaving both walkers and rider confused and conflicted.

Life is cheap in the UK, where Road.cc catches up on sentencing for several drivers who killed or injured bike riders, including just four years for a woman who killed a 70-year old man while driving drunk and stoned, with an open wine bottle next to her and her kids in the car.

A British advocacy group says the government should invest in electric bicycles, because ebike incentives are twice as effective as grants for electric cars. Maybe someone should tell the California Air Resources Board, since they stole the funding for the state ebike incentive program to give it to electric car buyers, instead.

Competitive Cycling

Velo digs into the numbers to show that Jonas Vingegaard really might be better and stronger than ever.

Thirty-four-year old Danish cyclist Michael Valgren fought his way to his biggest victory since a devastating crash at the 2022 Route d’Occitanie nearly ended his career, by winning Wednesday’s stage 17 of the Giro.

Twenty-two-year old French pro Paul Magnier won stage 18 of the Giro on Thursday to reclaim the ciclamino points leader’s jersey, while Jonas Vingegaard remained far ahead in the GC. And yes, I had to look up ciclamino, too.

Velo looks back fondly at the “storied history” of Pennsylvania’s 50-year old Trexlertown Velodrome, saying it set a new standard for US bike racing.

Finally…

That feeling when your new bike lane becomes a giant ad and a carnival ride. Or when your new cargo bike could double as a racing bike, unless maybe you prefer your next bike to be hydrogen powered.

And who needs a piano when you have a bicycle?

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin.

Category: Morning Links / Tags: anti-ebike hysteria, bicycling, e-motorbikes, e-scooters, ebikes, Los Angeles, New York, road rage, SB 1167, shootings

55-year old ebike-rider Rey Flores dies 3 days after he was struck by a driver in Santa Ana; 2nd Santa Ana bike death this month

May 28, 2026 / bikinginla / 3 comments

A Santa Ana man has died three days after he was struck by a driver while riding an ebike.

According to a press release from the Santa Ana Police Department, first responders found the victim lying in the street with “significant injuries” at Chestnut and Cypress avenues around 9:35 pm Saturday.

The victim, identified as 55-year old — or possibly 51-year old — Santa Ana resident Rey Flores, was taken to a hospital, where he died on Tuesday.

A preliminary investigation determined Flores was riding west on Chestnut, when he was hit by a driver headed south on Cypress.

A street view shows bike lanes on Cypress north of Chestnut, and on Chestnut east of Cypress, but not in the other two directions. That would have put Flores on the bike lane before he entered the intersection, which is controlled by four-way stop signs.

The driver remained at the scene and did not appear to be impaired.

However, the press release notes that detectives are determining whether Flores was under the influence — which suggests they may have some reason to believe he might have been at fault, or at least impaired.

The police say multiple times that Flores was riding an e-bicycle, suggesting it was a ped-assist bike, rather than an electric motorbike.

Anyone with information is urged to call Detective Corporal M. Pardo of the Santa Ana Police Department Collision Investigation Unit (CIU) at 714/45-8208, or the Santa Ana Police Department Traffic Division at 714/245-8200.

This is the 31st bicycling fatality that I’m aware of in Southern California this year, and the fourth we know about in Orange County; Flores is also the second bike rider killed in Santa Ana this month.

My deepest sympathy and prayers for Rey Flores and all his loved ones.

Instagram post

Category: Injuries and Fatalities / Tags: bicycling fatality, ebikes, Orange County, Rey Flores, Santa Ana

A DIY Pasadena bike plan, US ebike panic ignores the real problem, and riding in LA feels like #2 because we’re #3

May 27, 2026 / bikinginla / No comments

I’m writing this with a migraine that’s threatening to make my head explode.

So if you see this, it means my meds finally kicked in; if not, someone please clean up whatever is left of me.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Photo by Aidan Nguyen from Pexels.

………

That’s more like it.

The Pasadena Complete Streets Coalition is leading a community-driven effort to draw their own bike plan for the Rose City, proposing a connected, all-ages-and-abilities network of Greenways on low-speed streets, with protected bike lanes on faster roadways.

The map will be unveiled on June 3rd for World Bicycle Day.

That will come about a month before the city begins work on a new Active Transportation Plan intended to update the 2006 Pedestrian Plan and 2015 Bicycle Transportation Action Plan, as well as other documents, combining them into a single comprehensive blueprint.

………

He gets it.

Writing for Electrek, Micah Toll argues that America is panicking over ebikes while ignoring the real problem.

As in, cars, and the people driving them.

If you spend enough time reading local news headlines these days, you’d be forgiven for thinking electric bicycles are one of the greatest threats facing American streets. Teenagers on fat-tire e-bikes, viral videos of wheelies, stories about injuries complete with ER doctor interviews… the same themes are playing on repeat…

Some riders behave irresponsibly. Some companies sell vehicles that blur the line between e-bikes and electric motorcycles. Some inexperienced riders are suddenly traveling at speeds they aren’t prepared to handle.

But somewhere along the way, the conversation seems to have lost all sense of proportion.

According to Toll, ebike and e-scooter deaths are averaging around 135 a year across the entire US. That includes everything from Lime scooters to illegal, high-speed motorbikes passing as bicycles.

Meanwhile, motor vehicles kill over 40,000 people every year. A difference of a mere 29,500%.

Clearly, we have to do something to rein in ebikes that exceed the legal limits, and don’t meet the definition of a bicycle, ped-assist or otherwise.

But focusing on the dangers posed by ebikes is like trying to swat a fly on a crashing jet.

A point made by a columnist for Cycling Weekly, who says recent concerns over speeding bicyclists also missed the mark.

In practice most of the people with an instinct for obeying a speed limit aren’t going to be the people who were any sort of problem – morons will continue to moron, delivery riders will still need to earn enough to eat. Why am I so sure, you ask? I’ll refer to you our roads in general. And, as on the roads in general, enforcement will be minimal. Meanwhile, cyclists will continue to take abuse from everyone, from the local paper to the House of Lords, much of it because of a group who aren’t actually riding bicycles. Honestly, it’s time to start treating different things differently.

And yes, “morons will continue to moron” sums up the debate as well as anything else I’ve seen.

But at least a California bill intended to address the illegal e-moto issue is moving forward.

Twitter post

Riding a bicycle in Los Angeles may feel like number two, but we’re actually number three, according to a Texas law firm.

In a story focusing on how safe Salt Lake City is for bicycling, ranking 53rd out of the 55 most dangerous cities for bicyclists, there’s an almost casual mention of which cities came out on top.

New York was number one, Houston number two. LA finished third.

Clearly, local drivers have to try harder.

We also ranked third for air quality, which is only surprising because we’re usually ranked as the nation’s worst.

………

Streets Are For Everyone urges you to sign their open letter demanding that city leaders declare a Traffic Violence State of Emergency in Los Angeles; they’re nearing the goal of 1,000 signatures before it’s delivered to the city council.

And yes, my name is on it.

………

We have Megan to thank for a trio of news stories, beginning with a report on Boise, Idaho’s “Blessing Bike” getting seniors back out for a ride.

Karim Alim, co-founder of the Gaza Sunbirds paracycling team made up of Palestinians who have been injured or lost limbs as a result of the Israeli invasion, says their riding is a form of resistance.

And a group of Austin, Texas bike riders are roaming the city delivering food to people who may otherwise fall through the cracks.

………

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

A suspected “bike racing hater” is being blamed for removing over 50 route signs over a 12-mile stretch of Germany’s Rhön Cycle Marathon, the country’s most important long-distance bike race.

………

Local

Public radio program Marketplace profiles LA’s Black-owned Ride On! Bike Co-Op, which is surviving difficult market conditions thanks to an ebike library program.

This is who we share the road with. Former NYPD Blue star Kim Delaney reportedly settled a lawsuit over a hit-and-run crash that injured a motorcycle rider on Venice Blvd; witnesses say she appeared to be intoxicated, but she insists she only left the scene since she felt threatened because of her celebrity. Terms of the settlement were not made public.

The West Hollywood Bicycle Coalition will host the annual Pride Ride on Sunday, June 7th, departing from the Hollywood and Highland Metro Station at 10:30 am, and riding to the WeHo Pride Parade and Street Fair in West Hollywood.

State

Carlsbad cops can start ticketing ebike riders for violating the city’s crackdown, after a two-month warning period ended.

A San Raphael man must not like bike riders. The 64-year old man was arrested after he allegedly confronted a bunch of bike-riding kids, swinging a fist at one before grabbing another child’s bicycle, first threatening to steal it, then throwing it at the kid when they wouldn’t let go; the same man was arrested three years ago for punching a man on a bicycle, knocking him off the bike, then striking him with a pipe during an apparent theft attempt.

A 75-year old Bay Area man says he’ll be riding in a SAG wagon in support of one of the two two legacy events replacing the AIDS/LifeCycle Ride, which ended last year; he’s aiming to raise $1,500 supporting the ride, after raising over $6,000 riding in the other legacy ride — and surviving with HIV since before the disease had a name.

Davis will host an all-ages bicycle scavenger hunt on Saturday, the seventh edition of the bike ride; this year’s theme is Music, with a goal of helping a band get their sound back together.

Speaking of Davis, police investigators have closed the case of a 60-year old woman killed when her bicycle collided with a teenager who was legally riding a class 2 ebike on a local bike path, confirming that no charges will be filed.

National

A law group ranks the 25 bridges that bike riders fear the most; surprisingly, none are in Southern California. Although the results were based on a survey of just over 3,000 bike riders nationwide, raising questions of how someone is capable of judging bridges across the country that they’ve likely never seen, let alone ridden.

That neo-Nazi adjacent “Bikes Will Not Replace US” sign we linked to yesterday was part of a protest against the weekend closure of a Seattle lakefront to motor vehicles. Because nothing says your cause is just like linking it to a Nazi slogan.

A writer for a Washington State website recommends exploring Lummi Island by bicycle. However, riding to it requires communing with the fishes, since it can only be reached by boat.

Oceanside bike lawyer and BikinginLA sponsor Richard Duquette forwards a story about the economic impact of Durango, Colorado’s annual Iron Horse Classic offroad race. Unfortunately, though, you’ll have to find a way around the paper’s paywall. And have I mentioned lately that paywalls suck and are self-defeating?

It’s been a bad few weeks for bike-riding kids in the Great Lakes region, with a 12-year old Michigan girl dying six days after she was struck by a driver while riding home from an ice cream shop, and a 14-year old boy killed by a driver in Illinois — even though the story doesn’t even mention anyone operating the apparently driverless vehicle.

The participants in this year’s Remember the Removal Bike Ride set off from Tahlequah, Oklahoma on a nearly 950-mile ride retracing the infamous Trail of Tears, one of the most shameful acts in American history.

The Sierra Club and Sunrise Movement are hosting the Ride to End Fossil Fuels, a century ride across Connecticut calling for elected leaders and state agencies to take action to address the climate crisis.

That’s more like it. A Florida woman was sentenced to ten years behind bars for the hit-and-run death of a Navy veteran as he rode his bicycle in Pensacola three years ago, before fleeing to Kentucky to avoid prosecution, and having her car towed to Alabama to hide it from investigators; she will also face 18 years probation and lose her driver’s license for life.

International

Cardiff, Wales is combining new bike infrastructure with water conservation, designing bikeways that function as rain gardens and wildlife habitat, as well as providing shade, cooling the surrounding area and filtering air pollutants.

Bicycle ridership is surging and pedestrian injuries dropping on an Edinburg, Scotland bike path described as a “transport hell” and “the worst cycle lane in the world.”

An Irish study shows that over 80% of the country’s serious or fatal bicycling collisions occur during daylight hours and on straight roads, rebutting demands that bike riders be required to wear hi-viz.

Competitive Cycling

Jonas Vingegaard won his fourth mountain stage in this year’s Giro, taking stage 16 by more than a minute in a dramatic solo finish, while building a 4:03 lead over second place Felix Gall.

Defending Unbound 200 champion Cam Jones says he’s “genuinely scared” how fast he will be this weekend, as he defends his title on a prototype gravel bike with 32″ wheels, which will never be released to the general public.

A writer for Road.cc says gravel bikes go back at least 103 years to the 1923 Tour de France.

Finally…

Even the trees are out to get us these days. That feeling when bikeshare bikes outnumber seagulls on the local beaches. Nothing like relaxing with your three grand Zwift espresso maker.

And the deer are out to get us, too.

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin.

Category: Morning Links / Tags: anti-ebike hysteria, bicycling, click bait, Department of DIY, ebikes, Los Angeles, most dangerous cities for bike riders, motor vehicles, neighborhood greenways, Pasadena Complete Streets Coalition, protected bike lanes, traffic deaths, traffic violence, World Bicycle Day

Results are in — bikes for the win, the normalization of anti-bike rage, and the great ebike battle goes on…and on

May 26, 2026 / bikinginla / No comments

No surprise here.

A scoping review of 87 studies from 19 countries found clear benefits for social wellbeing in every study that measured it, concluding that bicycling not only improves physical fitness but also enhances mental well-being, reduces symptoms of anxiety and depression, strengthens social connections, and sharpens cognitive function.

But you probably didn’t need a study to tell you that, since you live it every time you ride.

At least, when the angry people in the big, dangerous machines let you.

Photo by Olya Kobruseva from Pexels.

………

Road.cc readers set off a minor online tempest over the weekend by questioning whether anti-bicyclist abuse on the roads of the UK and Ireland is getting worse.

That was posed this week by road.cc reader the little onion, who sparked the debate by revealing that they are shouted at by people in vehicles “once per hour or so of riding” in the north of England.

And almost always, the commenter noted, at the hands, horns and lips of male drivers.

“I reckon that about once per hour or so of riding, I get someone in a vehicle – almost exclusively male – winding down their window to randomly shout abuse at me, telling me to get a car, get off the f***ing road, or something like that.

“Mostly it is people overtaking, sometimes people travelling the other direction. And completely unprovoked, not reacting to anything I may have done, other than existing as a cyclist. Am I unique here? Does this chime with other people’s experiences?”

Evidently so, since that observation has been born out by recent studies.

A recent government report in Ireland found that a high percentage of women are put off riding a bike on the road thanks to an increasing “car culture”, “aggressive” driver behaviour, and potential abuse.

And earlier this year, a women’s cycling safety audit carried out by the Norwich Cycling Campaign noted that female cyclists are disproportionately affected by verbal abuse, intimidation, and street harassment while on their bikes.

However, while men are the usual perpetrators, the abuse seems to fall equally on both sides of the saddle.

“Unfortunately, it isn’t just you,” said NickSprink. “South of England here, I’d say just as common, especially if beeping of horns and finger gestures are included.”

Clem Fandango wrote: “Twice in the last six months I’ve been making my way along a quiet two-lane road. No vehicles behind me and no drama. Until on each occasion the driver of a vehicle coming the other way, and in no way affected by me minding my own business on the other side of the road, decided to roll down the window as they passed, to drop a C-bomb on me.

“No need for any conflict or interaction of any kind in that situation, it’s just pure narrow-minded abuse.”

Meanwhile, Momentum says the question isn’t whether anti-bicyclist abuse is getting worse, but why has it become so normal?

In North America especially, roads have been culturally framed as spaces built for cars first. So when someone rides a bike in traffic, some drivers react as if a social rule has been broken.

And because cycling has become tangled up in conversations about climate change, bike lanes, urban politics, and “car culture,” a simple bike commute can suddenly become symbolic to people already angry about broader social changes.

At the same time, roads themselves feel more hostile than they used to. Drivers are stressed, distracted, impatient, and increasingly isolated from one another inside vehicles. Cyclists — visible, exposed, and vulnerable — become easy targets for frustration that often has nothing to do with them personally.

One Reddit commenter captured it perfectly: “You are subject to this abuse simply because you are vulnerable to it.”

USA Today picks up the same theme in another story examining the “alarming rash of bike crashes” in the US.

“People have the opinion that cyclists don’t have the right to use the public roads,” said Maggie Ardito, who advocates for greater safety for cyclists as president of the St. Johns River-to-Sea Loop Alliance and as a board member of the Florida Bicycle Association.

Ardito says the sight of a group of cyclists can enrage drivers, and – in Ardito’s experience as a cyclist and a leader of the biking community in Florida – it’s been happening more and more.

And with predicable outcomes.

Data shows a concerning trend: Recent years have seen a sharp increase in bicyclist fatalities among men over the age of 20, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and the Highway Loss Data Institute. Deaths have increased 15% since 1975, and 86% since an all-time low point in 2010. Meanwhile, fatalities have decreased for children. In 2024, 1,103 bicyclists died in traffic crashes, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data shows.

Granted, not every crash or death is the result of enraged drivers. The paper also blames over-engineered roads that encourage higher speeds and reckless driving.

Another reason, they say, is simply a numbers game. More bicyclists on the roads, combined with a post-pandemic rebound in motor vehicle traffic and a lack of safe bicycle infrastructure, means more people competing for the same space on the roads.

And yes, sometimes it’s the people on two wheels who are to blame, for crashes as well as going ballistic on the roads.

People who are more prone to road rage are more easily triggered than others by their experiences on the road, and may tend to perceive incidents (whether accidental or not) as personal slights, Hennessy said. Bikers can be just as guilty of aggressive behavior or dangerous driving, said Hennessy, who is a frequent cyclist himself.

“There are some cyclists who are antagonistic toward drivers,” he said. A cyclist might think a driver is coming up too close to them “because they’re a jerk,” he said. “In their mind, ‘How do you deal with a jerk? Well, you just piss them off even more, maybe you teach them a lesson.’ ”

Admittedly, we’re not all saints. Some of us are assholes most of the time, while most of us are assholes some of the time.

The difference is that people who ride bikes aren’t operating multi-ton weapons of mass destruction, capable of mowing down anyone and anything in their way.

Intentionally or otherwise.

But physically protected bike lanes can make a difference. There are situations where even in the presence of a dedicated bike lane, unless it is protected by barriers, it may still be safest for a cyclist to ride in the road, Von Hagen said. Bike lanes can be risky if they are too narrow, and it’s all too easy for a car to drift or swipe a rider with a side mirror, she said. Bike lanes tend to be where people illegally park, or where garbage cans or accumulating fall leaves pile up.

The team at Rutgers studied driver and cyclist behavior before and after the implementation of a temporary bike lane in New Jersey. Men are generally more likely than women to ride in the street, while women are more likely to ride on the sidewalk, Younes said. When there is a protected lane, with physical barriers or a parking lane between a bike lane and car traffic, use is more universal, and people who are more risk-averse will use it instead of the sidewalk, Younes said.

Streets For All reports they helped kill two bad ebike bills in the state legislature, and are working to get two others over the finish line.

Last week, two bills that would have devastated e-bike access in California died in the legislative process. Your advocacy helped make it happen.

AB 1557 (Papan) would have severely limited access to legal e-bikes by dismantling the standard 3-class e-bike system and limiting the speed and power of e-bikes. AB 1942 (Bauer-Kahan) would have required licensing and registration for e-bikes, products which do not currently exist in California.

Both AB 1557 and AB 1942 died in the Assembly Appropriations Committee after hundreds of you called, wrote, and lobbied your legislators.

This means that California just narrowly avoided the fate of New Jersey, where a new e-bike law going into effect in July is creating massive new bureaucratic hurdles to owning and riding an e-bike.

But we’re not stopping at just killing the bad bills.

This Monday our team went to Sacramento to build on the momentum for e-bikes. We met with legislators to make the case for SB 1167 (Blakespear), which would establish clear labeling requirements that distinguish legal e-bikes from illegal e-motos. We also pushed for more funding for California’s Active Transportation Program and a new statewide e-bike incentive program.

Here’s what we’re seeing: legislators want to get e-bike policy right. When they understand the real issue — that illegal e-motos, not legal e-bikes are what need regulating — most of them get it. SB 1167 already has strong bipartisan support. And AB 1569 (Davies), which directs the department of education to create an e-bike education curriculum for 7th-12th graders, just passed the Assembly and is heading to the Senate.

The two harmful bills are dead for this year. But they could easily return next session.

That’s why Streets For All works year-round in Sacramento: So the people making policy understand the difference between a legal e-bike and an illegal e-moto before the next bill drops.

Meanwhile, CNN breathlessly proclaims what ER doctors, prosecutors and parents want you to know about ebike dangers. But evidently, they don’t want you to know, since the story is hidden behind their paywall for subscribers only.

Apparently, things are no different north of the border, either.

Or even in Amsterdam, where officials want to implement a 12.5 mph speed limit to rein in illegal ebikes, but others warn that “young people don’t give a damn about a sign.”

On the other hand, New York State won’t take up consideration of an ebike bill this year, after legislators ran out of time to put one together.

………

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

No bias here. A South Seattle writer complains about the city’s closure of a lakefront drive to motor vehicle traffic for 15 “Bicycle Weekends” this summer, framing it as a gentrifiers’ assault on “one of the very few simple pleasures enjoyed by the BIPOC and other marginalized communities that have been push-broomed into South Seattle,” because they can’t take a drive along the shore from Friday night to Monday morning. Apparently only wealthy, white people ride bicycles and “the BIPOC and other marginalized communities” never, ever want to take pleasant strolls or ride bikes on the lakefront.

An Irish writer complains about commenters who insist on dissecting every positive comment about bicycling while proclaiming that not everyone can ride a bike for every purpose, as if no one had ever thought of that before. And that no one ever makes the same comments about car ads, even though many people can’t drive.

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

The husband of an 80-year old woman who suffered a fatal brain injury when she was hit by a bicyclist participating in the Tour de Manc sportive on the Isle of Man complains that “it’s unbelievable” that people on bicycles can’t be prosecuted for speeding in the UK — even though the bike rider never topped the 30 mph speed limit, and had only two seconds to brake after she came into view on a descent.

A man riding salmon in Singapore stuck out his leg as a driver went past, in an apparent attempt to kick the car, for reasons known only to him.

@asiaone

The incident happened along the East Coast Park Service Road on Saturday (May 23) evening. #sgnews #Singapore #Cyclist #Road #Safety 📹: Facebook/SG Road Vigilante

♬ original sound – AsiaOne – AsiaOne

………

Local

LADOT is asking the city council to speed the implementation of the city’s pilot speed cam program without putting it through the usual competitive bid process, instead piggybacking off a contract approved by Oakland after going through competitive bidding up there. After all, what could possibly go wrong, since Los Angeles and Oakland are identical in every way?

The Eastsider features of photo by Gavin Brennan of E Bike Tours LA showing at least 15 dogs lined up in Griffith Park overlooking the city. Although that strikes me as about one corgi short of a pack.

Streetsblog reports the half-mile Move Culver City Eastern Segment closed a key bikeway network gap with new bus and bike lanes on Washington and Adams.

There’s a special place in hell for the hit-and-run driver who knocked a 13-year old boy off his bicycle as he rode home from school in Cerritos last week, leaving the kid with a mouth full of broken teeth.

State

Calbike is hosting a webinar at noon tomorrow to discuss their strategic plan for 2030. My strategic plan is to still be on this side of the dirt by then.

A 46-year-old Rancho Cucamonga man faces a murder charge for attacking a homeless man riding a bicycle in a parking lot May 6th; 57-year-old Ricardo Castanon died of his injuries on Saturday.

A 15-year old boy suffered a broken leg when he slammed his Class 2 ebike into the side of a car in Pacific Beach, after the 17-year old driver made an illegal U-turn in front of him.

More proof there are still good people in the world, as the Ramona community rallied around a 37-year old autistic man after his ebike was stolen from the Circle K where he works, as one person donated a used ebike, others raised over $1,500 on a crowdfunding campaign, and a nearby business owner confronted the thief directly, demanding he return the ebike — which he did.

Like mother, like daughter, I guess. When Britney Spears was being arrested for DUI in Ventura County in March, she blurted out that her mom had killed a bicyclist in 1975; her mother Lynne was acquitted for killing a 12-year old boy when she was 20 years old.

An award-winning San Francisco chef reduces the stress of running two restaurants in the city while opening two more in Napa with “lethally fast” century rides.

Sad news from Roseville, where a bike rider was killed in a collision Monday morning. Or at least everyone is assuming it was the bike rider who died, and not the driver.

National

A writer for CNET says yes, you can replace your ebike with an AI-powered exoskeleton and a regular bicycle, but maybe you don’t want to.

Cycling West looks at “the incredible life of Paul Willerton,” a nearly lifelong bicyclist and founder of the bicycling sock brand DeFeet, who helped Greg LeMond recover his bike skills after he got an accidental shotgun blast to the gut courtesy of LeMond’s brother-in-law, who mistook the cycling great for a turkey.

Electrek examines the rise of the bike bus, and why people love them so much — like the weekly Roosevelt Bike Bus to Burbank’s Roosevelt Elementary School.

Now you, too, can be replaced by a robot, as engineering students at Olin College in Massachusetts have designed and built an autonomous self-balancing bicycle.

The New York Times examines the free adult bicycling classes offered by a local nonprofit group, full of nervous novice riders, many of whom are women.

A Complete Unknown and Marty Supreme star Timothée Chalamet is one of us, riding a bikeshare around New York on Friday.

A 48-year old Queens, New York man was critically injured when he was doored by a 15-year old girl opening the back door of the car she was in, knocking him into the path of an oncoming car. Dooring is one of the most common types of bicycling crashes, which is why both the Bike League and CyclingSavvy recommend riding in the middle of the traffic lane, away from swinging doors.

No need to complain about the new bike lanes in the Town of Carthage, North Carolina, because they aren’t.

A Naples, Florida man faces charges for intentionally crashing his car into a child riding an ebike, swerving towards the victim before revving his engine and crashing into the kid — apparently for the crime of being out riding the bike after getting suspended from school.

International

A couple men are in the midst of a 50-day, 2,500-mile bike ride to raise awareness of the plight of Whooping Cranes, North America’s most endangered bird; the men are following the Central Flyway migration route from the Gulf Coast through central Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas, and the prairies of central Saskatchewan, Canada.

She gets it. A British Columbia woman writes that bike lanes aren’t a luxury for her family, and that “blaming traffic problems on bike lanes ignores the fact that an increasing proportion of people are choosing or needing to bike.” Amen, sister.

British taxpayers can continue to claim a 20 pence per mile credit on their taxes for riding a bike to work, which works out to about 27 cents a mile on this side of the Atlantic.

Spandau Ballet lead guitarist and songwriter Gary Kemp is one of us, bicycling for “fitness, camaraderie and stories,” as well as his mental health.

Cops in an Irish town face a backlash after accusing abusive “male youths on bicycles wearing dark clothing” of damaging the local castle’s gardens by building a bike ramp. But why would bicycles need to wear dark clothing?

An Irish woman explores why making sustainable choices like giving up meat and riding a bicycle prompt such rage and outsized emotions.

The Global Times offers photos from the weekend’s spring bicycle festival in Moscow, Russia. Which looks like what you could expect at any CicLAvia.

ABC — no, the other one — examines the long and painful road to a bike-friendly Australia.

Competitive Cycling

You can probably close the door on this year’s Giro d’Italia, after Jonas Vingegaard claimed the maglia rosa leader’s jersey on Saturday, while his Visma Lease a Bike team took firm control of the race.

Italian cyclist Enrico Zanoncello learned the hard way that one of the easiest ways to get kicked out of the Giro d’Italia is headbutting a competitor, after knocking rival sprinter Bob Donaldson off his bike in the closing meters of stage 15.

Belgian pro Victor Campenaerts fessed up to being behind the Giro’s pee-gate, admitting that he was the one who relieved himself in empty water bottles and tossed them to the side of the road.

Cycling Weekly takes a look at the competitors for this weekend’s 20th edition of Unbound Gravel in the Flint Hills region of east-central Kansas, including defending champ Cam Jones and our old favorite Taylor Phinney, with Polish cyclist Karolina Migoń and three-time US gravel champ Lauren Stephens heading up the women’s roster.

Finally…

Treat your kid to an officially branded Peppa Pig bike. That feeling when your Amazon cargo bike gets tree-bombed. If you’re going to steal a bicycle from under the nose of a cop, make sure they’re busy with more important things, first.

And yes, it is possible to make cars go bye.

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin.

Category: Morning Links / Tags: aggressive drivers, anti-bike harassment, anti-ebike hysteria, bicycling, ebikes, Los Angeles, mental health, road rage, traffic violence, wellbeing

Update: Man riding ebike killed by hit-and-run driver in LA’s Jefferson Park neighborhood; 8th SoCal bike rider killed in hit-and-run this year

April 27, 2026 / bikinginla / Comments Off

Another day, another person killed riding an ebike in Southern California.

This time in Los Angeles.

And this time in a hit-and-run.

Just hours after a 13-year old boy was killed by was killed by an Amtrak train in Simi Valley, a man was killed by a driver in the Jefferson Park neighborhood of Los Angeles.

According to KTLA-5, which is currently the only outlet reporting on the crash, the victim was struck while riding near 36th Street and 5th Ave around 11 pm Saturday night.

The victim, described only as a man around 48-years old, was thrown onto a parked car with enough force to cause significant damage to the rear of the car.

He died at the scene.

The driver fled following the crash. No arrest has been made, and there is currently no description of the suspect vehicle.

There is also no word on how the crash occurred, or where the victim and the driver were located in relation to the intersection.

We also don’t know at this time what kind of ebike the victim was riding; whether it was a Class 1, 2 or 3 ebike, or an e-motorbike or electric dirt bike. An earlier report describes the bike as a motorized or motorbike, but that description was removed from the later update.

The earlier report also describes the victim as 38-years old.

This the 28th bicycling fatality that I’m aware of in Southern California this year, and the tenth in Los Angeles County; it’s also the fifth we know about in the City of Los Angeles.

Eight of those deaths have involved hit-and-run drivers.

As always, there is a standing $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of any fatal hit-and-run driver in the City of Los Angeles.

Update: The victim has been identified only as a 38-year old man, pending notification of next-of-kin, while police are now looking for the owner of a dark-colored Jeep Wrangler, no model year given.

Anyone with information is urged to call Officer Diaz and Sergeant Nily at 323/421-2577, or 1-877/527-3247 during non-business hours. Or call anonymously at 1-800/222-8477 or lacrimestoppers.org.

Update 2: The victim has been identified as 37-year old Melvin Salgado, no city of residence given.

My deepest sympathy and prayers for Melvin Salgado and all his loved ones.

Category: Injuries and Fatalities / Tags: bicycling fatality, ebikes, hit-and-run, Jefferson Park, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, Melvin Salgado

« Older Entries

BikinginLA

Tag Archive for ebikes

Share this:

Like this:

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

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

Local

State

National

International

Competitive Cycling

Finally…

Share this:

Like this:

Local

State

National

International

Competitive Cycling

Finally…

Share this:

Like this:

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

Local

State

National

International

Competitive Cycling

Finally…

Share this:

Like this:

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

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

Local

State

National

International

Competitive Cycling

Finally…

Share this:

Like this:

California Senate Passes SB 1167 to Crack Down on Illegal E-Motos Fraudulently Sold as E-Bikes

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

Local

State

National

International

Competitive Cycling

Finally…

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

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

Local

State

National

International

Competitive Cycling

Finally…

Share this:

Like this:

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

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

Local

State

National

International

Competitive Cycling

Finally…

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Recent Posts

Archives

Categories

Recent Comments

Recent Posts

Subscribe to Blog via Email