Tag Archive for fixie

Morning Links: Bikes are good for business, SF fixie legend dies, and Seattle radio station wants to kill their listeners

September 11, 2019 / / Comments Off on Morning Links: Bikes are good for business, SF fixie legend dies, and Seattle radio station wants to kill their listeners

Yet another study confirms that bikes are good for business. 

As Treehugger notes, anytime someone proposes installing a bike lane on a commercial street, business owners complain it will put them out of business.

But the reality is just the opposite.

After an initial transition period as customers adjust to the changes, sales usually go up for some businesses, such as restaurants and cafes, while remaining unchanged for others.

That was the case in Toronto, where businesses fought tooth-and-nail against a protected bike lane that most would probably fight to keep today.

According to the study,

The number of merchants on Bloor Street reporting more than 100 customers per day increased substantially and significantly for food service/bar and retail establishments on both Saturdays and weekdays. No significant changes were detected for service establishments…

Our results indicate the business environment on Bloor Street improved during the time of the study: Reported visitor spending rose, visit frequency increased, estimated customer counts show growth in the number of customers, and vacancy rates held steady… Other data we collected from the visitor survey are consistent with positive changes in the pilot area. The proportion of shoppers driving to the neighborhood remained unchanged at 9%, and that of shoppers arriving on bicycles rose considerably from 8% to 22%.

Just most evidence that businesses in retail districts that fight bike lanes are just shooting themselves in the foot.

And chasing more business away.

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Sad news from San Francisco, where the city’s Yellow Bike Company announced the death of fixie legend Keo Curry.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B2NtIQllA8P/?utm_source=ig_embed

Curry also explored LA’s rising fixed gear scene in the groundbreaking documentary To Live & Ride in L.A.

No cause of death was given.

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What the hell is wrong with some people?

Apparently annoyed at people on bicycles taking a shortcut through their precious parking lot, on-air personalities from a Portland radio station set up barriers to block them, while joking about clotheslining anyone who still comes through.

Apparently, they neglected to consider that some of their listeners — the people who keep them employed by tuning in — might just ride bikes themselves.

And that someone might actually be offended by that crap.

So they issued the sort of non-apology apology that’s become standard these days.

My advice would be to just avoid their station.

In the parking lot. And on the dial.

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Once again, a man has died at the hands of police for what began as a simple traffic stop.

When a Las Vegas man took off running after police tried to pull him over for not having a headlight on his bike, a pair of cops chased him down, then kneeled on his back as the man complained he couldn’t breathe.

Which turned out to be his last words.

He was found with drugs and a gun, and had slipped an ankle monitor, which explains why he ran.

But what it doesn’t explain is why police didn’t respond to his complaint about not being able to breathe once they had him in custody.

And why they allowed a traffic stop to escalate into a lethal use of force.

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Unbelievable.

New York cops try to chase off a group of young bike riders hanging out in a parking lot by ordering them to leave.

Then one cop starts beating on a rider’s spokes with his baton in an apparent effort to keep them from doing exactly that.

Or maybe just for the hell of it.

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A Michigan state agency offers a 360° view of a new mountain bike trail that looks more like a very shaky 140° view, at most.

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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes is all too real.

A Denver bike rider is lucky to be alive after a truck driver apparently ran him down on purpose for the crime of being ahead of him at an intersection, escaping with just cuts and bruises; however, his bike was not so lucky.

A seriously disturbed Illinois man faces charges after chasing a 12-year old kid with his truck as the boy desperately tried to pedal away from him, eventually running over his bike, then grabbing the boy and threatening to kill him before strangers eventually intervened. There’s not a pit in hell deep enough.

A North Carolina man faces charges for intentionally slamming his car into a man on a bicycle following a dispute. But give him credit for one of the best booking photos ever. And by best, I mean worst.

A road raging British driver got six months behind bars and a ridiculously short 15-month driving ban for running down a teenage bike rider who got ahead of him at a red light, then getting out and punching the kid, shouting “Little shit, you’ve done this.” A 15-year ban on driving would be more like it. Oh what the hell, let’s just make it a lifetime prohibition, which is what it should be.

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

London police put out an APB for a head butt butt head after the bike-raging man turned around to knock his noggin into a pedestrian, who apparently had the right of way, after nearly colliding with him on the street.

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Local

Both The Argonaut and TV station KNBC-4 look forward to Sunday’s COAST open streets event in Santa Monica; the somewhat shorter CicLAvia equivalent runs from 10 am to 4 pm.

Spectrum News 1 examines the sorry state of Sunset Blvd, where bike riders argue that replacing the street’s narrow door zone — and often truck-blocked — bike lane with a protected lane would improve safety for everyone.

The chef behind Santa Monica’s new French restaurant Pasjoli is one of us, meeting a reporter in his not-yet-open bistro with his black roadie propped against the wall. I like the joint already.

The Daily Breeze reviews Manhattan Beach restaurant Jimmy’s Kouzina, now operated by the son of the original chef and owner, who was killed in a bicycling crash ten years ago, before the restaurant could be rebuilt following a fire.

 

State

The state legislature passed California’s Complete Streets bill, which now moves on to the governor’s desk for signing; the bill requires Caltrans to include all road users in any new work on streets controlled by the state.

Tragic news from San Diego, where a teenaged mountain biker is paralyzed from the shoulders down after missing a 32-foot jump.

The San Diego County Bicycle Coalition is partnering with a local artist for a bike-themed art exhibition this Sunday.

Finishing our San Diego trifecta, a cancer survivor is planning to ride his bike from San Diego to Florida to meet the family of his heart donor.

Berkeley police use federal traffic funds to target people riding through stop signs on bicycle boulevards, where they might possibly pose a risk to, uh…someone. Yes, everyone should stop for stop signs, at lest until we finally pass an Idaho Stop Law here. But there are probably places where targeting people for running stop signs would do a lot more good.

Six yeas later, a Chico family struggles to forgive the drunk driver who killed their daughter as she rode her bike home from college classes, as her killer is about to be released from prison.

 

National

They get it. The National Association of City Transportation Officials, better known as NACTO, wants to fit self-driving cars into cities designed for people, rather than the other way around.

Good idea. A Seattle writer takes an anti-bike city council candidate out for a bike ride on a dangerous street. And maybe sort-of wins him over.

Life is cheap in Tulsa, Oklahoma, when a woman walks without a day behind bars for killing a bike rider while driving drunk, as the judge somehow decides that a ten year suspended sentence is justice for taking an innocent man’s life. Seriously, if she’d accidentally shot him instead of using a car, the sentence would probably have been a lot different. Yet the result is the same.

Talk about getting the story wrong. Writing for her college paper, a Wisconsin journalism student somehow conflates the Milwaukee bikeshare’s new ebikes with e-scooters, saying they increase the danger for everyone. She should get an F for this one. The slightest bit of research would have told her that ped-assist ebikes are no better or worse than any other bike when it comes to safety or ease of operation. 

A small Ohio bike shop is surviving competition from chain stores and online businesses by building their own one-of-a-kind bicycles customized for riders with special needs, as well as hosting their own podcast.

Maybe it’s lower overhead. The owner of a Buffalo NY ice cream bike wants to ride every street in the city, selling ice cream bars for just a buck — and giving them away to anyone who can’t pay.

A 13-year old Schenectady NY boy was stabbed in the back by a 12-year old boy who wanted his bicycle. And got it, until the police showed up. Fortunately, the victim should be okay; police described his wounds as minor.

A new New York study shows if you want to get across Manhattan, ride a bike, saying two wheels will get you there faster than four.

Virginia bike advocates call on Amazon to convert an existing bike lane near their new second HQ into a protected lane, saying it could be done for as little as $20,000.

 

International

Treehugger’s Lloyd Alter concludes that maybe buying an ebike online isn’t so bad after all. My advice is still to buy any bike from a local bike shop if you can find the one you want; the service you get should more than make up for what you’d save buying online. If it doesn’t, find another LBS, ’cause that one’s broken.

Road.cc looks at the latest bike tech products from the recent Eurobike show, practical and otherwise.

After a London driver ran down a teenage bike rider and dragged him under his car before fleeing on foot, a group of bystanders lifted the still-smoking car off the victim to free him; sadly though, police described his injuries as life-changing, despite their efforts.

A UK advocacy group calls for banning parking in bike lanes and on sidewalks in the country. It’s shocking that either is actually legal — but especially the latter.

Seriously? A British woman says Copenhagen — and the rest of Denmark — is a virtual hellscape for anyone not on two wheels.

A German sociologist calls cars weapons of mass destruction, and argues that driving is a drug that kills millions of people.

An international group of yoga instructors will bike nearly 2,500 miles across India to the Himalayas, offering free classes to school children along the way.

 

Competitive Cycling

Pro cyclocross rider Andrew Juiliano describes struggling with ulcerative colitis before doctors at LA’s Cedars Sinai finally got his disease under control, allowing him to finish the race he abandoned two years earlier.

Bicycling says Australia’s Bec McConnell might be the comeback story of the year for finishing third in the XC MTB worlds, after sitting out last year due to a persistent illness.

What’s worse than doping? Former pro cyclist and Olympic cycling champion Alexandre Vinokourov and fellow Russian cyclist Alexandr Kolobnev could face up to six months in jail for allegedly fixing the 2010 Liege-Bastogne-Liege race. Anyone who thinks six months is an adequate sentence for fixing a bike race raise your hands.

Eurosport remembers Belgium’s Deloor brothers, who ruled the Vuelta after winning the first edition in 1935, before WWII interrupted their careers; Gustaaf Deloor was captured by the Nazis, survived a concentration camp and later emigrated to the US. And helped build engines for the first moon landing.

 

Finally…

Don’t bet on how long an African despot will live if you’re not going to give up your bicycle if you lose. Why just ride to the bay when you can bike on it?

And giving it the old college try to pedal their way to a human powered vehicle record.

 

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Morning Links: 15-year old fixie rider dragged 1,000 feet by hit-and-run driver, and a flaming bagpipe unicycle ride

August 7, 2019 / / Comments Off on Morning Links: 15-year old fixie rider dragged 1,000 feet by hit-and-run driver, and a flaming bagpipe unicycle ride

Horrible news from South LA, where a 15-year old boy was critically injured by a hit-and-run driver who sped off, leaving him bleeding in the streets.

While the story identifies him as a pedestrian, he was actually riding or walking with what appears to be a fixie when he was run down by a heartless coward at Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Woodlawn Avenue around 9 pm last night — then dragged over the length of a football field under the driver’s car.

That’s around 1,000 feet.

Police described the victim as barely alive.

Officers are looking for a 2007 or 2008 dark blue or green Honda Accord with tinted windows and front-end damage.

As always, there is a standing $25,000 reward for any hit-and-run involving serious injuries in the City of Los Angeles, which will increase to $50,000 if the worst happens.

Let’s hope they catch this murderous jerk.

And pray that the boy he tried to kill by not stopping makes a fast and full recovery.

Update: The victim has been identified by his mother as Roberto Diaz, who was riding in a crosswalk after buying a soda at a nearby store when he was run down by a driver who blew through a stop sign. 

The driver stopped briefly when he or she was followed by witnesses before taking off again. 

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Apparently, parking is a common theme today.

Harbor Area planning commissioners approve plans for a new 80-room hotel in San Pedro, with 56 parking spaces for drivers, and all of five — count ’em, 5 — spaces for people with bicycles.

A massive new San Diego commercial development will feature just 90 short-term bike racks, along with 90 long-term bike lockers, to compliment nearly 1,400 parking spaces for motor vehicles. Not exactly the way to encourage people to leave their cars at home.

A bike-riding Seattle business owner says he’d rather keep the street parking in front of his cafe and put a planned bike lane somewhere else, evidently preferring his current customers to getting more business from people like him. And before someone says Seattle isn’t Amsterdam, maybe it should be. Then again, so should Los Angeles.

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Trek’s podcast talks with the founder of Black Girls Do Bike, who deserves the Medal of Freedom. Or sainthood. Or something.

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Security video captures a Kansas City-area driver plow through a crosswalk without looking, and right into a bicyclist riding in it.

Then the police ticket the driver, as well as both bike riders for not waiting for the walk signal even though they had the green light.

………

Former Top Gear host James May calls on drivers to live in peace with fellow road users, and not “buy into the anti-cycling thing.”

………

Local

The LA Weekly goes on a bicycle pastry tour through LA’s Fairfax District and points east. And gives a shout out to former Flying Pigeon owner Josef Bray-Ali’s popular Get Some Dim Sum rides. 

Streetsblog’s Joe Linton explains LA’s wonky and acronym-heavy shift from LOS to VMT, saying it’s “likely to have big ramifications for making L.A. healthier, more walkable, more bikeable, and transit-friendly.”

Plans to redevelop the aging South Bay Galleria include what are obliquely described as “bicycle connections,” whatever that means in real life.

No need for guilt when you attend a track cycling race at the VELO Sports Center on the complex that houses Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, which Los Angeles Magazine calls the world’s most sustainable soccer facility, right down to its fleet of cruiser bikes for workers to traverse the expansive grounds.

 

State

In today’s faux soap opera report, ebikes have infiltrated the Real Housewives of Orange County, as Kelly Dodd presents her plastic surgeon boyfriend with a William Shatner-approved Pedego. And no, I had no idea who Dodd is, or anyone else on the show for that matter. But hey, good taste in gift giving.

A man was shot in the hand by a bike-jacker just after dark on bike path in the San Pasqual area near Escondido; he was shot as he raised his hands after the armed thief jumped out from behind some rocks and demanded his bicycle.

Everyone was on their best behavior as thousands of people turn out for Santa Barbara’s long-running Fiesta Cruiser Ride, after police cracked down on previous rides.

These are difficult days for local bike shops trying to compete in today’s online shopping world, as demonstrated by two bike shops closing in San Luis Obispo in just the last week.

The Davis Enterprise offers a quartet of stories celebrating the US Bicycling Hall of Fame on its 10th birthday, calling it the most bikey thing about the bike-mad town and part of the fabric of the community, while noting that the hall may shift gears in the future.

 

National

If anyone is shocked that Uber and Lyft are making traffic congestion worse, you need to get out more. But at least they finally admit it.

Ebike price continue to drop, as Electrek and Verge like the new Swagtron EB12 city bike, which checks in at penny under $1,000; the best part is it looks like an actual bicycle. And hopefully rides that way.

Great idea. A new bike light currently crowdfunding online offers dual lights, with one forward-facing 500 lumen LED to light the road, and another back-facing LED to make the rider more visible to drivers.

C|net compares a pair of low cost GoPro alternatives to the real thing.

A pair of cancer survivors just rode 4,000 miles across the US to promote bone marrow donations and raise $24,000 for the organization that helped save their own lives.

The mountain bike front derailleur isn’t dead yet, it’s just 90% off.

Hats off to a Boise, Idaho pawnshop owner, who helped bust a serial bike thief trying to unload $40,000 worth of bicycles reportedly stolen in Washington, California, Nevada, Florida, Colorado, Virginia, and North Carolina.

After 45 years, savage serial killer Ted Bundy’s last case was finally closed, 45 years after he took the life of a young Colorado woman as she was out for a bike ride.

A Kansas man is on trial for aggravated battery for critically injuring MMA fighter Carmella James while she was riding her bicycle to work; police believe he was under the influence, but don’t appear to have tested him.

A San Antonio TX bike rider was shot in the back in a drive-by.

An Arkansas bicycle coordinator says bike helmets are great, but mandatory helmet laws aren’t.

Yes, 288-pound NFL star JJ Watt replaced a young Green Bay Packers fan’s bicycle, after breaking the boy’s bike riding it to training camp.

Broadway actor Noah Galvin is one of us, riding along Manhattan’s Riverfront Park when he’s not performing in the hit show Waitress.

It takes a humongous schmuck to steal not one, not two, but three ghost bikes dedicated to a Virginia woman’s sister, who calls them a powerful symbol of a life lost.

A North Carolina city legalizes riding on the sidewalk as a stopgap measure until they get a planned bike lane network installed, recognizing that their streets aren’t currently safe for people on bicycles. On the other hand, riding on the sidewalk usually isn’t any safer; in fact, it usually increases your risk due to limited sight lines.

They get it. In a New Orleans podcast, bike advocates say we’ll have peace on the road when everyone has a piece of the road; meanwhile, the host of the podcast says progress on the city’s bike network is “worth the inconvenience of adapting to it.” I like him already.

 

International

No bias here. European truck drivers say they’ll give bike riders a safe passing distance as long as we’re required to wear hi-vis and and use daytime lights.

The family of a fallen London bike rider call for safer streets after the pioneering physician was fatally doored last September.

WTF? A local UK council gets an injunction preventing bike riders from meeting or congregating at a new cycling café. Which raises the obvious question of what exactly is the point of a cycling café if cyclists can’t use it. And if you bump into someone there who also rides a bike, does one of you have to leave?

The former Posh Spice is one of us, as she goes for a bike ride on a romantic Italian getaway with husband David Beckham and their four kids.

Travel and Leisure says the best way to see the scenic Swiss countryside is by bicycle, even if you’re a beginning rider.

A Luxembourg website lists the most common traffic violations for the country’s bicyclists, while noting that bike riders were only held accountable for 40% of bike crashes. The question is how many drivers were ticketed for the same crashes.

News reports question whether the president of Turkmenistan is suffering from a serious illness — or worse — despite recent news clips showing him riding and participating in other activities, which could have been outtakes from previous clips.

 

Competitive Cycling

Underscoring the danger pro cyclists face on a daily basis, the director of the Tour de Pologne, aka Tour of Poland, blames the tragic death of 22-year old Belgian cyclist Bjorg Lambrecht on a single “moment of hesitation.”

Yesterday’s stage of the Tour of Poland was transformed to a solemn memorial procession with the peloton riding in Lambrecht’s honor.

A writer for Cycling Weekly recalls the pivotal role Lambrecht played in an extraordinary day of racing at a U-23 race trough the Pyrenees.

Cycling Tips questions how long on-and-off road cycling champ Mathieu van der Poel can keep up his torrid pace.

Who says women can’t compete with the men? Twenty-four-year old German cancer researcher Fiona Kolbinger became the first woman to win the European Transcontinental Race, covering 2,485 miles across the continent in just 10 days, two hours and 48 minutes to beat 265 other riders. And it was her first bike race.

Finally…

This is what you might call an epic bike lane fail. Take your pooch on a Jump bike ride.

And we’ll just end on this one without comment.

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