A new report from Streetlight shows New York led the nation in per-capita bicycling rates, with slightly smaller Boise, Idaho a close second.
New York City topped the bicycle miles-per-capita rankings at 58 miles annually per resident, followed by Boise, Idaho, at 53 miles…
Meanwhile, Jersey City showed the strongest bicycle density after New York, with 7,893 bicycle miles traveled annually per square mile, nearly three times the third-ranked San Francisco’s figure.
Irvine made the top ten at number five; needless to say, Los Angeles did not.
I’d like to tell you where Los Angeles ranked in the nation’s top 100 cities, but the online application form for the report refused to work for me.
Our spokescorgi reminds you to vote early and often, and no later than November 3rd.
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In a story hidden behind their paywall, the Atlanta Constitution Journal talks with the 73-year old driver who’s charged with intentionally plowing his car into a group of bike riders on Sugar Pike Road in Cherokee County, Georgia, injuring two of the victims.
He, of course, blames the victims, despite passing close enough to knock off his wing mirror while blaring his horn, and promises to take the case to the Supreme Court if he’s convicted.
Eight days after the incident on Sugar Pike Road, which was captured on video and viewed millions of times on the internet, Ross was released from the Cherokee County jail on $24,540 bond. He was indicted last week for aggravated battery, two counts of aggravated assault, and leaving the scene of an accident, among other charges, which means, if convicted, he could be sent to prison long enough to die there. He’s on the arraignment calendar for Nov. 4…
The incident made national headlines in April and May. It was covered by TMZ, People, and the New York Post. Ross finally told his side of the story in October, in extensive interviews with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, where he made it clear he has no intention of going to prison. He plans to spend his final years in the same house where he’s lived since 1986, up a hill on a cul-de-sac between the Woodstock city limits and the Fulton County line, with his Florida Gators doorbell and his Gators shower curtain and an easy chair where he can sit and watch Florida Gators football.
Ross insists he did nothing wrong on Sugar Pike Road that day in April. He will fight to prove that claim.
“I’ll take this to the Supreme Court,” he said.
Except the Supreme Court would undoubtedly refuse to hear it, because there’s no constitutional issue at stake, unless he can argue that it’s in the national interest to require bicyclists to ride single file, and that the state’s three-foot passing law somehow discriminates against motorists.
Even though it isn’t, and it doesn’t.
It’s worth finding a way around the paper’s paywall to read the whole story, if only to see how some people justify driving dangerously, and blame anyone but themselves. And far too many side with them in the court of public opinion, even when the victims did everything by the book.
Never mind that anyone who admits to having to pull over due to dizzy spells because of their prescription medication shouldn’t be on the road in the first place.
And I say that as someone who gave up his own keys because of the effects of my own prescription meds.
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Streets For All offers their endorsements for the upcoming election.
I’d add to that list Colin Hernandez, who is running against incumbent Rick Zbur for California 51st State Assembly District. Zbur supported the recent bill making it nearly impossible to improve safety on Forest Lawn Drive. And I’m told he’s been working behind the scenes to halt the bike lanes planned for Fountain Ave in West Hollywood.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
A Texas advocacy group condemned remarks from Republican congressional candidate Brandon Herrera, who publicly fantasized about running over bicyclists in an apparent failed attempt at humor.
Utterly disgusting testimony from a British court, where a man is on trial for dragging a 56-year old bike rider to his death; a passenger in the car says they could hear the victim moaning from underneath the car, and the driver kept swerving until he finally dislodged the victim, after twice trying and failing to pull him out from under his car — then spent the night afterwards laughing, drinking and joking.
No bias here. The leader of Britain’s far-right Restore Britain announced the party’s new ebike policy by declaring that the country’s sidewalks “are not racetracks for young foreign men,” while failing to make any distinction between legal and illegal ebikes. Or residents, apparently.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
A 27-year old man was critically injured when he was struck by another bike rider in Harlem, New York on Thursday, while riding an ebike the wrong way in an eastbound bike lane; the other man was in stable condition with head and body injuries.
No bias here. An English paper says cows and ants have figured out how to travel in single file, so bike riders should be able to, too, showing a photo of bicyclists riding on both sides of a narrow country road. Never mind that it’s a narrow country road, and occupying both lanes prevents impatient drivers from passing unsafely.
Police in Newcastle, England are looking for bike-riding man who broke the wing mirror off a car following an argument, then punched the two women inside and repeatedly slammed the car door on the driver’s leg. But other than that, he was a perfect gentleman, right?
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Local
Biking While Black will host a book reading of the new graphic novel Major Taylor: The World’s Fastest Man, with author Frederick Noland on Sunday, November 1st at Leimert Park’s Ride On! Bike Shop.
Not only did LA Lakers star Luka Dončić pay for parking for fans attending the team’s season opener, he also partnered with Metro to arrange free Metro Bike rides throughout Los Angeles. Of course, most of us didn’t learn about it until afterwards, but still.
Long Beach will add about 700 ped-assist ebikes to the city’s bikeshare fleet next year, with “thousands” more to come before the ’28 LA Olympics.
State
Encinitas plans to sue California over a recently enacted law that will prevent them from legally removing a protected bike lane from the roadway across from a high school, although they may try to move forward with it anyway. Even though next to a school is exactly where a bike lane should be protected.
Good news for California is bad news for Connecticut, where Cannondale is closing its headquarters and laying off 100 people after 50 years, and moving its offices to Santa Cruz.
Bad news from San Jose, where someone riding a bicycle suffered life-threatening injuries when they were struck by a driver Thursday night.
Wailaki tribal descendants are trying to toss a monkey wrench into the 307-mile Great Redwood Trail hiking and biking path being built along a defunct Northern California rail line, decrying people trampling on their ancestral villages and gravesites.
National
Seattle Bike Blog offers more details on the lawsuit filed by relatives of a 30-year old elementary school teacher who was killed in a right hook following a sudden right turn by a driver of a garbage truck. Thanks to Mike for the heads-up.
An 88-year old man made his first court appearance after killing a man at the Tour de Fat bike parade in my bike friendly Colorado hometown; Van Lemaster faces multiple charges for crashing into a car while backing out of a parking space, then flooring his car in the opposite direction, jumping the curb and plowing into several people, killing a 33-year old man. Although at his age, anything less than the minimum on each count would likely be a life sentence.
A Houston, Texas man faces an aggravated assault charge after a teenager rode his bike near the man’s truck in a parking lot, accused of punching the kid in the face while yelling racial slurs, then crashing his truck into to boy and his bike before fleeing the scene; the man was driving despite extensive record of assault and drug-related charges over the past three decades.
Islands Magazine heralds tiny Sparta, Wisconsin as the Bicycling Capital of America since 1990 — with roughly 10% of the population of ancient Sparta — to the surprise of virtually every other bicycling town in America.
Police in Cleveland arrested the driver accused of plowing into multiple vehicles on a multi-mile hit-and-run rampage, before killing a “beloved” bicyclist.
New York Streetsblog talks with the president and public relations director of the Century Road Club Association, America’s oldest bike racing club, founded in 1898 in New York’s Central Park.
New Jersey may walk back its recently enacted draconian ebike laws by exempting Class 1 and 2 ped-assist bikes from the requirement for a license and registration.
International
The lawyer for a Saskatchewan driver says he was just scared and confused following a collision on a dark road, and shouldn’t be held criminally responsible for the hit-and-run death of a 21-year old BMX rider, even though prosecutors say he was drunk, speeding and looking at his phone.
If you build it, they will come. Over half of the adults in Montreal rode a bicycle last year, with 58% of adults taking to two wheels after the city built out a 685-mile bike network.
Bicyclists were banned from pedestrianized zones in Clermont-Ferrand, France, meaning the Tour de France Femmes peloton could be the only bicyclists permitted to ride in large parts of the city next year; the race will finish on the iconic Puy de Dôme, approximately six miles from town.
Time Magazine has named the Aerobag wearable airbag safety kit for bicyclists to their list of the best inventions of 2026; the eponymous Belgian company has been working on developing the device since the death of Bjorg Lambrecht at the 2019 Tour de Pologne.
Competitive Cycling
Good news from Tennessee, where 19-year old cyclocross star Tofik Beshir is out of the ICU and responsive after he was hit head-on by a driver while training near Lees-McRae College in North Carolina nearly two weeks ago.
You gotta respect Tennessee’s Milligan University, which achieved four top fifteen results at this year’s USA Cycling Collegiate Mountain Bike National Championships in Grand Junction, Colorado, less that two months after two team members were killed when a driver plowed into the cycling team on a training ride.
More bad news from the world of bike racing, however, where a competitor in Latvia’s amateur Vienība cycle race died after collapsing in last month’s race; the 1930s race was resumed in 1995 after the country regained its independence from the Soviet Union.
Finally…
As anyone who has ever seen a horror movie knows, when a strange man invites you to leave the bike path and follow him to “his spot” in the woods, don’t. A tree toppled and landed on two cars during this week’s storm across from the Taco Bell and Dave’s Hot Chicken on Western Ave, in case you want to ride by to say thanks and pay your respects.
And if you have to risk arrest for being a spy in a country where you don’t speak the language, maybe think twice about riding alone somewhere on a terrorist watchlist.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin.
