That’s right. Just five days left to show your support for SoCal’s best source for bike news and advocacy. Along with the late Corgi’s last days as spokesdog for this site.
A member of San Diego’s Mobility Board questions if the city is doing more harm than good by removing 430 parking spaces to make room for protected bike lanes in the North Park neighborhood. Short answer, no.
Nice story. When someone stole a bike belonging to a high school student in Half Moon Bay, he soon spotted someone riding it and confronted the thief, but decided to let him keep it because the other kid probably needed it more that he did. When the local sheriff’s department heard about it, they found an abandoned bike, refurbished it and gave it to him as a reward for his selfless act.
National
Unbelievable. Omaha, Nebraska ripped out a bike corral after the bike shop it fronted closed down, preferring to regain one lousy car parking space instead of parking for a dozen bicycles; bike riders tried to halt the removal by rushing to lock their bikes to the racks, but the city took them out anyway.
A somewhat strange New Hampshire letter writer says only give your wife a Peloton bike if you’re a man’s man; otherwise, be a girly man and go to a jewelry store.
A three-year old girl from the UK born with a severe birth defect is now walking and riding a bike, after doctors had given her zero chance of ever walking.
Life is cheap — and grossly unfair — in Australia, where a 20-year old Iranian refugee got just 10 months in a youth facility for falling asleep at the wheel and killing a 49-year old father riding his bike to work; his short sentence means he won’t be deported. His victim’s family won’t be so lucky; after losing their husband and father, they face deportation because they were in the country on his employment visa.
And if you’re using a distinctive pink and purple kid’s bike as your getaway vehicle following an armed robbery, you probably don’t want to ride it back past the scene of the crime a few minutes later.
October 30, 2019 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Morning Links: Big Easy drunk driver gets 91 years, Cathedral City bike rider critically injured, and safety in numbers real
Come back after 10 am today for a guest post from our anonymous courtroom correspondent, as she updates a number of recent stories — including the case of hit-and-run driver Pratiti Renee Mehta, who walked despite showing no remorse for her crime, or any sympathy for her victim.
Your next ebike could be a California bikemaker’s 36 mph bicycle made to look look like a vintage motorcycle, and designed by the grandson of the legendary Carrol Shelby. Although the 36 mph top end means it will require a helmet and a motorcycle license. And can’t be ridden in bike lanes or pathways.
Zwift wants you to help raise $25,000 for Movember to help fight prostate cancer, testicular cancer, mental health struggles and suicide prevention by riding your bike indoors.
Bike Magreviews the updated Camelbak Podium bottle, and flips over now being able to disassemble the lid to clean it. However, the insulated Podium Ice water bottle remains the best bike bottle ever in my book.
No surprise here, as the family of the British man killed by an American diplomat’s wife while riding his motorcycle, who fled the country after claiming diplomatic immunity, is suing the Trump administration for its handling of the case.
Today’s common theme is a mostly one-sided debate over whether it’s possible to encourage bicycling and other forms of so-called alternative transportation to reduce motor vehicle traffic.
When your rap name is Lil Bike, you’ve got to include at least one in your new video.
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Building your own DIY bike horn to scare the crap out of anyone.
Except, of course, for modern drivers in their hermetically sealed, virtually soundproof vehicles, who can’t even hear a firetruck bearing down on them.
Unfortunately, I lost track of who forwarded this to me over the weekend, so my thanks and apologies, whoever you are.
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The war on cars is a myth, but the war on bikes is all too real.
California’s ebike voucher bill was passed by the legislature and signed into law by Governor Newsom; it will allow some low-income drivers to trade in their inefficient cars for vouchers good for bikeshare or ebike purchases. Unfortunately, I suspect my 1994 car is still one year too recent to qualify, dammit.
Sad news from Bakersfield, where a man riding a bicycle was left lying in the road by a hit-and-run driver, and struck again by the driver of a second vehicle. As always, there’s no way of knowing if the victim would have survived if the asshole heartless coward in the first car hadn’t left him bleeding in the street.
A writer for the New Yorker says let’s just give up on climate change already, because the battle is already lost since people aren’t going to change their behavior. That’s the same kind of clear eyed, rational thinking that led John F. Kennedy to say, “Oh just forget it. The moon’s too far away anyway.” And Winston Churchill to tell the people of England “I have nothing to offer you but blood, sweat and tears. So just fuck it and start learning German.”
The motorcycle rider who fatally shot a man on a regular Miami group ride was formally indicted on charges of 2nd degree murder aggravated assault; his lawyer says he’s never been in trouble before and is devastated to be behind bars. There’s a simple solution to that — just don’t shoot people.
Truly horrifying video of a 15-year old Toronto sidewalk rider literally getting run over by a pickup driver blowing out of a parking lot, who somehow didn’t notice — or maybe didn’t care — they’d just knocked him over; thankfully, he only suffered minor injuries. Be sure you really want to see this before you click on the link; even though he wasn’t seriously hurt, this one is very hard to watch. And to forget.
In calling the Netherland’s Utrecht a “cycle-crazed” city, an architecture website demonstrates a serious misunderstanding of people’s psyches in the Netherlands. It’s not that they’re crazy about bicycling — it’s just normal. People hop on their bikes in the morning the same way most Americans walk to their cars.
Although sometimes, just a well-planned bike tour without a cause is good enough.
My brother Eric, the former Iditarod dog musher, has made it to Central Oregon on his epic bike tour from Colorado the northwest edge of the US, and down the left coast. pic.twitter.com/X0U3mDUCEW
Bakersfield police book a killer driver on DUI charges with a 12% BAC. Yet still manage to blame the victim for turning her bike in front of his car. As always, the credibility of the accusations depends on whether there were any independent witnesses to the crash, since the driver has an inherent bias to blame the victim and see his actions in the best possible light.
If only cars had brakes. A San Jose driver is shocked when a jogger yelled at him for not giving him enough room as he passed a parked school bus, insisting he couldn’t give the runner any more space because there was a car in the lane next to him (last item). Because evidently, it’s impossible to slow down or wait until it’s safe to pass.
Bicyclinglends an ear to complaints about bike shops. So if you own, run or work for an LBS — aka local bike shop — pay close attention, because bad service is the best way to drive customers online. And you know they’re already looking there.
A Minnesota city approves a controversial mountain bike trail through a nature park, despite fears it could compromise the habitat for an endangered bumble bee. I gotta go with the environmentalists on this one; no use should be allowed that threatens any endangered species, because once they’re gone, they ain’t coming back.
August 27, 2019 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Morning Links: $25,000 reward for Boyle Heights hit-and-run, new candidate for LA CD8, and bike stolen every 15 seconds
The victim was riding his bike east on Whittier Boulevard near Calzona Street around 10:20 pm last Thursday, when a speeding pickup driver traveling in the opposite direction lost control and swerved onto the wrong side of the road, hitting him head-on.
The man, identified by KNBC-4 as Gabriel Lopez, a 53-year old father of five, was pulling a kid’s bike trailer behind his bike. Fortunately, no one was in it.
Lopez was released after just four days in the hospital, despite suffering a fractured back, blood clot and numerous scrapes and bruises. And can’t feed his family until he can get back to work as a construction worker.
Which is likely to take a very long time.
Police are looking for a distinctive white 2011-2018 Chevrolet/GMC full-size pickup with a red front bumper and lower valance air deflector, black rims and a black bed cover. The truck may have a custom white rear bumper, and possible aftermarket headlamps and tail lamps.
The crash was caught on security cameras from two separate angles. However, be sure you really want to see it before you click play, because they’re not easy to watch. And you can’t unsee it once you do.
Anyone with information is urged to call the LAPD Central Traffic Division at 213/833-3713, or LAPD Detective Juan Campos at 213/486-0755; you can also email Det. Campos at 31480@lapd.online.
Let’s hope Lopez makes a full and fast recovery.
And the cops catch the jerk who did this to him.
Photo of suspect hit-and-run vehicle from LAPD. Thanks to John Damman and the LAPD Central Traffic Division for the heads-up.
I offered her the chance to introduce herself to the bicycling community. Here’s what she had to say.
I am a life long resident of District 8 in Los Angeles, better known as South LA. I became aware of your site not along ago when Fredrick Woon Frazier was killed. I participated in a lot of the demands for change on several busy streets here, such as Manchester, to add efficient bike lanes. During those times I hadn’t even considered becoming a candidate, but over time, after not seeing any change in my community on many levels, I decided to take on the fight for social and economic justice for my fellow constituents.
I do not know a lot about the biking world. What I do know is that I’m an activist for doing the right things and fighting injustice for all. In regards to the biking world, I see a serious injustice in our local biking community here in South LA, where the bikers have not been given what is required in order to be safe while riding. As the councilwoman for the this district, I will make sure bike lanes are added to our major streets, in particular to Manchester, in honor of “Woon” and the other gentleman whom was also killed on Manchester recently.
Sounds like we could do a lot worse. Especially with someone who seems willing to listen and learn.
A new map shows block-by-block and hour-by-hour how Los Angeles belches smog into the air — and into your lungs. But sure, let’s keep fighting bikeways and alternative transportation, and demanding our God-given right to drive until we all die and take the Earth with us.
This is why you shouldn’t try to intervene if you see someone stealing a bicycle. A woman is on trial for first-degree murder for shooting a Bakersfield man who tried to stop her from stealing a bike. Call the police and let them deal with it. And take pictures or video if you can do it safely.
A Kansas man was a one man crime wave, stealing a man’s car, cellphone and wallet, followed by making off with a woman’s bicycle, assaulting a police officer, and threatening to shoot up a bar.
A Taipei, Taiwan paper calls for educating bicyclists, noting that half of all crashes involving bicycles are the riders’ fault. Which means that half of them aren’t. But oddly, they don’t call for re-educating drivers, too.
Retired Italian sprinter Alessandro Petacchi received a two-year ban for his role in a doping ring run by a German doctor; Austrian cyclists Stefan Denifl and Georg Preidler both got four-year bans earlier this year for their involvement in the ring. But thank goodness the doping era is over, right?
May 28, 2019 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Morning Links: Taking traffic safety deniers seriously, walking bikes on the Troutdale bridge, and Bruce Lee was one of us
Good to see you back after the long holiday weekend.
Now grab your coffee and buckle in. We’ve got a lot of territory to cover, and a lot to catch up on.
Today’s photo captures an e-bakfiets used as an expensive marketing gimmick for a perfume pop-up at the Grove, photobombed by a hot and tired corgi.
Two years after state lawmakers boosted the gas tax with a promise to improve California streets, some cities have raised the ire of drivers by spending millions of the new dollars on “road diet” projects that reduce the number and size of lanes for motor vehicles.
Projects have touched off a debate as taxpayer advocates and motorists complain that the higher gas taxes they are paying for smoother trips will actually fund projects that increase traffic congestion.
Especially if those funds go towards reducing excess road capacity for motor vehicles, which increasing overall capacity by installing bike lanes.
Also known as the dreaded — to them — road diet.
Not to mention knee-jerk opposition from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn, which never met a tax they liked.
Gas tax money can legally go to such projects, but that does not mean it should, said David Wolfe, legislative director for the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., which opposed the original gas tax increase and supported an unsuccessful statewide ballot measure last year to repeal it.It has since continued to watch and criticize how state and local governments are spending the money.
“When Proposition 6 was on the ballot, all voters heard was money would go to road repair and maintenance,” Wolfe said. “They want roads to be repaired. They don’t want roads to be taken away with their taxpayer dollars.”
Never mind that road diets have been shown to reduce overall crashes by 19% in the Golden State, and as much as 47% elsewhere.
So they’re complaining about using gas tax funds to save their own lives and repair bills.
Smart. Real smart.
Never mind also that $2.27 billion of the gas tax increase went to repair and maintain roads, while $750 million a year was set aside for transit projects.
And a paltry $100 million went to bike and pedestrian projects. Most of which benefit drivers, as well.
But try telling that to angry motorists and traffic safety deniers while they light their torches and sharpen their pitchforks.
“It’s creating gridlock on Venice Boulevard, which is then causing cut-through traffic into our neighborhoods,” said Selena Inouye, board president of the Westside Los Angeles Neighbors Network, a group formed in response to the project…
Inouye, a retired social worker, said having motorists pay higher gas taxes so the money can be used to reduce the capacity of roads is contradictory.
She and her husband are paying more than $4 a gallon for gas at her local service station, she said, a price that has been increased by the state gas tax.
“The money should be used to help with congestion overall, and I don’t think that road diets help congestion. I think they cause congestion,” Inouye said.
Even though no one else seems to be able to find that gridlock they keep complaining about. Or that only 12 cents of that $4-plus for a gallon of gas is due to the gas tax increase.
But those are just facts.
And facts just get in the way when you’re insisting on having yours.
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Malibu Hills resident Chris Willig forwards his observations on the absurd, and possibly illegal, attempts by LA County to force bike riders to walk over the newly reopened Troutdale bridge.
Mulholland Highway had been closed in Cornell for about 6-months since the Woolsey Fire which caused the Troutdale Bridge to melt. The catastrophe has vexed cyclists. They’ve been forced to use a detour of about 6 miles on Kanan Road to go around the closure. And that route is plagued by increased traffic particularly 1,000’s of heavy debris laden trucks hauling the remains of burned out houses.
A temporary one-lane bridge opened Wednesday afternoon, but the celebration from the cycling community has been short lived. Cyclists have been banned from the main road bed with LA County officials trying to force people to walk their bikes on a pedestrian sidepath. This strange traffic configuration can been seen in the photo (viewing north from the south bank of Triunfo Creek) with all of the signage required to direct traffic. It seems ridiculous since the crossing is now controlled by a traffic light system to allow only oneway passage at a posted 10 MPH. As cyclists using this route are normally in road shoes, walking the 230 feet required seems dangerous. More importantly, if many cyclists take the detour trudging across the bridge as instructed, it is clear traffic will be interrupted by all the dismounting and remounting in the street, especially at the south terminus (pictured).
The safest and most convenient routing for road cyclists would be using exactly the same rules for auto traffic. Ironically, the only change from pre-fire norm would be we’d have to cut our speed in half to accommodate the cars slowed by the new speed limit.
After a Glasgow woman is killed riding her bike, a man does some soul searching, wondering whether bicycling is worth the risk. And concluding he may keep riding, but can’t recommend it to a friend.
I sort of want to be like him when I grow up. A Michigan man gave up his comfy retirement to ride his bike across the US, and in countries around the world. And spent New Years Day riding a fat tire bike on the ice and snow of Antarctica. No offense to our southernmost continent, but I’d prefer a more temperate climate. Which Antartica will probably be in a few years, if we all keep burning fossil fuels.
Last Friday, I had a very pleasant talk with Communications Director Dana Variano and new Executive Director Eli Akira Kaufman of the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, aka LACBC.
I won’t go into details, since everything we discussed was off the record. But we had a very frank and open discussion about the state of bicycling in general, and the state of the LACBC in general.
Suffice it to say that Kaufman recognizes that he’s got a steep learning curve to get a firm grasp on LA bike culture and street safety.
And he’s well aware of the problems facing the LACBC after drifting far too long without effective leadership.
But he’s committed to listening and improving communications, which has been a major problem as long as I’ve been involved with the coalition, as a member and former board member.
And to making the hard decisions the LACBC will need to return to being an effective voice for LA bicyclists.
I left the meeting feeling like the LACBC is in good hands.
And with a little hope for the first time in a long time.
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Disappointing news from Seal Beach, where Eric Dalton reports the ghost bike for Paul Smith has already been removed, less than three weeks after he was killed.
“In this study of a case series, 249 patients presented to the emergency department with injuries associated with electric scooter use during a 1-year period, with 10.8% of patients younger than 18 years,” says the January 25 paper by Tarak K. Trivedi, Charles Liu, and Anna Liza M. Antonio.
“The most common injuries were fractures (31.7%), head injuries (40.2%), and soft-tissue injuries (27.7%).”
“Only 10 riders were documented as wearing a helmet, constituting 4.4% of all riders,” the report notes. “Twelve patients (4.8%) had physician-documented intoxication or a blood alcohol level greater than 0.05%
Not all of the injured patients had been riding scooters. Eleven had been hit by scooters, and five had tried to lift scooters. Another five had simply tripped over parked scooters, which is what can happen when there are Bird or Lime droppings on the sidewalk.
In other words, despite the panicked response to this study in the media, over 90% of the injuries were to the people riding them. So just like with bicyclists, even the most careless riders are a danger primarily to themselves.
Just wait until the study authors discover how many people get hurt by cars every day.
Which is not to say everyone shouldn’t ride safely, so they don’t pose a risk to themselves or anyone else.
And for chrissakes, don’t leave your damn scooter on the sidewalk, or anywhere else it can pose a danger to anyone.
Or the Japanese man who got a well-deserved 18 years for the road rage death of a motorbike rider, intentionally slamming into him after briefly chasing his bike. Thanks to Norm Bradwell for the link.
If you haven’t already, mark your calendar for International Winter Bike to Work Day on February 8th. We should be able to show a good turnout here in Southern California, where Viking Biking means you might have to put fenders on your bike.
Sad news from New Zealand, where a 32-year old elite cyclist is dying of intestinal cancer, saying she should have pushed harder for a diagnosis after suffering from years of stomach pain.
April 20, 2018 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Morning Links: Trinh ghost bike ceremony, Lance settles with the feds, and the golden age of cycling this ain’t
My apologies again for yesterday’s unexcused absence.
Let it serve as yet another reminder that on a scale of one to ten, diabetes sucks. If you’re at risk, do everything you can to avoid getting it — ride your bike, stay active, lose weight, eat better.
Whatever it takes. Because you don’t want this crap.
Trust me.
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Let’s start with Wednesday’s ghost bike ceremony for Lenny Trinh, the Burbank postal worker and father killed in a dooring on Monday.
Steve S sent moving photos from the installation ceremony, which appeared to draw over 100 people.
Meanwhile. CiclaValley agonizes over the recent rash of bicycling deaths as he helped organize the ghost bike ceremony for Trinh.
On the other hand, you’ve got the cars. Some call them “freedom machines,” others call them destroyers of cities and harbingers of impending environmental apocalypse. But no matter how you feel about the automobile, there’s no getting around the fact that cars and bikes have an intensely symbiotic yet ultimately disastrous relationship. They’re like George and Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, or that couple at the party who are always one more cocktail away from either hurling crockery at each other or having hate sex on the dining room table, and you never know which until it happens.
Sunset ranks the top ten bicycling towns in the west, with Davis coming in fourth and San Francisco tenth; not surprisingly, Portland took the top spot. Needless to say, Los Angeles was not on the list.
Colorado’s legislature passed a bill allowing local jurisdictions to decide whether to allow bicyclists to treat stop signs as yields and red lights as stop signs, aka the Idaho Stop.
Houston’s mayor continues his efforts to make the auto-centric city safer and friendlier for people on bikes, committing another $10 million to the effort. Anyone who’s spent any time in the Texas city can attest that if they can do it, so can Los Angeles.
An Ohio man has gotten the death sentence for abducting and killing a 20-year old woman as she was riding her bike last year; he had committed an almost identical crime nearly 30 years earlier.
A bicyclist was killed by a hit-and-run driver at New York’s La Guardia Airport back in February. So naturally, they respond by restricting bikes, not cars.
A 25-year old Belgian cyclist died in his sleep, the second rider from that country to die under questionable circumstances, after Michael Goolaerts died of a heart attack during the Paris-Roubaix classic.
