Tag Archive for Gil Cedillo

Weekend Links: More on Cedillo’s North Fig torpedo, win a Linus bike, and bid on biking with Sharon McNary

Lots of bike news this weekend.

So grab some coffee and settle in for some serious reading. Then get out on your bike; it looks like a perfect weekend for riding.

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CD1 Councilmember Gil Cedillo’s apparent attempt to torpedo the North Figueroa road diet, for reasons known only to him, has resulted in significant blowback from the bicycling and transportation communities.

Streetsblog’s Joe Linton says there may be political reasons to oppose the road diet. But calls BS on the fears of delayed emergency response cited by police and fire officials, who were apparently talking off the cuff and not officially representing their departments. According to Linton, the issue has previously been studied extensively by the city and found to pose no significant impact.

Meanwhile, in an open letter to Cedillo, BAC Chair Jeff Jacobberger questions what authority the city has to replace previously approved bike lanes with less-safe sharrows, and whether we can now expect the same wrench to be thrown into other planned bike projects.

Apparently Cedillo is betting the damage done to his reputation in his first year as a council member will be long forgotten by the time he has to stand for re-election in another three years.

He may be right.

But I wouldn’t bet on it. Bike riders have long memories.

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Estaban Chavez wins Stage 6 of the Amgen Tour of California, as the race moves on to Saturday’s Pasadena finish. More on Taylor Phinney’s exciting solo ride to victory on Thursday’s Stage 5 of the Tour of California, while Wiggo is back on top of the race and his game.

Peloton says to expect the unexpected in this year’s Giro, which still has two weeks to go after the ToC wraps up on Sunday; Frenchman Nacer Bouhanni wins his second Giro stage in four days.

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Now this is a great idea. A new lockable bike stem makes your bike unsteerable if it’s stolen. Just don’t lose the key.

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Looks like cab companies are fighting back against Uber, Lyft, et al. Download the Taxi Magic LA app and enter the code BIKEMAGIC before 5 pm Monday the 19th, and you’ll be entered to win one of five new Linus bikes.

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Pasadena public radio station KPCC’s online public auction ends at 1 pm today.

So you only have a few hours to bid on a pair of bike rides with one of the city’s top political reporters. Submit the winning bid, and you can enjoy a coastal bike tour along PCH or a beach cruiser bike tour from Santa Monica to Hermosa Beach with reporter, cyclist and triathlete Sharon McNary.

With current bids of just $60 and $100, respectively, at the time of this writing, both are seriously undervalued. Which gives you a chance to step in and snap up a great ride with a fascinating and friendly guide for a just fraction of what it’s really worth.

But only if you hurry.

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Local

Why it makes sense to bike to work in LA.

Just a few short years ago, at least some Malibu city officials were vehemently anti-bike. Now they’re teaming with other cities surrounding the Malibu Hills to develop a regional bike plan. Link courtesy of Bicycle Fixation’s Richard Risemberg.

Streetsblog calls West Hollywood’s La Brea Streetscape project a missed opportunity — especially when it comes to bikes.

 

State

San Diego is sitting on 200 racks for their planned bike share system as the city debates where to put them.

The Visalia paper offers tips to keep you safe on your bike. And unlike most newspapers, gets it right.

The Tesla driver who blamed that new car smell for making him fall asleep and kill a Santa Cruz cyclist faces up to one year in jail after pleading no contest to a misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter charge. Note to motorists: if you feel sleepy, pull over, dammit.

 

National

Five ways bicycling can make or save you money that goes way beyond the usual suspects — including raising the value of your home and giving you a tax break.

Google Maps now provides elevation data for their bike routes to help you avoid hills. Or find them, if you prefer a challenge.

People for Bikes offers 14 ways to make bike lanes better.

Vox says it’s time to stop forcing bike riders to wear helmets. Personally, I’m a firm believer in wearing a helmet; I credit mine with saving my life and brain in a solo fall seven years ago. But too many people — especially non-riders — don’t realize they’re only designed to protect against impacts up to 12.5 mph.

Bikeyface considers the issue of unwanted advice, while Bike Snob offers advice on how to avoid confrontations on the street.

A local website offers an anti-bike hatchet job in honor of Seattle’s Bike to Work Day. Note to MyNorthwest: motorists have been known to run red lights, fail to signal and act with a sense of entitlement, too.

A Colorado driver faces anywhere from two to 24 years in prison after pleading guilty to killing a cyclist. Prosecutors dropped charges that she was allegedly drunk when she fell asleep at the wheel while on her way to a court hearing for a previous DUI case.

A popular Indianapolis bike trail shows benefits for local businesses where it parallels a main street, not so much where it doesn’t.

 

International

Our Vancouver friend Chris Bruntlett decries the irrational culture of fear that surrounds bicycling.

A UK letter writer says there’s no evidence bike riders endanger pedestrians.

This is why you need to shift your hand position frequently, as a British cyclist loses her life after crashing into a house when cyclist’s palsy leaves her unable to squeeze her brakes.

 

Finally…

A new bike seat on springs promises to isolate your butt from road bumps. And in case you wondered, you can fit 42 folding bikes in a single parking space.

 

Morning Links: Bike to Work Day, Rick Risemberg lets Cedillo have it with both barrels, and a new Sweet Ride

Happy Bike to Work Day.

Or as I call it, trick or treating for bike riders.

And don’t forget the Bike from Work Handlebar Happy Hours in Echo Park, Santa Monica and throughout the area.

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Richard Risemberg doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to the North Figueroa fiasco.

Writing for Flying Pigeon, he accuses CD1 Councilmember Gil Cedillo of bait and switch in supporting bike lanes when he was running for office, and seemingly opposing them now that he’s in office.

North Figueroa has been shown to be overdesigned for the level of traffic that it sees, resulting in scofflaw drivers speeding down the wide lanes, killing and maiming residents and visitors alike and creating a bleak and harrowing ambience that diminishes the curb appeal of local businesses. The road diet and its accompanying bike lanes would restrain the speed demons, and the bike lanes themselves would allow neighbors the option to get about without cars, which so many of them do not own anyway. This would improve job access and bring more customers to local stores…

Yet Cedillo, who in the video above enthusiastically speaks of the city’s need to install “real bike lanes” such as he studied in Denmark, now is sitting on the project, and in fact giving the appearance of orchestrating the new community meetings he’s set up to make the opposition looks bigger than it is. Of course the video was taken when he was fishing for the votes of the cycling community prior to the last election….

And he cites the Councilmember’s actions as a perfect example of how to subvert the democratic process in a piece for Orange 20.

Yes, in the name of the spurious concept of “balance” employed by Faux News, the number of people speaking for the road diet was held down to match the number speaking against—a principle that, if applied to elections, would result in a tie every time.

In other words, democracy be damned.

They’re both good reads.

And if it doesn’t piss you off than an elected official is blatantly ignoring both the will of the people and the safety of cyclists and pedestrians, for reasons known only to him, maybe it should.

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Sweet Ride USA releases their fourth episode, which features a public ride to a Highland Park donut shop.

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Local

Streetsblog’s Joe Linton offers up three things he likes about Bike Week and two he doesn’t, while Damien Newton says we need to get more young people involved in planning.

Are e-bikes the missing link in LA transportation plans?

LA cyclist Kurt Broadhag will ride this year’s RAAM to support the non-profit Innovation: Africa.

LACBC local chapter SCV Bicycle Coalition works for safer cycling in the Santa Clarita Valley.

The second annual Jewel City Fun & Fitness Ride rolls through Glendale this weekend, while El Monte hosts a Bike Fest the following weekend.

It may take awhile, by Cal Poly Pomona is committed to becoming friendlier to cyclists and pedestrians; too bad it took the death of bike riding student Ivan Aguilar to make it happen

PCH will get a pedestrian-friendly makeover in Hermosa Beach, which could include bike lanes. Key word being “could.”

 

State

San Diego is looking for funding for a long-planned separated bike path through Mission Valley, while biking group the Awarewolfs — not wolves, for some reason — hosts a monthly full moon ride through the city.

Congratulations to Rancho Cucamonga and Chula Vista on making the Bike League’s new Bicycle Friendly Communities list.

The LA Times says San Francisco’s failure to prosecute a truck driver caught on video right hooking the bike rider he killed is a reminder we still have a long way to go. Meanwhile, SF Streetsblog says the legal system failed Amelie. No shit.

Bike to School Day flops in Calistoga, as only 28 students in two schools participate.

 

National

Speeding Seattle cyclist kills a leashed dog being walked in a crosswalk. Seriously people, if you can’t stop for pedestrians and dogs in a legally marked crossing, you’re the problem.

A hit-and-run driver who left a bike rider to die near my hometown gets off with less than a slap on the wrist; the local paper says the system failed her victim, too. Again, no shit.

New York’s new mayor looks to Sweden for inspiration for the city’s Vision Zero plan. Here in LA, no one in city government seems to have even heard of Vision Zero. Or Sweden, for that matter.

Under the heading of they really should know better, the EPA is closing its bike room, which means a number of employees may stop riding to work. And that can’t be good for the environment.

Now that sounds like fun. A New Orleans bike group is hosting a second line bike ride, with cyclists following a jazz band on a flatbed truck.

 

International

Five tips for a successful Calgary tweed ride.

Toronto considers building separated bike lanes through the downtown core.

Looks like stunt cyclist Danny MacAskill is up to his old tricks. Or maybe new ones.

A Sydney columnist looks at the culture war on the roads Down Under, and calls for more to be done to make cycling safer without pushing riders off the roads.

Aussie brothers use fake charity as an excuse to bike door to door and beg for booze. Works for me.

 

Finally…

If you’re a convicted felon and known gang member illegally carrying two concealed weapons, don’t ride salmon, already. Fellow salmon cyclist Alec Baldwin says cross his heart, he wasn’t asking for special treatment, while Japanese animators have their own unique take on his arrest.

And Joe Linton catches me getting blessed at the Blessing of the Bicycles on Tuesday, albeit from an unflattering angle. Then again, I don’t think my boney ass has a flattering angle these days.

Photo by Joe Linton; shamelessly stolen from LA Streetsblog.

Photo by Joe Linton; shamelessly stolen from LA Streetsblog.

An open letter to CD1 Councilmember Gil Cedillo on improving safety and livability on North Figueroa

Courtesy of LACBC

Courtesy of LACBC

Dear Councilmember Cedillo,

Seldom does such a defining moment come so early in a council member’s time in office.

But that’s exactly what you face in deciding whether to install bike lanes on North Figueroa; a choice that will define your legacy long after you leave office.

For better. Or for worse.

And right now, things aren’t looking good for you. Or the people who live, work or travel through your district.

But let’s be honest. It’s not about bike lanes.

As you should be aware by now, North Figueroa has long been a dangerous street for bicyclists and pedestrians, as well as motorists. In fact, the street has averaged nearly one traffic fatality a year, and over 82 injuries, over a 10-year period.

It’s a roadway where dangerous design and overcapacity encourage speeding and overly aggressive driving, risking innocent lives and discouraging the non-motorized transportation that could ease traffic and benefit local businesses.

In a process that began five years ago, the street was studied and discussed in an extensive series of public meetings. And the overwhelming consensus among local residents — your constituents — was that the roadway needed to be reconfigured to calm traffic and improve safety.

Bike lanes were just a part of a larger plan that would benefit everyone by increasing pedestrian access, reducing dangerous driving and improving livability throughout the North Figueroa corridor.

Combined with the recently approved MyFigueroa project on South Figueroa, it would establish one of the city’s most complete streets from end-to-end, where average people could feel comfortable strolling casually or enjoying a leisurely bike ride to local shops and restaurants. As well as encouraging people to get out of their cars to commute to work and school, taking pressure off our city’s overcrowded and fume-choked streets.

The project was approved, funded and shovel-ready when your predecessor left office.

All you had to do was sign off on it.

Instead, you’ve engaged in a year-long campaign of obfuscation and foot-dragging, repeatedly refusing to engage with local residents questioning why you were delaying such a beneficial and desperately needed project.

221162813-Bike-Lane-Community-Meeting-5-8-14-Flyer-English-FinalAnd now you are proposing an alternative approach, a complicated series of sharrows similar to ideas that have already been considered — and rejected — before you ever took office.

Yet sharrows will do absolutely nothing to slow traffic and improve safety on and around Figueroa. They will not improve walkability or encourage shoppers to stroll the street. And they will do nothing to entice anyone but the most confident bicyclists to risk their own safety by riding directly in front of impatient drivers.

In other words, your proposal fails to address any of the concerns that prompted the city and the residents of Northeast LA to reimagine the North Figueroa corridor in the first place. It represents a failure of imagination and leadership for which you and your staff should be ashamed.

And it begs the question of why you have backed off on a proposal with such overwhelming support — including, at one time, your own.

Some say it’s due to a desire to place your own stamp on the street, rather than allow your predecessor build on his own legacy. Others have suggested that it’s political payback to an anti-bike lane opponent who helped throw the election your way.

True or not, neither reflects well on you.

The mere fact that people in your district would question your motives for such inexplicable foot-dragging speaks to the confusion and betrayal they feel.

You have a rare opportunity to demonstrate genuine vision and leadership in creating a truly Great Street that will benefit everyone who lives, works or travels anywhere on or near it. And bring greater growth and prosperity to an area that desperately needs it.

Or your can decide to keep things more or less as they are, maintaining a dangerous auto-focused street that risks the lives and safety of everyone who travels or crosses it, as well as an almost inevitable decline for what is and should be a vibrant community.

Despite extensive criticism — including mine — Curren Price, your colleague on the City Council, showed genuine leadership in forging an agreement to keep the MyFigueroa project on track.

Will you do the same, and support a more livable North Figueroa that will stand as your legacy long after you’ve left office?

Or will you stand in the face of progress — and your constituents — to maintain a future of danger and decline?

The decision is in your hands. We can only hope you make the right choice.

Sincerely,

Ted Rogers
BikinginLA.com
 

Note: There will be a community meeting tonight at Nightingale Elementary School to discuss the proposal to replace the planned road diet and bike lanes with sharrows, from 6 to 8 pm, 3311 North Figueroa. The anti-bike lane factions are expected to be out in force, so supporters are urged to attend to demonstrate the support this project has among bike riders, pedestrians and the greater community.

And if you haven’t already, sign the petition to show your support.

 

Morning Links: CD1 City Council Member tries to trade North Figueroa bike lanes for sharrows

While workshop participants imagine what North Figueroa could be, CD1 City Council Member Gil Cedillois backing off from the already approved, funded and shovel ready bike lanes planned for the street.

Instead, he suggests replacing them with a complicated — and virtually worthless — network of sharrows that would do absolutely nothing to tame traffic on the street. Or encourage traffic-averse bike riders and potential riders to take to a street that would be only marginally safer than before. Let alone more comfortable to ride.

If you can make next Thursday’s community meeting, show up and tell him no.

Make that hell no.

Maybe there’s a reason Cedillo didn’t complete the LACBC’s candidate survey in last year’s election.

Meanwhile, he has also come out against a plan to turn the old Riverside-Figueroa Bridge into an elevated bike and pedestrian park over the LA River.

Mayor Garcetti wants to turn Figueroa into one of the city’s first Great Streets. But that will be hard to do if our elected officials are standing in the way.

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Lexington KY police cite a bike commuting woman for reckless driving — not once, but three times — because she insisted on riding in the traffic lane for her own safety, as she had every right to do.

Fortunately, wiser heads prevailed. Even though she wasn’t scheduled for trial until August, a judge ruled in her favor this week.

Thanks to Bob Young for the heads-up.

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If you’re looking for a good cause, you can’t do much better than this.

After a bike advocate struggling with cancer is forced to sell her bike to pay medical bills, a group of cyclists are raising funds to buy her a new one.

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Local

Flying Pigeon asks which approach is a more efficient use of space — Downtown LA’s massive parking lots or Portland’s downtown bike parking?

Help clean up the LA River this Saturday, then bike over to Golden Road Brewing to celebrate over some of LA’s best beers. Or if you’re closer to the coast, help reimagine what Santa Monica could be.

Sweet Ride USA invites you to join in on their next ride,which will roll along the beachfront bike path this Sunday.

Wrap up Bike Week Pasadena with a bike-in movie on Friday, May 16th.

More on Saturday’s sixth annual Long Beach Bike Fest; the free event sounds like a lot of fun. Meanwhile, it may be the most bike-friendly city in SoCal — though Santa Monica is giving it a run for it’s money — but Long Beach still has some work to do.

 

State

A shirtless bike rider uses the center divider of I-80 through San Francisco as his own personal bike lane.

New OC bike safety campaign tells riders to “Bike Smart. Bike Safe.” And for parents to teach their children to do the same. Now how about telling drivers not to run us over.

Google donates a cool $1 million to Mountain View for bike projects. Now that they’ve got a major center in Venice, maybe they could spread a little of that bike love our way.

 

National

Big step forward as an experimental medical process enabled a group of men with disabling leg injuries to grow new muscles, improving enough to walk or ride a bike for the first time in years.

Treehugger looks at the disparity between bike and ped funding, mode share and funding. And it ain’t pretty. The site also points out that a warmer climate doesn’t result in higher ridership levels.

Intoxicated Oahu driver deliberately rams a group of bicyclists on a metric century ride to honor an advocate for safer cycling. Oddly, only three riders were hit, but five people were injured.

Evidently, there’s only one acceptable form of transportation in Oregon, as the Oregon Humane Society refuses to let a bike riding woman take her adopted cat home because she wasn’t driving a car.

Meet the Boulder CO woman behind CycloFemme, sponsors of the CycloFemme LA Mother’s Day Ride and hundreds of others around the world.

Colorado’s AAA will now offer roadside assistance for cyclists. But they won’t fix your flat.

Bad headline, good story as a Florida bicyclist looks at why the state is so dangerous for people on bikes.

 

International

Hats off to Ontario, Canada man who bought an apparently stolen bike off the street for $10, then set out to return it to its rightful owner.

A new reports says a diabetic Ontario driver suffering from low blood sugar should never have been behind the wheel when he killed three people in 2009, including an 81-year old bike rider — then was allowed to keep his license for another 18 months. It recommends a series of steps to keep dangerously diabetic drivers off the road.

Evidently, the bike boom is in decline in the UK.

Looks like a 12-year doping ban isn’t enough to keep former pro rider Riccardo Ricco from buying EPO. Lots of EPO.

 

Finally…

For the second year in a row, Tour de Fat will bypass LA. And a Brit tandem cyclist rides with a bony stoker even skinnier than I am these days.

 

Two years for a fatal SD hit-and-run, and kneejerk NIMBYism rises in opposition to Westwood bike lanes

Two years in prison for Jin Hyuk Byun for the fatal hit-and-run collision that took the life of 18-year Angel Bojorquez in Rancho Santa Fe last year.

Police say Bojorquez was wearing reflective clothing and should have been highly visible as he rode his bike home from work for the first time, while Byun initially claimed his badly damaged truck hadn’t been driven recently, then claimed he thought he’d hit a mailbox, a deer or a dog.

Yeah, no point in stopping to find out, right?

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Kneejerk NIMBYism strikes again, as anti-bike forces are urged to attend tonight’s Westwood Neighborhood Council meeting to fight proposed bike lanes on Westwood.

We love cycling and want to create a bike network on the Westside, but anyone who walks or drives down Westwood between Pico and Santa Monica knows that taking out lanes, or parking, or creating a bus/bike transit lane (that was vigorously opposed on Wilshire) will necessarily reduce lanes, and motorists will “peel off” onto the residential streets to find the path of least resistance.  This will not work for the community, for the businesses, or for the safety of cyclists.

In short, Westwood Blvd. simply can’t handle this proposal, and even the local cyclists find the proposal unworkable.

Actually, this local cyclist — and virtually every other rider I’ve discussed it with — finds the project not only workable, but necessary in anticipation of the coming Westwood Blvd Expo Line station.

Much of Westwood is already unworkable — and pretty much unrideable — in its current configuration, with a high level of congestion through most of the day. The only real solution is to provide a safe, workable alternative to encourage drivers to leave their leave their cars behind for short trips, as well as offering a much needed connection between the Expo Line and UCLA.

If you don’t have other obligations — and frankly, I don’t understand the logic of anyone hosting an important meeting on Valentines Day, forcing them to choose between their relationship and their safety on the streets — maybe you can stop by and argue against the insanity of maintaining the status quo.

Especially if you were one of the 150+ riders who took part in last weekend’s Ride Westwood.

Thanks to the Culver City Times for the heads-up.

Update: Flying Pigeon‘s Josef Bray-Ali makes the point that no traffic or parking lanes are actually being removed; they’re being repurposed from automotive to bicycle use, since bikes are still a form of transportation. 

The key is that streets serve to move people, not motor vehicles.

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I’ve heard from people accusing current State Senator and CD 1 council candidate Gil Cedillo of lying at Sunday’s candidate forum co-sponsored by the LACBC.

Cedillo is accused of misrepresenting his ties to Chevron, as well as why he failed to vote for landmark legislation regulating pollution that causes global warming.

Streetsblog’s Damien Newton has done his typically great job of looking at all sides of the issue, including talking to the candidate himself. If you live in CD 1, you owe it to yourself to read the story, and decide for yourself if Cedillo whether being honest with you.

I don’t know where the truth lies in this case.

But the last thing L.A. needs is another truth-challenged city leader.

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The LACBC is hiring a new Initiative Coordinator for Active Streets LA. If you’ve got a passion for bikes, plus organization and communication skills, maybe you should look into it.

If there wasn’t an inherent conflict of interest, I might do it myself.

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LADOT plans to add over 20 miles of sharrows, mostly on the Westside – including Ohio Ave from Westwood to Bundy; preliminary markings on Ohio appear to go several blocks east of that. Celebrate Valentines Day by encouraging your heartthrob to express your mutual commitment to biking infrastructure, if not each other, in Downtown and Central L.A. tonight. Rick Risemberg says biking families are proof we’re getting there. Gary returns to Streetsblog with an overview of the current state of bike projects in Santa Monica. Senior cyclists are finding a home at the Santa Monica Bike Center. Boyonabike visits the Caltech Bike Lab. A Long Beach man is critically injured when he’s shot while riding his bike. San Francisco’s mayor refuses to live up to his promise to support cycling.

Traffic violence isn’t an accident, it’s the nation’s biggest mass tort. Floyd Landis compares pro cycling to organized crime; he should know, right? My objection to Landis isn’t that he doped, it’s that he lied to about it to get cyclists to assist in his cover-up. Bicycling offers advice on cornering. Did a Las Vegas cyclist die because of ringing in his ear? How businesses can attract cyclists; beer usually works in my book, and donuts. A new study from Portland State University will consider the impact of protected bike lanes. The Idaho stop law slowly spreads through Colorado cities; could Denver be next? Candidates to replace New York’s bike-friendly Mayor Bloomberg threaten to rip out the overwhelmingly popular bike lanes his administration has installed; thanks to Stanley E. Goldich for the link. (Note to L.A. mayoral candidates — if Gotham’s new mayor is stupid enough to fire NYDOT commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, we’re going to need a new one after the upcoming election. I’m just saying.) Unbelievably, the Virginia legislature refuses to make dooring illegal. A New York writer explains Bike Commuting 101, but fails to explain how to bike commute with your dog. Evidently, packs of rabid cyclists are running South Carolina drivers off the road; in my experience, a couple tons of human flesh will still lose to a ton or two of motor vehicle every time. After nearly running a cyclist over, a Florida driver returns to tell him bicyclists need to respect other people on the road — then intentionally doors him. No, really.

Should the safety of cyclists come before the convenience of parking? A London cyclist debates the merits of helmet use, and lands somewhere in the middle; I personally recommend wearing a helmet for every ride, but it is — and should be — your choice. New helmets will have built-in cameras. A 17-year old UK cyclist admits to killing a renowned cancer surgeon with a single punch after the other man got out of his car to argue about the rider’s lack of lights. Manchester cyclist wages war against potholes. A New Zealand coroner says it should be mandatory for all cyclists to wear hi-viz clothing, even though it didn’t seem to help the cycling cop whose death led to his conclusion.

Finally, a writer for the BBC says evolution drives drivers to hate cyclists because we break the moral order of the streets; I know I try. Just Another Cyclist lists the cast of characters who inevitably show up in threads for such stories. Meanwhile, others reverse the dynamic by converting cars to bikes.

Happy Valentines Day to one and all. May you always know real love in your life.