Tag Archive for Gravel Bike California

AAA tow for a bike flat, mountain bikes and the people who love them, and gravel grinding in Southern California

December 1, 2020 / / 2 comments

Today is Giving Tuesday!

Seriousl, don’t feel obligated to donate to the 6th Annual BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive.

But take a little time and money today to give to someone or something. Even if it’s just handing a few bucks to a homeless person, or dropping it into the Salvation Army kettle. 

Because there are a lot of people who need help out there right now. And giving from the heart will do you as much good as it does them.

Photo from Pexels.com. 

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Nothing like getting a little help for your flat.

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Today’s common theme is mountain bikes and the people who love them.

No surprise here. Several mountain biking videos have been nominated for Vimeo’s best videos of the year awards.

Pink Bike’s latest podcast raises the question of what it takes to be a responsible mountain biker. Hint: Don’t leave the trail or surrounding woodlands worse than you found them. Better yet, don’t leave any sign you were even there.

Singletracks highlights eleven new mountain bike trails around the world.

And IPSO concludes that e-mountain bikes are a blessing for the environment, despite initially being non-sustainable.

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CiclaValley’s Zachary Rynew forwards a guide to gravel riding in Southern California.

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

No bias here. Top Gear and The Grand Tour host Jeremy Clarkson hates London’s new bike lanes, calling the mayor an imbecile and maniac who must be stopped for approving them.

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Local

Chris Pratt is one of us. And so is his eight-year old son Jack.

 

State

Menifee has adopted an extensive new Active Transportation Plan that promises to transform the 92,000 population city. Assuming it actually gets built, of course.

Streetsblog San Francisco’s Roger Rudick tells Caltrans it’s personal this time, after he was knocked down by a wire strung between fences while riding across a parking lot. Tell him I know some good lawyers if he needs one (Hint: see above right).

 

National

After a Massachusetts city puts climate change warnings on gas pumps, a Streetsblog writer says it’s time to put danger warnings on cars themselves.

Food delivery services are booming in New York and other cities, even as delivery riders continue to struggle as work condition get worse. Meanwhile, things are no better Down Under, where food delivery riders put their lives on the line for the convenience of others.

Tragic news from Maryland, where the head of the national association of transportation labor unions was killed in a collision while riding his bike near the entrance to Great Falls Park.

A Virginia website offers advice on how to maintain your ebike to keep riding through the winter. Some of which even applies to LA’s mostly mild winter weather.

A Virginia bike storage company plans to go nationwide with their line of weatherproof, theft-resistant bike capsules.

 

International

Cycling Weekly says it’s time to “stop hating on flat bar gravel bikes and embrace all bikes and all types of riders.” Couldn’t have said it better myself.

After his friend was killed riding a bike, a man set out on a 3,200-mile ride across the country to raise awareness for bicycle safety, riding through the frigid Canadian winter.

An ex-Dyson exec is getting into the ebike business, raising the equivalent of nearly $2.7 million for the Scottish company, thanks in part to their innovative transmission system.

Britain’s Evening Standard considers whether a new bicycle subscription service that bills itself as “Netflix for bikes” is good option for commuters, concluding it’s an affordable way to test out bike commuting before making an investment.

The UK’s Cyclist magazine examines the best hybrid bikes for under the equivalent of $667.

A Dublin mom is looking for the hit-and-run bicyclist who apologized to her six-year old daughter after crashing into her while she played in the street, then rode off when she went to get her mother.

Unlike virtually every other major city, Paris vows to fight back against the jump in bike theft inspired by the coronavirus bike boom. That compares with Santa Monica, where I’m told the cops couldn’t be bothered to investigate and recover a $5,000 stolen bike after the owner spotted it for sale online; sadly, it had already been sold by the time he realized they didn’t give a damn.

A Ghanan bamboo bike program is working to build a bicycling culture in the African country to create a cleaner environment.

ABC — no, the Australian Broadcasting Corp — talks with the bicyclist who was clipped by a passing driver, which sent him flying into other riders in the paceline; fortunately, he’s recovering well.

 

Competitive Cycling

Cycling Weekly talks with multi-time national cycling champ Justin Williams about his LA-based L39ION of LA cycling team, and his plans to put the first black rider in the yellow jersey.

A Belgian research lab is investigating whether artificial intelligence can be the future of bike racing broadcasts.

After growing up in Sonoma County, Nikita Ducarroz has developed into one of the world’s best BMX competitors.

South African police made a cold case bust in the 13-year old torture and murder of South African cycling champ Etienne van Wyk.

 

Finally…

Recharge yourself while you recharge your ebike. Your next ebike could look like some sort of otherworldly geometric experiment.

And next time, maybe wait until the waves die down a little.

Just a suggestion.

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It was a little quieter day on Monday for the BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive after a very busy opening weekend. Thanks to Janice H for her generous support to help keep bringing SoCal’s best bike news and advocacy coming to your favorite device every morning. 

Be safe, and stay healthy. And wear a mask, already. 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , ,

LACBC virtual holiday celebration, Calbike agenda reveal, and this is who we share the road — and the bike path — with

November 20, 2020 / / Comments Off on LACBC virtual holiday celebration, Calbike agenda reveal, and this is who we share the road — and the bike path — with

You’re invited to the LACBC’s virtual holiday celebration and potluck dinner next month.

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Think of it as a legislative baby reveal, when Calbike officially unveils their 2021 agenda next month.

Speaking of Calbike, you have until midnight tonight to enter to win one of 21 bike-related prizes.

https://twitter.com/CalBike/status/1329500074825687045

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This is who we share the road with.

The LAPD is looking for a woman who abandoned her vehicle after slamming into another car in a fiery crash while participating in a speed contest, as well as a second driver who helped her flee.

And an Oregon Tesla driver crashed while doing a whopping 100 mph, sending the car’s batteries flying through the windows of a nearby apartment building.

Bicycles hardly ever spew batteries into buildings when they crash. Especially the regular kind.

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This is who we share the bike path with.

A Colorado driver somehow managed to get stuck on a bike/ped bridge on a Denver offroad bike path.

Far offroad.

Which leads to today’s entry in the Annals of Bad Headlines, which somehow manages to blame the car instead of the driver.

SUV on Denver Bike Path

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Gravel Bike California wants you to get your Whoops in.

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An Oakland bike rider gets his five seconds of fame, popping a wheelie on his scraper bike in the background of a live news report.

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I like him already.

Ashtyn Davis, a rookie safety with the New York Jets, lives a carfree lifestyle, riding his bike to practice every day.

The Jets, on the other hand, totally suck this year.

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An Ottawa city counselor politely reminds drivers to use their turn signals after he’s right hooked by a truck driver turning across a protected bike lane.

A reminder to check their damn mirrors wouldn’t hurt, either.

https://twitter.com/JLeiper/status/1329455739174318088?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1329455739174318088%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fottawa.ctvnews.ca%2Fcouncillor-reminds-drivers-to-use-turn-signals-after-close-call-on-bicycle-1.5196009

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GCN’s latest video considers whether a used bike being sold by a pro cycling team is worth buying, even at a big discount.

Which kind of depends on whether you even want a high-end racing bike to begin with.

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Now that’s how to do a baby reveal.

Real Housewives of the Potomac star Ashley Darby surprises her husband with the sex of their coming baby in the middle of his bike ride.

At least they didn’t set the woods on fire.

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Local

A bike-riding man was killed in yet another hit-and-run in South LA on Wednesday; nearly half of the bicycling fatalities in LA County this year have been hit-and-runs.

The Eastsider talks with the owner of Echo Park bike shop Revenge Fantasy Cycles, who recovered from Covid-19 only to run head-first into the bike boom and resulting bicycle shortage.

Streetsblog looks at LA Councilmember Paul Krekorian’s decision to cancel plans to widen Magnolia Blvd in North Hollywood, and proceed with safety improvements including better sidewalks. Although no bike lanes, protected or otherwise, unfortunately.

 

State

No news is good news, right?

 

National

Bicycling gives you the run down on the hybrid bikes the future first couple were riding last weekend. Meanwhile, Carlton Reid says the new Biden administration will boost transit and bicycling, but won’t do anything about car dependency.

No surprise here. The annual Bike Shop Day falls victim to Covid-19.

Bike-friendly US cities are scrambling to combat a rapid rise in bike thefts, which are up 68% since March, according to Bike Index. Which explains why Los Angeles isn’t doing much about it — although the LAPD is now partnering with Bike Index to offer free bike registration.

Riding a bike helped a New Mexico nurse lose 35 pounds and recover from knee surgery — and discover he had the same heart problem that nearly killed my wife. As usual, you can read the story on Yahoo if Bicycling’s site blocks you.

Denver residents are pushing for the city’s Shared Streets, aka Slow Streets, to be made permanent.

An Ohio man explains how to build a lightweight cross-country bike on a budget.

The executive director of Bike Pittsburgh makes the case that bike lanes benefit everyone, not just the people on two wheels.

After a bike commuter was injured in a hit-and-run outside her apartment, a kindhearted South Carolina woman arranged to get him a new bike, then tracked down the total stranger to give it to him.

South Carolina’s Workman Cycles continues to fill orders in workman-like fashion to ensure people get their bikes for the holidays; the 122-year old company claims to be America’s oldest bikemaker.

A professional golfer living in Florida is lucky to come back after suffering serious injuries when she ran her 30 mph ebike into a curb.

 

International

A writer for Bike Radar argues what mountain bike standard should be standard, and that standards should exist to make your life easier.

Merchants in a British Columbia city attempt to shoot themselves in the foot by opposing a plan to replace 90 parking spaces with a two-way cycle track, apparently unaware that bike riders spend more money than drivers do. A city counselor wisely notes that “There’s not a bike path in the world that didn’t start off with some kind of controversy.”

An Ontario, Canada newspaper makes the case for why people in colder climes should keep riding through the winter.

Princess Diana was one of us, spending the night before her wedding to Prince Charles riding through the halls of London’s Clarence House.

Bicycling deaths in Scotland have jumped to their highest level since 2013. Meanwhile, 90% of drivers in the Scottish Borders region say they will simply ignore the new 20 mph speed limit. Those things couldn’t possibly be related, could they?

Proposed British ebike subsidies could cut prices by as much as a third.

A public health professor in the UK calls on the country to close roads over the holidays to give pedestrians and bicyclists room to exercise and allow people to spend as much time outdoors as possible.

The BBC says bike-friendly Slow Streets are changing cities for the better.

The president of the Philippines decrees that the 4th Sunday of every November will henceforth be National Bicycle Day.

 

Finally…

Dunkin’s new donut tandem appears to have failed basic geometry. Keeping up the grand tradition of cheating in bike racing, even virtual kind.

And that feeling when a company claims their reflective bike stickers could potentially save thousands of lives.

Unlike, say, all the other reflective bike stickers out there.

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Be safe, and stay healthy. And wear a mask, already. 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , ,

Meet CD4 candidate Nithya Raman tonight, fire closes LA County roads, and misogyny alive and well in bike industry

August 18, 2020 / / One comment

Meet CD4 candidate Nithya Raman virtually tonight, as she discusses her race against incumbent Councilmember David Ryu.

And listen to her stances on transportation in the the City of Angels, and the 4th Council District in particular, including bicycles.

As we’ve mentioned before, Raman has earned the endorsement of both Bike the Vote LA and Streets For All. And has my unqualified support, as well.

She’s already made a difference in the district, as Ryu has co-opted many of her urbanist and safe streets policies after opposing them for most of his first term.

RSVP for the Zoom conference here.

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Road closures remain in effect from the weekend’s Ranch 2 Fire.

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Gravel Bike California rides through SoCal’s abandoned Cold War-era tunnels to nowhere.

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A Pasadena survey is heavily weighted towards parking. But take a few minute to answer it anyway.

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How to change an inner tube without tire levers.

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

It takes a major schmuck to destroy an artistic fence made of bicycles surrounding a Dayton, Ohio nonprofit.

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

San Diego police arrested a stabbing suspect as he fled by bicycle following a knifing in a Pacific Beach public restroom Sunday night.

A pair of Texas men are under arrest after hitting a passing bike rider with a baseball bat in a failed attempt to steal his bike.

Then there’s this, from mountain bikewear Where The Trail Begins, proving misogyny is alive and well in the bike industry. Even if the company only seems to have two lousy products.

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Local

Great idea. A new petition calls for a protected bike lane on Franklin Ave between Highland and Los Feliz, which would be the first safe east-west bike route across Hollywood. Or any other direction, for that matter. And yes, I signed it.

 

State

Former Santa Ana Councilmember and SCAG President Michele Martinez is replacing OC real estate developer and sprawl advocate Lucy Dunn on the California Transportation Commission; Martinez is credited as a driving force behind SCAG’s popular Go Human campaign.

A Bakersfield columnist describes how his father-in-law just decided to take up bicycling and bought a new bike — his 92-year old father-in-law.

More tragic news from Northern California, where sheriff’s deputies in Cupertino discovered the body of an apparent hit-and-run victim lying next to his bike early Sunday morning.

Smart idea, as the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition teamed with a local water district to document Valley Water signs along roads and trails. Which beats the hell out of sending staffers out in trucks to look for them. Thanks to Robert Leone for the heads-up.

 

National

Black Girls Do Bike is teaming with USA Cycling to make bicycling more accessible to women of color.

A tech site says the boom, bust and boom cycles resulting from the coronavirus have tossed bikeshare systems proven rebalancing algorithms over the handlebars.

A writer for the Daily Beast says ebikes are wondrous machines that can take you further than you ought to go if anything goes wrong.

A Las Vegas paper gets it, editorializing that higher speeds and heavier vehicles are literally killing us.

Bicycling belatedly catches up with the decision of the Lance Armstrong-founded Mellow Johnny’s bike shop to stop selling bikes to the Austin, Texas police department, in support of the Black Lives Matter protests. Which we mentioned here a couple weeks ago.

A Chicago writer offers a primer on trail riding courtesy.

An op-ed in the New York Daily News calls on the city to recommit to creating streets that benefit all of us.

A bighearted eight-year old Baltimore boy just learned how to ride a bike after the pandemic hit. But he’s already planning a 50-mile ride to raise funds to help pave sections of the C&O Canal Towpath; as of this writing, he was just $124 short of his $2,500 goal.

Police in Virginia are looking for a driver who allegedly smashed into three police bikes while attempting to run down the officers on them.

Now that’s a good kid. When a bighearted 10-year old boy in Monroe, Louisiana learned a handicapped man wished he had a bike after his truck was stolen and his home caught fire, he insisted on giving the man the new bike he had saved up to buy for himself.

 

International

Cyclist considers the best e-cargo bikes.

London’s conservative Sunday Times says the reason fewer bike riders are getting ticketed in the city is because bicyclists are getting away with breaking the law. Not, say, the well-established principle that better bike infrastructure encourages better behavior.

Surprisingly, there’s no historic marker in the English town where John Kemp Starley developed the Rover Safety bicycle, revolutionizing the world of big wheeled, direct-drive bikes and making it possible for anyone to ride a bicycle.

Heartbreaking story from Rwanda, where a teenage member of the country’s women’s national cycling team says she was raped and impregnated by a team coach; she’s still waiting for justice eight months after the body of her baby was exhumed, after he died under mysterious circumstances just days after birth.

Not even the world’s biggest bike maker in Taiwan can build their way out of the current bike boom-inspired bicycle shortage.

 

Competitive Cycling

SB Nation posted video of the crash that seriously injured 20-year old Belgian pro Remco Evenepoel, as he went over a bridge while descending in the Il Lombardia stage race; he’ll be off his bike for the next two months. The video is hard to watch, and lingers a little too much on Evenepoel as he writhes in pain at the bottom of a ravine. So be sure that’s something you really want to see before clicking through. 

Pot, meet kettle. Former US Postal Service team manager Johan Bruyneel, who headed it when ex-Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong, and most of the other team members, were winning by loading up on EPO, now says UCI isn’t doing anything about doping because all they care about is money.

 

Finally…

When you’re already wanted for a probation violation, as well as a fugitive from another state, maybe riding erratically all over the highway isn’t the best idea.

And that feeling when you’re about to be attacked by a sea creature on dry land.

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Be safe, and stay healthy. And wear a mask, already. 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
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