It’s election day in California. So stop what you’re doing, and get out and bike the vote already.
We’ll wait.
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KNBC-4 reported last night that a bike rider was killed in San Bernardino as collateral damage in a possible road rage dispute between two drivers.
Unfortunately, the story does not appear to be online as of this writing.
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Testimony has started in the trial of Ventura tow truck driver Hermin Martin Henderson, accused of running over 14-year old bike rider Jonathan Hernandez, then fleeing the scene without stopping.
Hernandez was seen on security video running the red light while riding without lights, so Henderson wouldn’t have been at fault if he had simply stopped as the law and basic human decency requires.
Hernandez was riding to a friend’s house when he was killed; he was reportedly troubled after joining his family to mark his sister’s birthday, who had died of leukemia a few months earlier.
He was struck by second driver as he lay in the road after getting hit by Henderson’s tow truck; that driver was never found.
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South LA has a stake in this year’s RAAM.
Compton’s own ten-time National Crit Champ Rahsaan Bahati will compete in the 3,000-mile Race Across America, one of the world’s toughest ultra-endurance races. He’ll be riding to raise funds for his own nonprofit Bahati Foundation, as well as the Jessie Rees Foundation and Augie’s Quest.
The race starts a week from today in Oceanside, California and will finish in Annapolis, Maryland roughly eight days later.
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Local
Councilmember Mitch Englander is calling for an emergency moratorium on dockless bikeshares and greater regulation, after complaining about bikes being haphazardly strewn about. Because it’s just so darn hard to pick up a bike and move it if it’s in the way. And he couldn’t be more wrong about the “failure” of dockless bikeshare in China, where its overwhelming success has led to problems of oversupply as competing providers try to capture the market.
Bike SGV has a full slate of events this month.
Santa Clarita will be reviving its “Heads Up” safety campaign this summer in an attempt to educate bicyclists and motorists to improve safety. Although all the advice appears to be aimed at the people on two wheels.
State
An Op-Ed in The Daily Pilot says more people in Costa Mesa would bike or walk if they felt safer on the streets. In other words, pretty much like everywhere else.
A new online Bakersfield bike map hopes to pinpoint dangerous areas where riders feel unsafe on their bikes.
I want to be like her when I grow up. A 73-year old Los Altos woman is writing a book, and spending the next week riding down the coast on the AIDS/LifeCycle Ride.
As San Francisco struggles to decide whether to allow e-scooters, Wired says don’t ban them, redesign the streets to make room for them. And save the city in the process.
Sad news from Nevada City, where a 68-year old cyclist was killed in an apparent fall while riding in Bosnia with his wife and another couple.
National
A 57-year old widow trades her bicycle for a Harley.
A woman on an around-the-world bike ride says you have to tackle America’s greatest road trip, riding down the Left Coast on the Pacific Coast Bicycle Route.
At 106 miles, Utah now has the longest continuous bike trail west of the Mississippi.
Colorado officials plan to confront a rising bicyclist and pedestrian death toll with a social media campaign saying “Safety Starts with All of Us” on Facebook and Twitter. Sure, that will work.
This is the cost of traffic violence, as a Texas family cries out for justice, and wonders how anyone could be so cruel that they could leave a bike rider dying in the street. Thanks to Stephen Katz for the link.
A St. Louis sports reporter traded his car for a bike, and doesn’t regret it a bit despite the Missouri winters.
Two years after she was paralysed from the waist down by a distracted driver on a Bike & Build ride, and her riding companion killed, a Michigan woman is planning to use a handcycle finish the ride she never completed. The driver who hit them got just two months behind bars.
Milwaukee officials say they need more bike riders on the streets.
A Manhattan congressman is the definition of windshield bias as he blames bike lanes for traffic problems, and not the illegally parked SUVs. Seriously, some people just can’t see the traffic for the cars.
Don’t do this. A New York cyclist traveling with a group of around 12 riders crashed into a woman and a child as they were crossing the street, although it’s not clear from the article who had the right-of-way.
If you’re going to observe the annual World Naked Bike Ride — in any sense — New Orleans is probably the best place to do it.
International
That runny nose when you ride could be a sign of Exercise Induced Rhinitis, or EIR. Or it could be a sign that it’s time to give up that coke habit.
A lifelong Winnipeg bike rider is working to get more indigenous youth on bicycles.
The war on bike continues, as a Toronto mountain biker suffered cuts on both arms when he crashed into barbed wire that had been strong across a trail.
Toronto bike advocates worry that progress has stalled on a key bikeway, despite a city council vote to make it permanent.
A London driver observed World Bicycle Day by abandoning his car and running away after crashing into a bike rider on a designated Quietway, leaving the victim to die in the street.
London’s former cycling commissioner says bicycling improvements are sure vote winners, in the UK or the US. Maybe someone should tell that to the LA city council.
First it was a bike rider in the UK threatening a driver with a knife, now a man with a knife threatened a pair of bike riders.
A British bike advocate says their local Parliament member is wrong; it’s drivers who pose a risk to pedestrians, not people on bicycles.
For the first time, an all-women’s bike ride is rolling across the kingdom of Bahrain, complete with a sag wagon for rest and security.
A Nigerian government official marked World Bicycle Day by saying that encouraging more people to ride bicycles is one of the surest ways to minimise traffic congestion.
A Moroccan man has ridden over 13,000 miles across the African continent, only to have his bike stolen ten minutes after he locked it up outside a mosque in South Africa.
Caught on video: An Aussie bicyclist can thank a driver for his quick action in avoiding a crash, after the rider slipped when he hit a patch of gumnuts and fell in front of the oncoming car. And no, I didn’t know what they were, either.
Another bike race, another crash with a race moto. But at least this time, no one was seriously hurt.
Electric bicycles have shed their mamachari image in Japan, as “sporting ebikes” have suddenly developed a cool factor.
Tragic news from Singapore, where a 60-year old woman is on life support after a 17-year old bike rider allegedly crashed into her from behind on a shared-use path.
Competitive Cycling
Nearly two dozen cyclists were treated for injuries when bad pavement caused a mass crash in a Maryland bike race.
Once again, a pro cyclist has been sidelined by a collision, as Dimension Data’s Lachlan Morton suffers a broken arm when he’s struck by a driver while training in Colorado.
Amgen Tour of California winner Egan Bernal is preparing to make his Tour de France debut riding in support of Chris Froome. Assuming the doping cloud over Froome’s head doesn’t come down on him, that is.
A Cycling Weekly writer says he’d like to see a little more silliness on the pro tour.
A Wisconsin paper profiles 33-year old ultra-cyclist Brett Stepanik, the first rider to finish the 750-mile Arizona Trail Race, the 2,732-mile Tour Divide Mountain Bike Race and the 580-mile Colorado Trail Race on a single-speed bike in a single year.
Finally…
This story seems to be saying if you’re going to ride drunk, wear a helmet. If you ride naked with a group, it’s the World Naked Bike Ride; if you ride naked by yourself, you’re just a perv.
And no, we don’t have to accept that cars will kill anyone, with or without a driver.
