Tag Archive for Los Angeles

Update: Man killed while riding with his girlfriend in Expo Park hit-and-run

July 21, 2019 / / 3 comments

Yet another innocent life has been taken by a heartless killer driver.

According to KTLA-5, someone ran down the man as he was riding with his girlfriend in Exposition Park Saturday night.

Then fled the scene without stopping. Or apparently giving a damn.

The couple were riding on Jefferson Boulevard at Denker Avenue in Expo Park around 10:30 pm when the victim was struck by a speeding driver headed west on Jefferson.

The man, who has not been publicly identified, was taken to a nearby hospital, where he died a short time later.

His girlfriend was uninjured, though the trauma of watching someone she cared about get killed right in front of her last a lifetime.

No description is available for the driver, while the car was described only as a dark-colored sedan.

A street view shows a four lane street with left turn bays, and no bike lanes or any other form of infrastructure or protection for people on bicycles.

Anyone with information is urged to call LAPD South Traffic Division Detective Flannery or Officer Pollard at 323/421-2500. As always, there is a standing $50,000 reward for any fatal hit-and-run in the City of Los Angeles.

Hopefully that will be enough to bring this coward to justice.

This is at least the 40th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the 16th I’m aware of in Los Angeles County; it’s also the eighth in the City of Los Angeles.

Update: A friend of the victim, who remains unidentified publicly, tells me was almost home when he was killed.

Update 2: The victim has been identified in Spanish language media as 24-year old Cristian Méndez Ramos. (Correction: I originally spelled his name as Christian, rather than Cristian; Univision spelled it both ways. Thanks to Angie Sims for the correction.)

My deepest sympathy and prayers for Cristian Méndez Ramos and his family and loved ones.

 

Category: Injuries and Fatalities / Tags: , , , , ,

Morning Links: LA driver entitlement and assholery, Critical Mass stopped by H’wood LAPD, and stupid bicyclist tricks

July 19, 2019 / / 2 comments

I may have witnessed the high water mark of driver entitlement and assholery yesterday.

A paramedic unit came up our narrow street yesterday with red lights and siren blazing, then came to a halt in front of the building next door, blocking the entire roadway.

An Uber driver came up the street and stopped behind them. After a few seconds, he started blaring on his horn for them to get the hell out of his way.

Then wisely shifted into reverse and made a fast three-point turn to go the other way when an angry LA firefighter got out of the truck and started walking back towards his car.

He nearly left skid marks going around the corner to get away — and probably on his seat, too.

And was barely out of sight before the paramedic unit took off again, this time with someone aboard.

………

A reader says Hollywood LAPD officers brought up memories of the bad old days, before former Chief Beck improved relations with the bike community.

In June, Critical Mass got pulled over. In front of the McDonald’s at Hollywood & Highland. No need to go into the history of previous Mass/LAPD interaction at this exact location, right?

We were eastbound on Hollywood Blvd, and Brian, who drives the lead support vehicle, had remained stopped through a green interval. The ride was pretty big (yay summer vacation!), and this stop was to allow the stragglers huffing uphill to catch up. As soon as Brian proceeded across the intersection, BOOM, lights & sirens. Brian pulled over to the curb, so the whole ride stopped, too. In the intersection.

I was five bikes over, on the left of the leftmost lane, so I couldn’t hear the exchange, but I saw Brian staying calm and presenting his driver’s license. Altogether four LAPD cruisers responded, one of which whipped eastbound down the westbound lane of H’wood, closer to my left elbow than I liked.

After a few minutes, the ride marshals herded us forward, and we stopped again on Hollywood at Normandie. Because our AirBnB was nearby, this is where my bf & I ditched, but not before asking the SAG vehicle guys for an update. Apparently, Brian wasn’t cited. And nobody had their phones stomped into confetti by jackbooted thugs this time. I look forward to getting more details next Friday.

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If you’re trying to flee from the police on a cruiser bike, try to pull off a bunny hop without face planting at the end.

Or getting Tased.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B0DtbrCl3Jk/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=embed_video_watch_again

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Local

LA cyclist Justine Williams says actually, Los Angeles is a great city for bicycling; last year’s dual men’s national crit and road cycling champ is the co-founder of the Legion of Los Angeles cycling team made up of mostly black and Hispanic riders from South LA.

The Long Beach Post says no, car insurance premiums will not rise $50 to $75 a month along the post-road diet Broadway corridor — despite what a somewhat truth-challenged city council candidate claimed.

 

State

San Diego business owners complain that the loss of parking spaces on 30th Street to make room for protected bike lanes will put them out of business. Because apparently, bike riders don’t shop or spend money, and customers only come by cars and prefer smoggy, traffic-choked shopping districts.

San Francisco supervisors vote to tame traffic by closing a busy street for one block, while installing protected bike lanes in other sections. Meanwhile, LA officials lack the courage to take the obvious step of turning Hollywood & Highland into a pedestrian plaza.

A man was found dead next to his bike on a Calistoga road at 4 am yesterday, with injuries consistent with getting hit by a motorist; he was identified as a 28-year old Pittsburgh PA man staying in Santa Rosa. We’ve said it before. In cases like this, the driver should face a murder charge for making a conscious decision to let another person die alone in the street, rather than stopping to offer aid and call for help.

 

National

Popular Mechanics says yes, there really is a rust-proof bicycle. And no, it wasn’t the Walmart Huffy.

A beginning mountain biker learns that riding a bike isn’t just like riding a bike.

Seattle will fork out over $1.5 million to settle a lawsuit from a bike rider who nearly died after catching a tire in a streetcar track and falling under a bus.

A Seattle bike rider calls for protected bike lanes after getting squeezed off the road when a semi driver cut into the narrow painted bike lane he was riding in. Although it’s never a good idea to undertake a big truck, whether or not you’re in a separate lane. And especially not when he’s got his flashers on.

A Utah bike lawyer says the easiest way to avoid getting hit by a driver is to ride on quiet, slow-speed streets. Which is easier said than done in most cities, where bike riders are forced to mix cars to get nearly anywhere. And even that won’t prevent all collisions.

Denver bicyclists are mourning the death of a popular bicycle activist, pedicab driver and bike shop worker, who was killed by a reckless driver in the city’s first bicycling death of the year.

Bike riders, skateboarders and e-scooter riders will now be required to get off and walk on the street in front of Coors Field when the Colorado Rockies baseball team is playing.

A Colorado town considers removing an eight-year old provision requiring bike riders to dismount when entering a crosswalk.

I want to be like him when I grow up. A Wisconsin man celebrated his 80th birthday by hitting 80,000 lifetime miles on his bike. Although I left the 80,000 mile mark in my rearview mirror a long damn time ago.

The people of Detroit have spoken, and they want more bike lanes and sidewalks.

Once again, a bike rider has been killed by crashing into an apparently driverless truck, this time in Michigan.

Gothamist offers a good piece on New York bike etiquette, including the need to put vulnerable pedestrians first. Which should go without saying, but too often doesn’t.

No bias here. Police in Pennsylvania are investigating to see if charges are warranted against the road-raging driver caught on bike cam stopping his car to get out and swear at a group of bike riders — but the police chief would rather focus on how bike riders have to obey the law, too.

Juli Briskman, the bike rider who was fired for famously flipping off the president’s motorcade, is now running for county supervisor in Virginia.

 

International

You’ve got to be kidding. A Vancouver criminal defense attorney attempts to justify an $81 fine a careless driver received for killing a bike rider in a dooring, saying the driver merely forgot to check his blindspot before opening the door and nothing he did showed a disregard for life or safety. Except maybe failing to check his blindspot before opening his door and killing another person. Yeah, except that.

A Toronto councillor and deputy mayor is facing a backlash for exulting online over killing an attempt to restore a bike lane that had been removed several years ago — even though collisions doubled after the lanes were taken out.

 

Competitive Cycling

Eurosport looks back to when French cyclist Eugène Christophe donned the first yellow jersey in the Tour de France one hundred years ago today.

Britain’s Chris Froome has won the Vuelta a España. No, not this year’s, the 2011 Vuelta, after Spain’s Juan José Cobo was disqualified for doping eight years after the fact.

The mysterious case of the missing TdF brake and gear cables.

Cycling Tips looks at the bizarre departure of Australian Rohan Dennis from this year’s Tour de France; Dennis got off his bike at a feed zone in the middle of Thursday’s stage, and simply walked away with no explanation.

Outside wants to introduce you to seven rookie riders in this year’s Tour de France, including two women competing in today’s token Le Course circuit race.

 

Finally…

If you’re going to peddle a hot bike, try not to sell it to a pair of cops in an unmarked car. Now you, too, can own your very own slightly used 15-person beer bike for a mere ten grand.

And if you want to ride your bike to the moon, you’d better get started, already.

 

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

Morning Links: Hermosa Beach sharrows fight, and what the hell is going on with LADOT and the Arroyo Seco Bike Path?

July 18, 2019 / / Comments Off on Morning Links: Hermosa Beach sharrows fight, and what the hell is going on with LADOT and the Arroyo Seco Bike Path?

A bike-raging Hermosa Beach bicyclist could face charges for attempting to punch a motorist.

Then again, so could the driver.

The incident started when the guy on the bike complained that the driver passed too close while he was riding on the city’s sharrows. Then allegedly attack the other man after he stepped out of his car.

Police officials say the incident is still under investigation, but that both men could be responsible for the incident.

Meanwhile, the man who shot the video says he rides a bike too. But thinks the sharrows make bike riders “feel entitled to more than common sense would allow.”

Even though that’s the exact purpose of sharrows, to demonstrate to everyone that bicyclists are entitled to ride in the lane, and just where they should be positioned.

And even though sharrows don’t give bike riders any rights we don’t already have on virtually any other street.

………

Good Twitter thread asking what the hell is going on with the seemingly endless closure of the Arroyo Seco Bike Path in Gil Cedillo’s 1st Council District, as LADOT insists they’re working on it.

And the LACBC politely responds, not very hard.

………

Thanks to Opus the Poet for forwarding this educational video on how to throw a monkey wrench into the usual auto-centrism.

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Bakersfield bike riders go on their monthly full moon ride.

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If you think riding the cobbles of the spring classics are rough, check out this ride from the Åre Bike Park in Sweden.

But you might want to take a little Dramamine first.

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Now this is a mountain bike race.

https://www.singletracks.com/blog/mtb-videos/watch-2019-mountain-of-hell-mountain-bike-race/

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Sometimes it’s the people on bikes behaving badly.

A Wyoming man suffered serious injuries when he was literally run over by someone on a bicycle, as proven by the tire tracks on his chest.

Wichita KS police are looking for someone on a bicycle who shot the windows out of cars with a BB gun.

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Local

LA officials unveil three proposals for a major new park on the former Taylor Yards site along the LA River.

Dubai’s Open Skies magazine visits a recent CicLAvia, questioning whether it means an end to LA’s love for cars. We should be so lucky.

 

State

A San Diego TV station demonstrates how to rewrite a NIMBY press release without adding any information, while tossing in an anti-bike tweet from one of their news people for good measure. Thanks to F. Lehnerz for the heads-up.

An op-ed in the Desert Sun lists all the NIMBY reasons why the 50-mile CV Link trail around the Coachella Valley is a bad idea. Seriously, folks, it’s just a bike path.

The Ojai Valley Bike Trail will be closed fo five months for drainage repair work, starting on the 15th of next month. Ever notice that they seldom seem to close the roadways drivers use for months at a time?

 

National

Bike Snob’s Eben Weiss says if government officials really want to save the environment, they should forget electric cars and start subsidizing ebikes.

A bike commuting fashion writer offers tips on how women can dress to ride a bike, with nary a spandex in sight.

A self-described avid bicyclist insists bikes don’t belong on the streets, and says Las Vegas should start building wider sidewalks that bike riders can share with walkers and joggers. Aside from the obvious conflicts of sharing sidewalks, that begs the question, if bikes don’t belong on the streets, where does he ride now?

A memorial sculpture composed of multiple ghost bikes honors the eight bike riders killed in Nevada in 2017.

Once again, a bike rider is a hero, as a Kansas man who was out riding with his wife teamed with a cop to rescue a teenage girl trapped in a river.

There’s a special place in hell for the grown men who punched an eleven-year old Nebraska boy in the face to steal his bicycle.

There’s a good reason why business was buzzing at a Texas bike shop.

A Chicago weekly questions whether fears of reckless cyclists are overblown. Gee, you think?

A New York website says the city should take a page from London to make it safe for bike riders.

New York’s leading alternative transpiration advocacy group is looking for a communications associate.

When a New Jersey woman’s car broke down, a group of bike cops who were training nearby were happy to give her a push.

Heartbreaking story from Atlanta, where a married man who had just graduated college with two degrees — paid for by Starbucks, his employer — was killed by a drunk driver as he rode his bike to work at 5 am.

A report from a Georgia public radio station says Atlanta’s rapid growth and lack of safe infrastructure is putting bicyclists and pedestrians at risk, with crashes up 53% in ten years.

More heartbreaking news, this time from Florida, where a 17-month old toddler is dead, her mother in a wheelchair and her father still in a coma, 46 days after a driver jumped the curb and slammed into the family as they were riding on the sidewalk to help the child fall asleep. A GoFundMe account to help pay their medical expenses has raised nearly $45,000 of the $100,000 goal.

 

International

Thirteen bike bells to help drive Quasimodo crazy, and tell other road users that an angel just got its wings.

If you build it, they will come. Despite the usual arguments that no one would ever use it, a 10-year old separated bike path across a Vancouver bridge has proven hugely successful, becoming the busiest bike lane in North America, with over a million bike riders a year.

Speaking of Vancouver, the city is dealing with a rash of bicycle chop shops.

A woman who was injured in a terrorist attack outside London’s Houses of Parliament while riding her bike to work has been too frightened to ride her bike ever since. The driver was convicted of intentionally plowing his car into a group of bike riders waiting on a red light, before attempting to hit a pair of police officers.

Former London mayor and possible prime minister Boris Johnson is accused of lying during a debate about the bike he rode while mayor having been stolen; he’d previously said it died of old age.

Life is cheap in Great Britain, where a woman walked with a bare slap on the wrist for killing a renowned conservationist because she “just didn’t see him” as he rode his bicycle across the street.

An English e-bikeshare program was scrapped after vandals destroyed the bikes, making it financially unfeasible to go on.

An Irish group calls for separated bikeways because too many women feel judged due to intimidating behavior by men and boys on the road.

Your next Dutch bike could be a shaft-driven ebike that never needs charging.

An Indian website looks at how Hero Cycles got the country on wheels following its independence from the UK.

 

Competitive Cycling

A Denver op-ed calls for equality for women in pro cycling, starting with next month’s Colorado Classic women’s stage race.

London’s Telegraph says Julian Alaphilippe may be a genius on his bike, but questions how long he can hold onto the yellow jersey in the Tour de France.

Cycling Tips ranks the top four mountain bike jumps over the Tour de France.

The weirdest rules of the world’s greatest bike race.

 

Finally…

One reason it’s better to be a road cyclist than a mountain biker: roadies hardly ever run into bears. Evidently, Alfred Hitchcock was right about the birds.

And a letter to the editor from a self-identified non-Luddite says roads were built for horses, bicycles and streetcars, not cars.

Then again, it was written in 1908.

 

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

Morning Links: New plant-based cookbook by LA nutritionist and bicyclist, scary NY vigilantes, and bike riders behaving badly

July 17, 2019 / / 8 comments

Anyone looking to improve their diet — or performance on their bike — could do a lot worse than the new plant-based sports nutrition book co-written by Los Angeles nutritionist and enduro-cyclist Matt Ruscigno.

Longtime BikinginLA readers will know Ruscigno as founder of LA’s legendary Feel My Legs, I’m a Racer hillclimb competition.

Correction: I originally identified this as a cookbook; thanks to Matt Ruscigno for setting me straight. 

………

A frightening assault in New York was compounded by an apparently uncaring cop.

A small, older woman on a bikeshare bike was physically detained, despite her repeated screams for help, by two large men in a massive black SUV who claimed she had somehow scratched it.

https://twitter.com/Tellythecairn/status/1151142869664768005

And the New York traffic officer who finally arrived was apparently fine with the vigilante detention. Even though the men could have been charged with kidnapping and assault.

And probably should have been.

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In what’s becoming an annual event, yet another mountain biker has jumped over the Tour de France peloton.

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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes goes on… and on…and on…

A Seattle bicyclist posted a photo of the mark left on his thigh left by the driver who deliberately ran him off the road.

https://twitter.com/sejdevries/status/1151299527111917568

A road-raging British driver has been convicted assault by dangerous driving after getting out of his car to threaten a bicyclist, which was followed by a brake check, followed by slamming into the victim, breaking his pelvis, all despite the bike rider’s repeated attempts to get away.

Sometimes, though, it’s the people on bikes behaving badly.

Illinois police are looking for the adult male bike rider who stopped kids on a bike path, dropped his pants, and offered them money to change his diaper. Twice.

A bike-riding man stole a New Jersey boy’s unattended backpack while the kid was fishing a short distance away.

Former New York Rangers hockey player Sean Avery is continuing his one-man defense of the city’s bike lanes, posting obscenity-laced videos on Instagram that deservedly, but rudely, call out the delivery people who block them; he’s currently facing charges for smashing his scooter into a driver’s car.

A bike-raging Montreal rider is expected to face charges for smashing the windows of a bus with his bike lock because the driver was following his bicycle too closely.

Police in Halifax, Nova Scotia, are looking for a pair of men who yelled at a woman and slapped her in the face after catching up to her car at a stop sign, shortly after she had passed their bikes. Something tells me there’s more to this story. But still, just…don’t.

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Local

Streetsblog looks at the new traffic diverters on Rosewood Ave that allow bike riders and pedestrians to cross La Brea Ave, while forcing drivers on Rosewood to turn right.

Officials responsible for revitalizing the upper part of the Los Angeles River went fishing for feedback on a proposal to connect the Verdugo Mountains and San Rafael Hills in Glendale in some vague, undefined way that could possibly involve a bike path or some other type of trail. Or not.

Google Maps will soon be able to show you, not only where bikeshare docks are located, but how many bikes are there, in 24 cities around the world — including Los Angeles.

UCLA parking meister Donald Shoup talks micromobility and e-scooter parking.

Mavic, the French bike component and equipment maker, is now owned by a Beverly Hills private equity firm.

Santa Monica has clipped Bird’s wings, cutting the number of scooters they’re allowed to deploy on the streets by a third in response to continued complaints and data anomalies.

One of the counter protesters at the recent small demonstration demanding the removal of the Broadway road diet in Long Beach was the CEO of the company hired to manage the city’s bikeshare program, who carried a sign saying road diets save lives — even though his car’s mirror was knocked off by a passing driver while parked on the street.

 

State

The OC Register profiles Tustin’s Geoff Frost, a butterfly gardener, pine cone jewelry designer, didgeridoo craftsman, and now, beekeeper. And when he’s not doing all that, he sidelines as the manager of the Path Bike Shop.

Santa Barbara police released photos of an alleged hit-and-run driver who injured a bike rider last month.

A Frazier Park woman suffered major injuries in a crash police are investigating as a hit-and-run, after she somehow came off her bike and crashed into a railing or the pavement.

A new study has identified San Jose’s most dangerous neighborhoods and intersections for car crashes.

Atlas Obscura offers an appreciation of San Francisco’s 400-foot Duboce Parkway Mural, an “ode to bicycling” painted by volunteers with the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition.

 

National

Now you, too, can buy a numbered, limited edition version of Specialized’s new e-roadie for the low, low price of just $17,000. But at least it’s pretty, right?

Bicycling talks with YouTube’s bike pump playing musician.

People for Bikes announced the recipients of their latest round of small grants, most of which went to organizations in the South and Midwest; only one went to a group west of the Mississippi — and none in California.

A 69-year old Portland man had his $11,000 Colnago stolen in a strong-arm robbery when a pair of young men knocked him off his bike and into some bushes and made off with his bicycle; one of the alleged thieves was later caught on video riding it.

Colorado bike riders will face a 1.6-mile detour after a separated bikeway between Denver and Boulder was closed when a bridge collapsed due to the ground subsiding beneath it.

A San Antonio TX driver learns the hard way that it’s probably not the best idea to run over a bike cop’s bicycle while fleeing a simple traffic stop.

Yes, it really does happen. A Brooklyn bike rider was seriously injured when he suddenly cut across both lanes of traffic, and was hit by a driver traveling in the opposite direction in a crash caught on security cam.

Good question. Gothamist examines the psychology behind the hatred New York drivers and pedestrians have for bike riders, noting that despite the perceived danger, bike riders were involved in just 2% of pedestrian injuries and only one death in 2017, while New York drivers killed 106 people on foot.

New York’s Citi Bike bikeshare finally makes its way the Bronx, following years of criticism for catering to more upscale neighborhoods.

Bicycling injuries are up in eight of New York’s ten “safety priority” districts, sometimes by double digits.

There’s a special place in hell for whoever stole a Pennsylvania combat vet’s bicycle on his first day of work at a pizza joint; it was his only form of transportation. He turned down an offer of a car to replace it because he just doesn’t want one. Now that’s my kind of guy.

An Alabama bike co-op placed a ghost bike for a homeless man who may have been one of their customers.

An Atlanta woman and her husband have raised funds for a $5,000 reward after a hit-and-run driver ran her down from behind as they were riding their bikes in a marked bike lane, in a crash that was also caught on a security camera.

 

International

Another reminder that people in more enlightened countries can buy insurance to cover them and their bikes when they ride. Unlike the US, where you can only get collision insurance if you own a car. The main reason I’ve held onto my car this long is my reluctance to give up uninsured motorist coverage, which protects you on your bike, as well as your car.

Britain’s Countess of Wessex confessed to giving a male rider a complex about his butt, after she and another woman spent the better part of an hour staring at it on a 445-mile charity ride.

If you want to try riding your bike up the world’s steepest street, you’ll have to travel to Wales, where you’ll find a roadway offering a breathtaking 37.45% grade.

A new Aussie study confirms that active commutes like bicycling or walking can make you happier, and more productive at work.

 

Competitive Cycling

Cyclist looks at who are the winners and losers in the Tour de France so far.

It will cost you to watch the token women’s La Course by le Tour de France, which offers just a single day of circuit racing compared to three weeks for the men. But at least they offer matching prize money. Pro tip: Save your money and catch the free online streaming of next month’s Colorado Classic, which is now a top tier, four stage women’s race.

One of the champions at the recent USA Cycling Track National Championships in Carson once again was Cal Berkeley law professor Molly Van Houweling, who won the Elite Women’s Individual Pursuit.

 

Finally…

Seriously, don’t drop your bike to chase down an escaped goat. Your shredded bike tubes could come back as a fanny pack…uh, hip pack.

And the latest bike-themed music video goes a bit goth.

And strange.

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

Morning Links: San Jose driver slams two bike riders, former musher’s epic bike journey, and new human bike record

July 16, 2019 / / 5 comments

Let’s start with this understated quote from a San Jose cop.

“Well, you can imagine, she hit two bicyclists. She’s obviously very shaken up and distraught,” said Tepoorten.

As well she should be.

Considering the woman killed one bike rider and left the other critically injured and clinging to life.

Although something tells me the families and loved ones of the victims are pretty damn distraught, too.

The victims were riding in a marked bike lane when the driver pulled out of a San Jose strip mall parking lot and slammed into them yesterday morning; somehow going fast enough to cause life-threatening injuries to two people, despite just leaving the lot.

“Any time you’re exiting a parking lot, you have yield to pedestrian, vehicle traffic, as well as bicycles. So, the bicyclists would have the right of way because they were already in the roadway traveling southbound on Vistapark,” said Gena Tepoorten of the San Jose Police Department. “She was exiting a parking lot, we know, when this happened.”

Particularly since parking lots are usually controlled with either a stop sign or stop light, suggesting she had to speed through one or the other to cause that much harm.

Thanks to John McBrearty for the heads-up.

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Earlier this year, my former Iditrod sled dog-mushing brother Eric — former musher and particle physicist, that is, not former brother — wrote a guest post on here describing last year’s epic bike ride from the Pacific Northwest back to his home in western Colorado.

Now he’s off on his latest adventure, a three and a half month bikepacking journey that will take him up to Seattle, down the left coast to Tijuana, and back up to Colorado, hitting a number of national and state parks along the way.

Not to mention a brief layover at BikinginLA world headquarters in Hollywood.

I’m not active on Facebook these days, but you can follow along on his journey there if you want to vicariously take part in the adventure.

And who knows? Maybe we can all talk him into giving a talk once he gets to LA.

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There’s a new world record for the largest human-formed bicycle, beating the effort to promote the Amgen Tour of California at the Rose Bowl earlier this year.

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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes goes on.

A road raging Cincinnati, Ohio man is being held on a charge of felonious assault for intentionally swerving in front of a bike rider and dooring him from his moving truck, leaving the victim with serious injuries.

F. Lehnerz forwards video of a road raging driver who brake checked a group of bike riders, then got out of his car to scream at them for the crime of not riding their bikes the way he thought they should. Unfortunately, no word on where this took place.

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Local

Bike the Vote LA has endorsed environmentalist and professor Loraine Lundquist in the special election for the San Fernando Valley’s 12th Council District.

Visions of Venice Blvd. Seventy-five people turned out to protest the road diet and bike lanes on the Broadway corridor in Long Beach, arguing that they make the street more dangerous. The bike lanes, not the people. Though they probably do, too.

 

State

San Diego drivers are confused by the new parking protected bike lanes in the downtown area.

No bias here. A San Diego weekly says the city’s mayor and a councilmember effectively told local civic groups to drop dead because they didn’t adopt the groups plans for preserving parking in the Mid City area; instead opting to remove 420 mostly unused curbside parking spaces to install protected bike lanes.

The Bay Area’s BART trains will now include straps to secure bicycles in the car’s bike section, allowing bike riders to ride more safely and comfortably, without having to stand and hold their bikes. Let’s hope LA Metro and Metrolink are paying attention.

Only a third of San Francisco’s fatal hit-and-runs result in charges, while a full 40% of the cases go unsolved, leading to heartbreak and frustration for those left behind. On the other hand, only 8% of LA’s hit-and-runs, fatal or otherwise, ever get solved. Thanks to Robert Leone for the link. 

There’s a special place in hell for whoever stole two adaptive bicycles from a Sacramental special needs boy who suffers from verbal, physical and intellectual disabilities.

 

National

Bicycling examines the futuristic Fuell Fluid-1 ped-assist ebike designed by engineer and motorcycle racer Erik Buell and Formula 1 designer Frédéric Vasseur. The magazine also lists what they consider the best bike buys on Amazon Prime Day. But check with your favorite local bike shop first before you click the buy button.

No one is using Aspen, Colorado’s new $20,000 bike lockers, even though they rent for just $40 a season and have been moved to other locations to draw more interest. For 40 bucks, I’ll take one if they’ll move it to Los Angeles. Or move me to Aspen. 

An older Boulder CO bike rider wants to know what happened to the formerly common bike courtesy of calling out “On your left!” when passing another rider or pedestrian. Good question, although I’ve found “Passing on your left” to be more effective. But whether you use your voice or a bell, some sort of audible warning should be given.

There’s also a special place in hell for whoever stole a 15-year old Idaho BMX champ’s bike, preventing him from competing this year.

Three bike riders were injured riding over rough railroad tracks on a tune-up ride for Iowa’s popular RAGBRAI, at least one after being directed across by a police officer, despite fire trucks apparently responding to earlier injuries.

A New York website says inadequate traffic enforcement is undermining Vision Zero, as killer drivers too often walk with little or no consequences for taking the life of another human being.

How to tell when an intersection is too dangerous. A bike rider in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood was injured when she was hit by a cab less than a block from where another woman was killed in a crash last month.

A Long Island doctor wants to know if anyone conducted an environmental impact report to determine how many people ride bikes before painting a new bike lane in front of the post office. Maybe someone could explain to the good doctor how bicycling could benefit his patients. Or he could just ask this Albuquerque physician. Then again, he could just be a PhD with no patients, or patience.

A group of Philadelphia seminarians will ride 150 miles in five days, crisscrossing the city to promote religious vocations.

Shreveport police are looking for a car that fled the scene after striking a kid on a bicycle, since it apparently didn’t have a driver. Thanks again to F. Lehnerz for the tip.

Baton Rouge, Louisiana residents are outraged over the murder of a 75-year old community leader who founded the city’s African American history museum; she’d been suffocated and stuffed in the trunk of a car. Sadie Roberts-Joseph was known for coordinating bike giveaways through the museum.

Naples FL is installing bike turn boxes to guide riders through a simple L-turn.

 

International

Not only have the new Vancouver, British Columbia bike lanes not led to the feared traffic Armageddon, after ten years they’ve proven to be even more successful than city leaders originally predicted.

There’s not a hole deep enough for someone heartless enough to flee the scene after killing a 10-year old Ontario, Canada girl as she rode her bike.

The UK considers whether to legalize e-scooters, though it would be kind of hard to shove the genie back into the bottle at this point.

A British neurosurgeon says skip the helmet, arguing that bike helmets are too flimsy and ineffective to do any good, and may encourage risky behavior. He also says people look at him like he’s mad when he rides in his cowboy hat and boots. Which is understandable, considering the relative lack of actual cowboys in the UK.

No bias here. A 60-year old Irish woman says she automatically rules out any man who includes a photo of himself wearing Lycra on a bicycle in his online dating profile.

Tragic news from Kolkata — formerly Calcutta — India, where a seven-year old boy was electrocuted when he went to pick up his bicycle after live wires fell on it overnight.

Inspired by the ciclovia of Bogota, Columbia, the mayor of Seoul, Korea is planning to build a network of uninterrupted bike trails in every direction through the densely populated city.

He gets it. A Vietnamese writer says humanity dies when drivers flee the scene, leaving their victims to die on the street without help.

 

Finally…

Bike sharing for people who don’t want to share their bikes. Apparently, a car’s ragtop roof matters more than whether it had a driver.

And it’s not a good idea to spank a mooning cycling fan if you want to stay in the race.

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

Morning Links: LACBC calls for action on safe streets, bad day for San Diego bike riders, and anti-bike victim blaming bile

July 15, 2019 / / 3 comments

My apologies for Friday’s unexcused absence. 

I was knocked on my ass by another bout with dangerously low blood sugar. Except this time, I couldn’t get back up. 

It took four hours, three fig bars and two cookies to get my blood sugar back up to a minimal safe level. 

Yes, it’s true. 

Your sweets are my life-saving medicine. 

And as anyone with diabetes knows, the toll something like that takes on your body lasts for hours afterwards. 

Which is all a long-winded way to say diabetes sucks. 

So get tested if you’re at risk or have a family history of the disease. Then do everything you can to get your blood sugar back under control, and keep it there. 

Because you don’t want this.

Trust me. 

Now let’s get on with today’s news. Because we have a lot to catch up on. 

Photo by Dan Fador from Pixabay

………

We’ve waited a long time for the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, aka LACBC, to step up and take any real action on our streets.

Including during my five-plus years on the board, when I fought a losing rearguard action to encourage them to stop working only behind the scenes, and take good fight to the streets.

It looks like that time is finally here.

They even make it easy for you by including the email addresses for the mayor and city council.

  • mayor.helpdesk@lacity.org
  • councilmember.cedillo@lacity.org
  • councilmember.Krekorian@lacity.org
  • councilmember.blumenfield@lacity.org
  • david.ryu@lacity.org
  • paul.koretz@lacity.org
  • councilmember.martinez@lacity.org
  • councilmember.rodriguez@lacity.org
  • councilmember.harris-dawson@lacity.org
  • councilmember.price@lacity.org
  • councilmember.wesson@lacity.org
  • councilmember.bonin@lacity.org
  • councilmember.Smith@lacity.org
  • councilmember.ofarrell@lacity.org
  • councilmember.huizar@lacity.org
  • councilmember.buscaino@lacity.org

Let’s all take a few minutes and email the councilmember for your district. And remember, as the LACBC notes above, to include your address to prove you’re a real, honest to God constituent.

If you don’t live in Los Angeles, contact the councilmembers for any districts where you work or ride, and make it clear you want to be able to bike safely in the City of Angels.

I haven’t had a chance to write my email yet. But I’ll do my best to get it done today.

So I hope you’ll join the LACBC — and yes, me — in demanding safer streets for bike riders, and everyone else, throughout Los Angeles.

And maybe if we all respond, this won’t be the last time the LACBC tries something like this.

If you want to share your email on here, just let me know.

………

Speaking of the LACBC, here’s your chance to tell them to form an associated 501(c)4, so they can engage in direct political action without risking their tax-exempt status.

SoCal’s largest bike advocacy group, the LACBC wants your comments on what direction they should take at a Community Input Forum on Saturday, July 27th, as they regroup to confront the challenges of bicycling in Los Angeles.

You already know what I think.

If not, read these last two sections again.

………

Saturday was a very bad day in San Diego.

In what was initially a very confusing story, a 60-year old man suffered a life-threatening head injury when he allegedly descended too fast on a steep hill in the city’s Park West neighborhood around 3 pm, made an “unsafe” move to the right and somehow clipped a car mirror.

It made more sense when the Union-Tribune clarified that he clipped the mirror of a parked car; he was thrown several feet onto the pavement as a result.

Just three hours later, someone described only as a teenager was riding on Claremont Blvd in Kearney Mesa when he or she was struck by an SUV turning onto the northbound I-805 onramp; the driver claimed he didn’t see the victim until it was too late.

Which should be seen as a confession, but usually serves only as a Get Out of Jail Free card to absolve drivers of any responsibility.

The driver remained at the scene, while his passenger jumped out to perform CPR on the victim.

Naturally, the CHP investigators blamed the victim, saying he or she wasn’t riding in the crosswalk. Even though bike riders aren’t expected or required to use a crosswalk.

And even though bicyclists still get ticketed for riding in a crosswalk, which is legal in California following a recent change in the law.

It’s not the first crash at that intersection, either.

Early reports indicated the victim had died, but other sources revised their stories to say it was unclear whether or not the victim was still alive.

Sadly, it seems like prayers and good thoughts are called for in both cases.

Chances are, we’ll hear more about one or both cases in the next few days.

Thanks to JMK for the reminder about the deadly intersection.

………

No bias here.

An anti-bike op-ed from an anti-bike writer in the generally anti-bike New York Post says it’s your own damn fault if you get killed.

The two things that might have prevented this horror — training and adherence to rules — are tellingly absent from the protesting cyclists’ list of demands.Not to put too fine a point on it, cyclists are frequently their own worst enemy, and their presence has made everyone less safe.

Of course, automobiles are more dangerous than bikes, but adding cyclists to the mix, many of whom refuse to obey traffic laws, has compounded that hazard.

Never mind that in many, if not most, of the New York’s recent bicycling fatalities the victim didn’t do a damn thing wrong.

But clearly, he doesn’t let that give him a moment’s pause.

When Mayor Mike Bloomberg began wedging bike lanes into our already crammed streets, it wasn’t to meet a demand — it was to create one. To promote cycling, he and then-DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, a bike enthusiast, threw caution to the wind and encouraged cyclists to hit the streets without so much as a helmet law, which might have deterred ridership, especially among the affluent, arrogant, scofflaw cyclists who want to use the city as their own personal racetrack.

Of course, only affluent people ride bikes.

Even though bike commuters are more likely to come from low income households, for reasons that should be obvious to anyone saddled with monthly car payments — let alone gas, insurance, maintenance and taxes.

And as well all know, anyone who rides a bike arrogantly insists on not getting killed by some random jerk. Like say, the writer of that piece, for instance.

It was a recipe for disaster, and the disproportionately influential, ceaselessly kvetching bicycle-advocacy groups capitalized on every heart-rending fatality to further their agenda.

Nobody elected the advocacy outfit Transportation Alternatives to speak for New Yorkers. It isn’t a safety organization, a cadre of seasoned city planners or even some impartial arbiter seeking what’s best for everyone; it’s a bunch of mainly upscale cyclists trying to make the city more navigable for themselves.

Actually, they did.

TransAlt is one of the nation’s largest and most effective alternative transportation and traffic advocacy groups, composed of thousands of average, everyday New Yorkers who elected the group to speak for them.

Then there’s this BS.

It’s not at all unusual to see them texting or riding hands-free as they careen through traffic. Close calls have become a daily occurrence, especially for the elderly and disabled, whose reflexes aren’t ideal for evading speeding cyclists.

Case in point, two months ago, 67-year-old Donna Sturm died after being mowed down by a cyclist who ran a red light in Midtown. If bicyclists can ride fast enough to kill, they ride too fast to enjoy exemption from the training, certification, insurance and identifiable licensing required for the use of every other vehicle on our streets.

Just wait until someone tells him about cars, whose drivers have killed far more New Yorkers than the single person killed by a jackass bike rider this year.

Not to mention that simply bumping into someone while walking can cause a fatal fall — as can tripping over your own shoelaces.

Which by his reasoning means that every person who steps out of their home or apartment must be trained, licensed, insured and certified.

Good luck with that.

We’ll leave the discussion on this final outpouring of faux journalistic bile.

Bike lanes haven’t made anyone any safer, but they have inarguably taken traffic congestion from bad to intolerable. The narrowing of our city’s critical arteries to accommodate a tiny minority whose vehicles are rendered impractical all winter and on rainy days seems to have been irrationally prioritized with regard to triage.

Maybe he should do just a little research before guessing like that. And missing by a mile.

But then, what would you expect from someone who pops up periodically with his anti-bike, but seems to be a ghost otherwise?

Thanks to J. Patrick Lynch for the heads-up.

………

A Bay Area bike rider was pleasantly surprised when another bicyclist returned his lost money clip, completely intact, just an hour after tweeting that it was missing.

………

Driverless cars may not be coming anytime soon.

But a new company plans to introduce fully automated delivery pods in the near future.

And plans to take your hard-won space on the street to do it, knocking us from second class citizens to ranking somewhere behind a bunch of robots.

https://twitter.com/Jerryhirsch/status/1149417154703290368

………

This is who we share the roads with.

An Arizona man faces charges for swerving into a bike lane and killing a bike rider, while under the influence of a veritable pharmacopeia of legal and illegal drugs.

Taylor acknowledged taking methadone — a drug used to treat addiction — earlier that day, but he initially denied any other drug use. After failing several impairment tests, he was arrested at about 9 p.m., according to the report.

Taylor later tested positive for opiates, methamphetamine, amphetamine and methadone, the police report said. He told officers he had used meth and heroin earlier in the week before taking methadone the same day as the collision.

Police also found heroin and paraphernalia in his possession, according to the police report.

 

Let’s hope he can manage to get clean in whatever deep, dark hole they throw him in.

………

The war on cars may be a myth, but the worldwide war on bikes just keeps going on, as someone has been sabotaging popular British bike paths by placing medieval-style booby traps across the trails.

………

Local

Mariah Banks pled not guilty in the hit-and-run death of Frederick “Woon” Frazier in South LA last year, despite reportedly confessing when she turned herself into the police weeks after the crash.

Metro wants you to help rank their priorities for Our Next LA.

An ebike magazine goes e-mountain biking with recently retired former LAPD Chief Charlie Beck, who helped get the department back on bicycles.

Burbank is studying how to improve safety for people riding bicycles as part the city’s Complete Streets plan, while the mayor calls for “quick and dirty” solutions.

 

State

Speaking of San Diego, the city has made the first installment in the promise by city leaders to remake the downtown area to be safer and more inviting for people on bikes, with parking protected bike lanes, bollards and green intersections appearing on three streets.

A group of bicyclists are riding across the US to raise money for families in need, starting at the site of the Poway synagogue shooting.

A Santa Maria paper says people in cars may be safer, but bike riders and pedestrians, not so much.

Oakland promises its new equitable bike plan will be accessible to everyone, regardless of identity.

 

National

The new Complete Streets Act introduced in both houses of Congress would require states to set aside 5% of federal highway funds for streets that serve all road users.

It’s getting rough in the Great Plains, as a Kansas cop rear-ended a fleeing bike rider while driving on the sidewalk. And an Oklahoma cop tasered an apparently intoxicated bike rider who refused to stop, even though the victim didn’t pose a direct treat to to the officer or anyone else.

Someone please tell this Illinois TV station that sharrows are not bike lanes.

Pittsburgh bike riders are leaving their bikes on buses. Or someone’s, anyway.

A Pennsylvania doctor thanks the four strangers who saved his life when he was struck with a sudden heart attack while riding his bike.

Speaking for NIMBY’s everywhere, a Boston writer says don’t mess with our street, promising to fight plans for a road diet and bike lanes, in an apparent effort to keep it dangerous.

No shit. New York’s police commissioner agrees that the NYPD’s longstanding policy of ticketing bicyclists following a fatal bike crash is just a tad insensitive. You think?

The New York Times wants to know what the hell happened to a city that was supposed to be getting better for bike riders, while Bicycling says it’s shocking just how badly New York is failing people who ride bicycles.

NYC councilmembers want to ensure the city’s expanding bikeshare program serves low-income residents, too.

Does it really surprise anyone that cars — or more precisely, the people operating them — are more dangerous than guns on the streets of the Big Apple?

A homeless man in Louisiana learned the hard way not to stick around the parking lot begging for money after you walk out of Walmart with a stolen bike.

An op-ed in the local paper says people should warned explicitly that riding a bicycle just about anywhere in the Charleston SC area is inherently unsafe, while the paper hopes the third time is the charm to get approval for a bike and pedestrian bridge.

 

International

The good, the bad, and the ugliest bikeways around the world.

A Canadian driver swerved to avoid a crash as a group of Gran Fondo cyclists cut into his lane at the last second to avoid a fall in the peloton.

A Toronto newspaper politely explains the point of ebikes, calling them the great equalizer, while a writer in the city tries bikeshare for the first time, and decides it should be expanded.

A climate change protester shut down a British airfield for 20 minutes to protest a military air show as he road his bike on the runway, pursued by firefighters and service members.

A UK YouTube star became the first person in the country to be killed in an e-scooter crash.

Adding insult to injury, an English thief not only stole a teenage boy’s bike, he flipped the victim off while riding away with it.

Maltese bicyclists complain about dangerously substandard bike lanes. Especially the section that dead-ends into a brick wall. Oh, and the green paint is slippery, too.

An Indian ex-con hated life on the outside, and the abuse he suffered from his wife and kids, so much that he stole a bicycle to get back to his friends behind bars.

 

Competitive Cycling

Defending champion Annemiek van Vleuten won her second Giro Rosa in a row, only finishing out of the top seven twice in the ten-stage race.

In your spoiler-free Tour de France update, the difficult terrain on Saturday’s 8th stage shook up the standings.

Le Tour went gravel grinding last week, forcing French pro Romain Bardet well off the pace.

Amazing photo catches defending TdF champ Geraint Thomas in midair as he crashes, landing on teammate Gianni Moscon while snapping Moscon’s bike in two and sending him to the hospital.

Then there were three. Tejay van Garderen dropped out of the Tour de France after breaking his hand in a fall, leaving just three American cyclists in the race. VeloNews considers why such crashes are inevitable.

The newly reformatted Colorado Classic announced the course for the August race, as it transforms into a strictly women’s stage race.

Horrible news from the world of track cycling, where a 17-year old Italian cyclist was in intensive care after he was impaled when a piece of the track splintered and punctured his lung at the European U-23 and Junior Track Championships.

 

Finally…

Bike riders hardly ever crash into outdoor cafes, and when they do, the result is usually a little spilled coffee and avocado toast. Before you sell a bike on Letgo, make sure it’s really yours.

And this is who we share the roads with, too.

Note the bike tally on his door.

 

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

Morning Links: New theme song for your next bike ride, honoring LaGrange founder, and Bike with a Cop on Sunday

July 11, 2019 / / One comment

Cody Westheimer says instead of having his daughter’s playlist stuck in his head when he rides, he wrote and recorded his own bike-themed song to keep him company.

And he’s kind enough to share it with us, so we’ll have something better to get stuck in our heads, too.

I haven’t had a chance to hear it yet, since I’m not on Spotify.

So tell me what you think.

And yes, I promise I’ll sign up for the free app later today and give the song a listen.

Cross my heart.

………

The founder of LA’s Velo Club LaGrange will be honored with an official city proclamation this Sunday.

………

Here’s your chance to bike with the LAPD’s Wilshire Division this Sunday.

………

Who needs an e-scooter when you have Corgi power?

https://twitter.com/mcas_LA/status/1149102534847451136

………

The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes goes on.

Someone has been setting a Massachusetts bike trail on fire, including a pair of docked bikeshare bikes.

………

Local

Josh Brolin is one of us, as he takes his shirtless new dad body to the beach in Santa Monica for a bike ride with his wife and eight-month-old son.

Metro’s BEST program is teaming with the LACBC, West Hollywood and the West Hollywood Bicycle Coalition to offer a free Bike 1 — Back to Basics course this Sunday.

CiclaValley goes gravel grinding on Pacifico Mountain. And no, it was not named for the Mexican beer empties someone left at the top. Probably. 

 

State

Watsonville releases its Vision Zero plan to end traffic deaths. Let’s hope they’re more committed to it than Los Angeles has been.

They get it. San Francisco Streetsblog says it’s great that the legislature is considering tripling the state’s rebate for electric car buyers, but where’s the rebate for ebikes?

Two Chico men ended up with stab wounds after a fight over a bicycle; one man used a knife to steal it and the other fought to defend it.

 

National

Happy birthday BMX biking. 

CNET offers tips on how to stay safe on an e-scooter.

One more reason to ride a bike. A border surveillance firm wants to profile drivers, passengers and their likely reasons to drive into New York.

A Chicago writer discovers she can ride an e-scooter, even if she can’t ride a bike.

An autistic Michigan boy can ride his bike again, after a mysterious donor gave him a new adult tricycle because his was stolen a few weeks ago.

Sound familiar? The Boston Globe calls on the city to pick up the pace on building bike lanes, saying Boston has a good plan to improve bike safety, but is “vexingly slow” in doing it.

Speaking of the Globe, they recommend riding a gravel bike to explore the road less traveled.

More on Tuesday’s New York die-in, where hundreds of bike riders turn out to demand safer streets. Bicycling says it’s shocking just how badly New York is failing bicyclists. Even though the city is light years ahead of Los Angeles.

The Department of DIY strikes again. Or in this case, New York’s self-described Transformation Department, a group of “rogue cyclists” credited with creating a toilet plunger-protected bike lane.

New York Streetsblog suggests a solution after a new study shows the city’s bikeshare program primarily serves rich white people.

A DC bike commuter makes the conservative case bicycling, in the face of bone-headed, windshield-biased right wing calls to ban bikes from the streets — and pave the roads with our bones.

A Charleston SC paper says the city’s streets are built for fast cars, and inherently deadly for anyone else.

 

International

Ottawa police say they’re investigating the road rage punishment pass which resulted in a driver clipping a bike rider’s handlebar mirror.

Nothing like that dry British wit. A TV station claims its program Cyclists: Scourge of the Streets was a “balanced documentary” that offered “an unfiltered look at both sides of the fence,” while a cycling magazine says can’t we all just get along? Wait. You mean they weren’t trying to be funny?

A Welsh bike rider credits his helmet with saving his life when he hit a traffic cone at 40 mph; his broken neck, not so much.

An 81-year old Welsh grandmother suffered serious injuries when she was the victim of a hit-and-run bike rider who went through a red light as she was crossing the street.

The next time you can’t find a safe place to park your bike, consider that Utrecht in the Netherlands is nearing completion of the world’s largest underground bike garage, with room for over 12,500 bicycles.

A British professor set a new record for riding across Europe in just 16 days, 20 hours and 59 minutes, breaking the four-day old previous record by more than two days.

An Irish columnist says foul smelling, polluting cars must be driven from our cities. Meanwhile, an Aussie website says you should physically avoid cars when you ride to keep from sucking in half your daily dose of air pollution. Although I prefer their other idea — melt down all the cars and turn them into free bicycles.

Orlando Bloom and Katy Perry are two of us, too, as they go for a pre-wedding tandem bike ride on a French island.

Turning China back into the Bicycle Kingdom to fight pollution.

 

Competitive Cycling

The Sacramento Bee says French pro Julian Alaphilippe brings panache to the yellow jersey.

Peter Sagan overcame a hilly course to claim Wednesday’s stage of the Tour de France, while his bike got back-to-back wins.

Dutch pro Annemiek van Vleuten is building what could be an insurmountable lead in the Giro Rosa.

 

Finally…

Cow farts are bad for the planet, bike lanes aren’t. Your next bike could come with pigeon poop pre-installed.

And riding with LA’s preeminent moped gang.

 

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

Morning Links: 21-mile street fest coming to OC, LA 9th most dangerous bicycling city in US, and RuPaul gets it

July 10, 2019 / / 2 comments

Sounds like fun.

Seven Orange County cities will team up to reimagine Beach Blvd with a massive 21-mile open streets event on November 17th, featuring a number of festivals along the route.

Correction: Well, it would have been nice. But a comment from Mike Wilkinson clarifies what this event is, and isn’t. 

And it isn’t what I thought from the article above.

A 21 mile open streets event along Beach Boulevard in Orange County would be impressive and fun. Unfortunately, the event planned for November is definitely NOT an open streets event, and it’s definitely not 21 miles long.

The Meet on Beach event will feature “..live performances, food, giveaways and much more…” according to the MeetOnBeach.com website. That will give families fun reasons to enjoy the outdoors, and that’s a good thing, but it’s not an open streets event.

Beach Boulevard runs about 4.4 miles through the City of Buena Park. The city will close about 0.8 miles of the boulevard, which is less than one-fifth of the total, but just in one direction. Traffic on the busiest street in Orange County will still be rushing past in the other direction. Anaheim has about 1.4 miles of Beach Boulevard and will close about one-third of it (0.5 miles), again in just one direction. So far as I know, the other participating cities aren’t planning to close their parts of Beach Boulevard at all!

Joel Rosen, Buena Park’s Director of Community Development say’s it right. “… we hope to promote economic development and healthy communities along the historic 21-mile stretch…”. That sounds like a good thing to me, but it’s not an open streets event, where people can walk, run, skate, scoot or ride on empty streets and imagine what it would be like to be car free, even for just a day.

Photo courtesy of Daria Shevtsova from Pexels.

………

Insider listed the 20 most dangerous US cities for bike riders.

New York was named the nation’s worst place to ride a bike, while San Jose and San Francisco tied for fourth.

So is it good news that Los Angeles only placed ninth?

In a word, no.

Meanwhile, the Bob Vila website ranks the nation’s top 20 cities for bicycling.

Santa Barbara was the highest rated California city at number 11, while Santa Monica checked in at 15.

Somehow New York managed to make both lists, coming in fourth this time, while my hometown was second to neighboring Boulder CO.

And needless to say, Los Angeles didn’t make this list at all.

………

RuPaul gets it.

https://twitter.com/RuPaul/status/1148592721994498048

………

Now that’s a bottle cap challenge.

………

There are a couple of ebike recalls in today’s news.

Trek is recalling some of their Super Commuter+ 8S ebikes due to a manufacturing error that could cause the front fender to fall into the wheel.

Santa Cruz-based Faraday is recalling 4,450 of their distinctive-looking ebikes due to the risk of a broken seat post.

………

The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes goes on.

When an Ottawa, Canada bike rider complained to a driver about a too-close pass, the road raging driver responded with a punishment pass that clipped the mirror on his handlebars.

………

Local

Streetsblog’s Joe Linton takes LADOT, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and several members of the city council to task for the city’s “dismal” trend of bikeway implementation, saying installing or upgrading just 13 miles of on-street bike lanes is nothing to celebrate.

Curbed says the North Atwater Bridge is slowly taking shape, and should connect bike riders and pedestrians with Atwater Village and Griffith Park over the LA River by the end of this year.

LA County approved a half-million dollar grant for Pasadena’s One Arroyo Seco Trail Project.

 

State

A proposed bill in the state legislature would triple the current $2,500 rebate for buying an electric car or SUV. The problem is, an electric car is still a car; the state should make the rebate apply to ebikes and transit passes, as well, to help get more cars off the streets.

A popular DIY bike track in San Diego’s Point Loma neighborhood could become a victim of the need for affordable housing.

Santa Barbara officials have identified the victim in last week’s fatal bicycling crash as a 54-year old homeless man who lived in the area; he was riding in the middle of the night without lights or reflectors.

Menlo Park proposes trading 165 parking spaces for bike lanes to help get people out of their cars.

There’s a special place in hell for whoever stole a Bay Area Alzheimer’s patient’s custom ebike that was his only form of transportation.

 

National

A law professor writes that Americans shouldn’t have to drive, but the country’s legal system virtually forces them into their cars by squeezing out the alternatives.

A Harvard professor says less driving, more thriving in a call to reduce the number of cars in urban areas and increase the number of pedestrians.

Writing for Outside, longtime Bicycling writer Joe Lindsey says not only are bike riders not freeloaders on the streets, the bike lanes so many drivers insist we should pay for actually improve safety for everyone — not just the people on two wheels.

A new ebike currently raising funds on Kickstarter promises virtually unlimited range by recharging automatically as you pedal or coast downhill.

A Portland bike dance team is hanging up their BMX bikes after 15 years.

A pair of Good Samaritans are pushing the need for CPR training after saving the life of a 57-year old Texas man who suffered a massive heart attack while taking part in a 64-mile sportive ride.

A Minneapolis TV station asks whether an ebike can really replace your car. Short answer — for many people, yes.

Now the trees are out to get us. A Columbus, Ohio man suffered nearly a dozen fractures and a collapsed lung when a massive tree fell on him during a downpour as he was riding home from work.

Now that’s a good kid. When a young Maine boy won a new bike in a school drawing, he gave it away so another kid could “experience the joy a bike brings.”

An op-ed in the New York Daily News says the time to build more bike lanes is before someone gets killed, not after.

Hundreds of New York bike riders turn out for a die-in to protest the 15 people killed riding their bikes already this year — five more than were killed in the city all of last year. That’s the difference between New York and LA, where we’ve also seen 15 people killed riding bikes in the county, but hardly anyone seems to notice, and far fewer seem to care.

New York’s police commissioner says it’s perfectly okay for one of his cops to use deadly force to stop a bike rider for running multiple red lights. Maybe next time the NYPD will just shoot scofflaw bicyclists instead of using a car.

Great idea. Arlington County VA will conduct a Natural Disaster Trial to see how residents can survive and take care of their families by using bicycles after a disaster wipes out the region’s crucial infrastructure.

 

International

London’s Independent celebrates the joys of slow travel.

Britain’s eleven-time world track cycling champ Sir Chris Hoy gave a video shoutout to a nine-year old boy after he suffered a concussion hitting a pothole on a charity bike ride.

A British ex-cop’s alibi for killing a highly visible bike rider in a crash is that he was too stoned on meth to have any idea what the hell he was doing. No, seriously.

It took an Irish woman eight long years to get justice, as a court awarded her the equivalent of $280,000 after her postman husband was killed in a crash while delivering mail by bike.

Serena Williams is sort of one of us, relaxing between matches at Wimbledon by riding a bike with her young son in her arms. Except her bike doesn’t move.

An Indian bicyclist remembers four extraordinary locations he saw on a 400-day solo bike tour from the Arctic to the Andes.

Roll a stop sign in one United Arab Emirates city, and you could see your bike permanently confiscated. Same goes for not wearing a helmet, or a fluorescent jacket after dark.

Um, no. A 20-year old Australian man wants to become a cop — despite killing a 28-year old woman riding a bike while driving at twice the legal speed limit on the wrong side of the road, hitting her head-on.

 

Competitive Cycling

Forget those guys riding their bikes around France. A comment from Mellisa informs us that you can catch a free one-hour recap of the Giro Rosa women’s stage race every day, courtesy of Trek.

No change at the top of the Tour de France leaderboard after yesterday’s stage four.

Drink your way through the Tour de France.

Canadian pro Michael Woods says he still runs, despite competing in his first Tour de France, because doing nothing but pedaling for 3 weeks makes you “a better bike racer but a worse human” physically.

A writer for Bicycling tries to stare into the soul of the great Eddy Merckx, and finds an abyss staring back. And no, I don’t know what that means, either.

A vegan Aussie endurance cyclist set a new record for the cross-country Trans Am Bike Race on a diet of hash browns.

A Kenyan website talks with the mother of professional cyclist James Mwaura, aka The Lion of Africa; Mwaura was shot four times as a child in an assassination that killed his father. 

 

Finally…

Sharrows do not a Complete Street make. It’s hard to keep a bike shop going these days; harder still if you don’t pay your back taxes.

And if you’re going to roll a red light, try not to crash into the lampposts.

 

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Morning Links: Gaimon says share this video when — not if — he gets killed, and putting risk from bikes in perspective

July 9, 2019 / / 5 comments

He gets it.

Then again, that shouldn’t come as any surprise.

In a must-watch video, former pro Phil Gaimon insists that we all get the story right when — not if — he gets killed by someone in a car.

He puts it this way in a video recently posted to his Worst Retirement Ever site.

Which is actually about the best worst retirement idea ever.

Make sure it says, ‘Some asshole was texting or going to fast and ran over Phil in his fucking car.’

Thank you.

Peter Flax offered a similar thought a few years ago, though perhaps not as amusingly.

Photo of Phil Gaimon rudely ripped from his website. Thanks to Jeff Vaughn for the heads-up.

………

This kind of puts things in perspective.

Although I may have to pick my cadence up a tad.

………

London’s alleged Westminster Bridge terrorist is on trial, accused of deliberately steering towards bicyclists and pedestrians in an attack that killed six innocent people and injured another 49.

Which serves as yet another reminder that LA’s Hollywood Blvd is completely unprotected from a similar attack.

A risk that could be virtually eliminated with a barrier-protected bike lane on both sides of the boulevard, and converting the street in front of Hollywood & Highland and the Chinese Theater into a pedestrian plaza.

Unless city officials would rather wait until it’s too late, as usual.

………

Today’s common theme is e-scooters.

A Chicago bike rider is suing the city’s e-scooter providers in an attempt to find the hit-and-run scooter rider who left him lying unresponsive in the street.

A Nashville op-ed says banning e-scooters won’t fix the city’s problems, but building infrastructure for them will.

No bias here. A Brooklyn writer calls for restrictions on ebikes and e-scooters to improve safety for pedestrians and the elderly. Even though they face far more danger from people in motor vehicles.

………

The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes goes on.

A road raging English man faces jail time after he was convicted of harassing a 17-year old boy, forcing him off the road, then getting out of his SUV and punching the kid in the face — all for the crime of pulling ahead of him on his mountain bike at a red light.

………

Local

Writing for CityWatch, a former LA city planner says the problem with the mayor’s plan to fight climate change is it’s not really a plan.

Metro Bike is celebrating its third birthday with an RSVP party in DTLA on July 30th.

The Órale Boyle Heights podcast talks with Areli Morales about her Oaxacan heritage, growing up in Venice, and her journey to becoming a bicycle and transportation advocate.

About damn time. Santa Monica approves plans for three miles of pathways that will separate bike riders from pedestrians along the beach. Now if we can just get Los Angeles and LA County to follow suit on their sections of the overly popular beachfront bike path.

 

State

The popular bike route through Camp Pendleton will be closed from July 15th through 19th as the Marines prepare to blow some shit up; riders will be allowed to use the shoulder of the 5 Freeway through the base, instead. Thanks to the OC Bike Coalition for the tip.

Bad news from San Diego, where a 27-year old BMX rider suffered a life-threatening brain injury after losing control on a descent.

One more reason to register your bike. Santa Cruz police are looking for the owner of a stolen Specialized mountain bike they recovered after busting a transient. But you have to be able to prove it’s yours.

Santa Clara County authorities have identified the 62-year old man who was killed in a San Jose hit-and-run while riding his bike last week; his alleged killer remains behind bars on $110,000 bail.

A San Francisco bike cop has made what friends call a miraculous recovery from a hit-and-run crash so bad paramedics initially thought he was dead, even if he’ll never return to his previous life; his near-killer is currently on trial for a lengthy list of felony charges.

 

National

Gear Patrol considers the best panniers for bike commuting.

A new online insurance plan promises to cover you for bicycling injuries or other adventure sports on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. Which could come in handy, since just riding to work or school feels like an adventure sport in Los Angeles.

Forget rail-to-trail conversions; Colorado bike riders enjoy irrigation canals-to-trails.

Topeka KS plans to shut down its money-losing docked bikeshare, saying it came down to a choice between bikes and buses.

A Texas bike thief got busted thanks to a doorbell video cam.

That’s more like it. A Green Bay, Wisconsin man got ten years behind bars for the hit-and-run death of a bike rider.

A New York website says the city’s Vision Zero is failing because the city has failed to reduce the number of car on the streets.

New York bike riders are mobilizing to deliver emergency aid in the event of a disaster.

A DC advocacy group says ripping out a bike lane to restore street parking is an unprecedented bad decision.

Amazon’s second HQ planned for the DC area promises to be bike and pedestrian friendly. Although if they really want to be bike friendly, bike racks are nice, but letting staffers take bicycles into their offices or cubicles is better.

This is why we can’t have nice things. A Shreveport, Louisiana vehicular cyclist says the city should rip out its bike lanes and stop building more, insisting they make bicycling more dangerous. And that he’s the only one, in the entire city, who rides safely by taking the traffic lane next to them, instead — no matter how much it pisses drivers and cops off.

Baton Rouge LA is finally getting safer and more convenient for people on bikes. And only three decades after I left. Seriously, it seems like the best way to ensure any city becomes bike friendly is for me to move away from it.

Police in Georgia haven’t made an arrest yet in a hit-and-run that left a woman riding in a bike lane with severe injuries, even though witnesses gave them the car’s license number.

 

International

An alleged bike-raging Toronto courier has been released on $1,000 bond for allegedly kicking a car, then whacking the driver with his bike lock after he got out of the car, in an assault partially caught on video.

Build it and they will come. London’s new network of protected bike lanes has led to more people on two wheels, resulting in a record 2.5 million bicycle trips a day.

No bias here, either. The Guardian’s Peter Walker says a new UK TV program entitled Cyclists: Scourge of the Streets? is every bit as bad as the title implies, calling it “undoubtedly the worst, most scaremongering, inaccurate, downright irresponsible program” on bicycling he’s ever seen, with “45 minutes of hatred, misinformation and outgrouping against people who just happen to sometimes use two wheels to get about.”

A stoned British hit-and-run driver gets a well-deserved eight years behind bars.

It takes a major schmuck to steal a special bicycle painted in the Tour de France colors that was going to be auctioned off for charity, as cycling stars Eddy Merckx and Peter Sagan demand its return.

Traffic-choked Paris is finally on track to become the bicycling capital envisioned by the city’s mayor. So maybe there’s hope for LA yet.

A young philanthropist in Sierra Leone is helping feed people in a region flooded by torrential rains, and working with a US-based charity to provide bicycles and riding lessons to people in need.

Seven more rides for your bike bucket list, as a Chinese website suggests seven breathtaking climbs throughout Asia.

 

Competitive Cycling

The Guardian offers a blow-by-blow account of yesterday’s third stage of the Tour de France, as the yellow jersey changed hands — or torsos, even — from the virtually unknown rider who led the first two stages.

Danish pro Kasper Asgreen ended his first Tour de France prematurely when he was hospitalized following a crash that broke his bike in half — yet somehow still managed to finish the stage anyway.

Speaking of Phil Gaimon, he’s evidently had an influence on the sport, as pro cyclist Taylor Wiles says she tries to eat right, but she’ll ride for cookies. And ice cream.

 

Finally…

Copenhagen is one of the world’s friendliest cities for bicycling; e-scooting under the influence, not so much. A protected bike lane without barriers is just a parking spot by a different name.

And if you’re going to use a gun in a road rage dispute, try not to shoot your own spouse.

 

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Morning Links: Remembering late Disney star as son of LA bike rider Victor Boyce, and driving an expert cyclist off the roads

July 8, 2019 / / Comments Off on Morning Links: Remembering late Disney star as son of LA bike rider Victor Boyce, and driving an expert cyclist off the roads

Sometimes the news hits a little too close to home.

And sometimes, it’s far too close.

That’s how Zachary Rynew is feeling today.

The man behind the popular CiclaValley website learned shortly before the world did that the son of one of a close friend had died from a seizure at just 20 years old.

Someone the world knew as Disney Channel star and rising young actor Cameron Boyce.

But Rynew knew him simply as Cameron, the son of LA bicyclist and LACBC member Victor Boyce.

And the grandson of Jo Ann Boyce, one of the famed Clinton 12 — the first black students to attend the previously all white Clinton High School in Clinton, Tennessee, following the US Supreme Court’s order to desegregate the school in groundbreaking 1956 Brown vs Board of Education case that sounded the death knell for legal segregation in American Schools.

Although in reality, far too many urban schools have become victims of de facto re-segregation in the years since.

As Rynew points out, Victor Boyce’s Instagram feed is devoted to two things: His family, and riding his bikes.

In fact, a video showing Cameron dancing in front of Boyce’s impressively organized bike collection last year has gained over 1.6 million views.

Though most of those are probably fans of his son, rather than his bikes.

And it’s with Victor Boyce that Rynew has gone gravel biking up Sycamore Canyon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NESXyJwMhjo

Rynew also adds that a few weeks ago, he was with Boyce when they spotted a couple of junk bikes someone had tossed out by the curb.

He had planned to take them home to repaint as ghost bikes. But Boyce claimed one first.

And later that same day, this photo appeared, after he had already fixed it up and given it to his wife.

So while the world mourns Cameron Boyce, the actor and rising movie star, maybe the bicycling community can take a few moments to mourn with a fellow devoted bicyclist and his family, who lost a loved one far too soon.

And remember that every tragedy touches someone, somewhere, very deeply.

I hope you’ll join me in offering our sympathy and prayers for Cameron and Victor Boyce, and all their family and loved ones.

Photo of Cameron Boyce, center, from the Pedalers West Instagram account. 

………

There’s something seriously wrong with our streets when a close encounter with a dangerous driver can make an expert cyclist and former national crit champ rethink his decision to bike to work.

………

This is the cost of traffic violence.

Fallen bicyclist Frederick “Woon” Frazier supported his disabled mother until a hit-and-run driver took his life.

While a crowdfunding campaign raised nearly $10,000 to give his infant son a better start in life, part of that was seized to pay his bills — including the hospital that did nothing more than declare him dead on arrival. Leaving his mother struggling to survive while she waits for any kind of justice.

Now a new crowdfunding campaign has started to help get her back on her feet.

Although sadly, in over a week, it’s received just $20 of the $10,000 goal.

We can do better than that.

Thanks to Sahra Sulaiman for the link.

………

If riding California’s coast highway is on your bike bucket list, maybe you should get a move on while it still exists.

Not the highway.

The coast.

………

The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes goes on. And on.

Someone has been laying potentially deadly booby traps on trails in a British national park, ranging from a wall of rocks across a trail and tree branches hung at head level, to pins and carpet tacks placed where they could puncture bike tires.

When a driver deliberately slams into someone on a bike, police call it assault with a deadly weapon. So what do you call it when a New York cop uses his car as a weapon to make a traffic stop by crashing into a red light-running bike rider? Needless to say, the NYPD doesn’t think he did anything wrong. In effect, it’s no different than the officer firing his gun to stop a speeding driver. In either case, it’s using deadly force for what amounts to a simple traffic violation.

………

Local

This is who we share the roads with. A pair of street racing teenagers lost control after colliding in San Marino, killing an adjunct professor at Pasadena City College and his dog as they walked on the median on Huntington Drive.

A pair of public workshops will discuss plans to revitalize the upper LA River, starting tomorrow night in Sylmar and concluding in Glendale on Thursday. Thanks to Walk Bike Glendale for the heads-up.

WeHoVille offers tips on how to get out and about on a bicycle from some of the city’s most passionate bike riders, including members of the city’s West Hollywood Bicycle Coalition.

The Long Beach Post talks with Jo Manny Silva of Compton’s Manny’s Bike Shop, calling him the godfather of lowrider bikes.

 

State

San Diego residents turn out to fight for their God-given right to parking along 30th Street, where city leaders plan to remove 420 parking spaces to make room for protected bike lanes.

Thanks in part to its growing bike infrastructure, WalletHub has named San Diego America’s best city for recreation. Los Angeles checked in at a surprising number 10. But probably not because of our bicycle non-network. 

Sad news from San Jose, where a 62-year old man was killed by a hit-and-run driver as he rode his bike; police later arrested a suspect in the case. Thanks to Robert Leone and Al Williams for the heads-up.

A San Francisco newspaper says a new three-mile Lake Tahoe bike path offers magical views of the lake.

 

National

America’s “favorite oddball motorcycle engineer” is turning his attention to making a “handsome, cohesive and convenient” 32 mph ebike with a 125 mile range.

It used to be that a fraternity road trip meant bundling a few brothers into a car and driving to Florida for spring break. Now a fraternity from a Kentucky college is biking across the US, hoping to raise $70,000 for Alzheimer’s research.

A bighearted Massachusetts deputy sheriff better known as Bob the Bike Guy has founded a charity to give refurbished bikes to underprivileged kids, many of whom don’t look too kindly on cops; the group has given away 1,200 bikes in just two years, with another 2,000 bikes in the pipeline.

A Canadian man hops on a restored Schwinn, and revisits his old paper route in Upstate New York half a century later. I used the profits from my paper route to buy my first 10-speed bike.

A Rochester, NY newspaper editor explains why bicycling matters for “women, minorities and everyone.”

They get it. The New York Daily News says Mayor De Blasio’s temporary crackdown on drivers blocking bike lanes won’t end Gotham bicycling fatalities.

New York’s recent rash of bike-by shootings continued over the weekend, as a man on a bike fired multiple shots, injuring two men sitting on a Central Park bench.

A Philadelphia cop will take part in a 65-mile bike ride to raise funds for the children of fallen or severely injured police officers, three years after he was ambushed by a gunman while on duty.

Nominally bike-friendly DC ripped out a bike lane on one side of a street so local residents could get their parking back.

More on the late Lee Iacocca, early adopter ebike pitchman, when he rode one in a Florida parade nearly two decades ago.

 

International

The head of a Winnipeg, Canada bike advocacy group says better eduction is the solution to the city’s dangerous patchwork of bike lanes, not better infrastructure.

Um, no. The annual RideLondon sportive wanted to show that it wasn’t just for white men. So they just photoshopped a black woman into a picture from the event.

After 100 years, a British author says he’s cracked the unsolved murder of a 21-year old bike-riding woman felled by a gunshot as she rode on a country lane, calling it a case worthy of Sherlock Holmes.

The UK’s popular Deliveroo food delivery service plans to switch from bicycle deliveries to motor vehicles, even though bikes are often faster.

No bias here. A new documentary examines the British bike rider who records distracted drivers using their cellphones behind the wheel, while drawing a false equivalency by showing clips of scofflaw bicyclists. It’s as if they think a single bike rider bears responsibility for every other bike rider on the roads, while failing to draw the same conclusion about lawbreaking drivers.

Bicycling experts tell Irish leaders that if they have the courage to reduce the number of cars on the street, people won’t want their traffic back.

 

Competitive Cycling

Fifty years later, the Cannibal continues to cast a long shadow over Belgian cyclists. Meanwhile, forget today’s high-tech wonders; VeloNews says the coolest bike on the tour is the orange, steel-framed classic Ernesto Colnago built for the legendary Eddy Merckx.

Sometimes it takes a pretty good bunny hop to avoid crashing in the tour.

https://twitter.com/RenaudB31/status/1147606446525296640?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1147606446525296640&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cyclingweekly.com%2Fnews%2Fracing%2Ftour-de-france%2Fwatch-tour-de-france-rider-pulls-off-incredible-bunny-hop-avoid-high-speed-crash-stage-one-429920

Now you, too, can buy the same Pinarello Dogma bike defending champ Geraint Thomas rides in the Tour de France for the low, low equivalent of a mere $15 grand. But no, it won’t make you as fast as he is.

Pakistan’s Tour de Khunjerab claims to be the world’s highest bike race, starting at over 9,000 feet and rising to 15,400 feet above sea level; over half of the 88 competitors in this year’s second edition failed to finish in the allotted time. 

 

Finally…

Oh, nothing. Just your everyday, garden variety, bike stealing, armed to the teeth antichrist. Don’t use Civil War battlements for mountain bike jumps.

And if the new bicycle you stole won’t fit in the back seat of a Kia, just dump it at a gas station.

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