So much for that.
Despite taking Friday’s post off, I still don’t have my taxes done.
I got up early Friday and got straight to work on them, only to run into a software problem that required nearly an hour trying to get past the company’s uncomprehending AI-based help line to actually speak to a human, who solved the problem in about five minutes.
Which left me wanting to punch the first robot I saw rolling down the sidewalk.
As a result, I didn’t actually get started on my taxes until Friday night, when I ran into a question with my wife’s forms that couldn’t be answered until the office in question opened Monday morning.
Good times.
And in my tax-driven stress Thursday night, I forgot to wish a happy Easter to all those who marked the day yesterday, so please accept my best wishes and apologies a day late.
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This is who we share the road with.
Fifteen people were injured, several seriously, when an alleged drunk driver plowed into a Loa New Year parade just outside of Broussard, Louisiana.
According to The Independent,
Todd Landry, 57, of Jeanerette, faces 18 counts of first-degree negligent injuring, driving while impaired and careless operation of a vehicle, among other charges, police said. Police do not believe the incident was an intentional act based on a preliminary investigation, officials said.
That’s good to know.
So it was just plain old-fashioned intoxication and stupidity, not terrorism. Which somehow doesn’t seem to make it better.
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Time Magazine looks at the new Netflix doc The Truth and Tragedy of Moriah Wilson, which premiered last week.
The movie tells the story of Kaitlin Armstrong’s 2022 murder of rising gravel pro Anna Moriah “Mo” Wilson in Austin, Texas, as well as Armstrong’s escape from custody to flee the country and avoid prosecution.
Armstrong was convicted a year later, after she was caught living in Costa Rica with a new face and identity.
Former gravel champ Colin Strickland says he walked away from bike riding after Armstrong, his former girlfriend, murdered Wilson in a fit of jealousy.
He says now he just works alone in his repair garage, and regrets everything he’s ever done, wishing he’d never started racing so he would have never met Armstrong or Wilson, and she’d still be alive today.
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If anyone wants to get me an Easter/Passover gift, I’m registered here.
https://bsky.app/profile/coolbikeart1.bsky.social/post/3miov7mm2m22w
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
No bias here. Denver blocked a key bike lane leading through downtown and to the city’s Major League stadium for opening day, while allowing drivers full use of the street. Because evidently, no one would want to bike to the stadium in the bicycling city, while they could ride in their big, dangerous machines, instead.
A 46-year old Colorado man is finally in custody, nearly a year after he used his car as a weapon to run down and seriously a man he knew while the other man was riding his bicycle; he was tracked down with the help of the FBI.
Seriously? British tabloids have yet another of their stupid “who’s at fault” debates after a truck driver passes a “cycling vigilante” way too close, claiming it’s the bicyclist’s fault because he wasn’t in the bike lane. Even though close passing laws are the same, no matter where you are on the roadway or why.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
One juvenile is under arrest after around 200 kids riding bicycles and ebikes knocked a motorcyclist off his bike at a red light, then swarmed him and began kicking and punching him as a lay on the ground, for no apparent reason.
There’s a special place in hell for the rock-throwing bike rider who paused his ride to bust into an East Sacramento karate dojo and steal a priceless 17th-century wakizashi samurai sword that has been in the same family for over 400 years.
A 53-year-old Key West man was arrested on DUI and drug charges after he plowed his ebike into someone riding an adult tricycle; fortunately, no one was seriously injured.
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Local
Protected bike lanes are coming to a 1.2-mile stretch of Spring and Alameda in Chinatown.
West Hollywood will consider installing secure bike lockers at city facilities.
The Santa Monica Daily Press looks forward to the new West LA CicLAvia later this month.
State
A bill in the state Assembly, AB 1976, would cut the red tape preventing transformational bike and pedestrian projects, impacting everything from pedestrian malls and neighborhood greenways to safe routes to schools projects.
San Diego is cracking down on ebike “speed demons” on the city’s oceanfront boardwalks during spring break.
Good news from Ventura, where a 14-year old girl is recovering from the rattlesnake bite she got while mountain biking in Newbury Park two weeks ago; she was bitten after falling off her bicycle into some bushes.
That’s more like it. Over 100 people turned out for an organized rideout in Hayward on Saturday, to “create a safe and respectful place to carry on the tradition of what’s dubbed ‘bike life,’” and deter violence in the bicycle community.
National
People are pointing fingers back and forth after a Eugene, Oregon coalition devoted to sustainable transportation and better infrastructure for bike riders and pedestrians fell apart.
More than 50 years ago, over 1,200 Portland, Oregon bike riders turned out to demand carfree spaces for their bikes.
A crowdfunding campaign has raised over $50,000 for a Golden, Colorado woman who remains in critical condition in an induced coma, over ten days after she was struck by a drunk driver who blew through a red light while she riding her bicycle.
Nice gesture from the Corpus Christy, Texas bike community, which came together for a memorial ride to honor a local man best known as “Mr. Pointy Boots,” after he died of stage 4 prostate cancer.
Tulsa, Oklahoma’s Project Dudeman encourages men to show up as they are and ride bikes, to combat the stigma associated with mental health.
Even El Paso, Texas is putting Los Angeles to shame, installing over 1,000 miles of new cycling facilities over the last decade.
A Chicago bike rider was killed and two other people injured when an SUV driver blew through a red light and plowed through an intersection at 1:30 am Sunday, slamming into the bicyclist before continuing on to hit a car; the driver then abandoned his vehicle and literally ran away.
A Rochester, New York nonprofit gave away over 500 free bikes to local children in their 5th annual Easter giveaway.
Charlottesville, Virginia will release another 36 vouchers in the city’s ebike rebate program. That compares favorably to Los Angeles, which doesn’t have one, and California, which just gave up and gave the money to electric car buyers.
A 62-year old woman was killed riding her bike in New Orleans Sunday morning, in a tragic reminder to never trust other drivers to stop when someone stops to let you cross a street; the victim waited for traffic to clear, and started across when a driver in the right lane stopped for her, but an oncoming driver in the left lane didn’t.
International
Cubans rode their bikes to protest Trump’s embargo of the island, which has led to frequent nationwide blackouts.
London plans to provide two new east-west bike routes, after riders are banned from Oxford Street once it becomes pedestrianized. Hard to imagine a carfree Oxford Street, which was one of the busiest car sewers I’ve ever seen, second only to the Champs-Élysées in Paris.
England’s Lizzie Hermolle became the fastest woman to Everest offroad, shattering the old record even though a dog ate the donuts she was counting on for energy.
A British cardiologist and five-time Masters track champ explains the risks and benefits of bicycling as you mature, saying there’s no reason you can’t start or continue riding, but check with your doctor first.
British tabloids are up in arms over “the country’s most expensive bike lane,” which is costing the equivalent of nearly $6.6 million for less than a mile, while claiming it’s the locals who are angry and insist no one will use it. But just wait until someone tells them what it costs to build a mile of highway.
No bias here. A man in the UK received a warning from the police about his “dangerous” bicycling, after submitting helmet cam video of drivers illegally using their phones behind the wheel.
Bike riders in Dublin, Ireland will be allowed to turn left on a red light — the Irish equivalent of a right on red — but only at one specific intersection as part of a trial program.
The Guardian explains how former Paris Mayor Anne Hildago was responsible for “planting 155,000 trees, adding several hundred kilometers of bike lanes, pedestrianizing 300 school streets and banning cars from the banks of the Seine,” but not without significant resistance. Fortunately, newly elected Mayor Emmanuel Grégoire is committed to continuing her work.
A South African website says a woman from Norway bicycled to South Africa in a series of TikTok videos. Although she probably did it in real life, too.
I want to be like him when I grow up. After Chinese man lost his entire family over a period of two years in his 60s, he started bicycling, spending the next three decades criss-crossing the country, eventually switching to a tricycle as he continues riding at 90 years old. I mean, not about the bad stuff, but still.
Competitive Cycling
Heartbreaking story from Trinidad and Tobago, where the wife of cyclist Colin Wilson watched as he was killed during an Easter Sunday race, slashing his neck on the fence lining the course while trying to avoid a fallen cyclist.
Race winner race winner Tadej Pogačar could be in deep doo-doo with Belgian authorities after he ran a red light at a railroad crossing, along with another 20 or so riders, in violation of race rules as a train was bearing down on them.
Dutch cyclist Demi Vollering won the women’s race, without apparently violating any choo-choo rules, while the legendary Marianne Vos had to drop out after the death of her father.
Two Colorado bike races were named among the top ten in the US by USA Today, including the iconic Tour of the Moon featured in American Flyers, staring some guy named Kevin Costner; the Hotter’N Hell Hundred in Wichita Falls, Texas topped the list.
Canadian Cycling Magazine helps former cyclist Gord Fraser reunite with his 1986 Bertrand racing bike, when someone emailed the magazine to say they had it after Fraser wrote that he regretted selling it.
Finally…
Presenting the weird, wacky and wonderful world of bicycles; thanks to Steven for the heads-up. That feeling when an iconic beachfront bike path started life as a fortified WWII military installation.
And the winner for greater LA’s worst intersection is….
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin.
