Tag Archive for Nextdoor

NY Times misses the mark on ebike critique, witness refuses to report hit-and-run driver, and sharrows ain’t bike lanes

July 31, 2023 / / 3 comments

Before we start, I’ve received a secondhand report that someone riding a bicycle may have been killed in Mentone on Saturday.

It’s possible the report could have been referring to a fatal crash in nearby Highland on Friday, which the police were quick to blame on the bike-riding victim crossing the street outside of a crosswalk.

Even though there is no requirement or expectation that bike riders use one, and many police agencies mistakenly interpret state law as banning bikes from crosswalks.

But whether it refers to the same crash, or a second crash a dozen or so mile way, it’s yet another tragic reminder to always ride defensively, and stay safe out there.

Because you can watch out for dangerous drivers, but there’s no guarantee they’re watching for you.

Thanks to Jeffrey Rusk for the heads-up.

………

No bias here.

The New York Times, which should really know better, published an exceptionally one-sided screed on the dangers of ebikes for teenaged users.

But somehow forgot to mention that the real danger didn’t come from the bikes the victim’s were riding, but from the drivers and motor vehicles that killed and maimed them.

The e-bike industry is booming, but the summer of 2023 has brought sharp questions about how safe e-bikes are, especially for teenagers. Many e-bikes can exceed the 20-mile-per-hour speed limit that is legal for teenagers in most states; some can exceed 55 miles per hour. But even when ridden at legal speeds, there are risks, especially for young, inexperienced riders merging into complex traffic with fast-moving cars and sometimes distracted drivers.

“The speed they are going is too fast for sidewalks, but it’s too slow to be in traffic,” said Jeremy Collis, a sergeant at the North Coastal Station of the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office, which is investigating Brodee’s accident. The investigation is ongoing pending a medical examiner’s finding.

The Brodee in that reference was 15-year old Brodee Braxton Champlain-Kingman, who was killed when he was rear-ended by a driver while changing lanes on his ebike.

Something that could have just as easily happened if he’d been riding a regular bike, and may have had nothing to do with the ebike he was riding. And never mind that he’d still be here if not for the driver who ran him down, regardless of his judgment, or the lack thereof, in changing lanes.

Even though it resulted in nearly universal knee-jerk condemnation of teenagers on ebikes, if not ebikes in general — including a proposed law to ban younger ebike riders and possibly require a license to ride one, regardless of age.

The Times follows it up with a second article discussing just what an ebike is, while considering how safe they are.

Or in their eyes, aren’t.

Here’s how Electrek responded to the stories.

The article even explicitly lists the biggest danger that played a role in that crash, explaining that the boy’s bike “had a top speed of 20 miles per hour, but his route took him on a busy road with a 55-mile-per-hour limit.” And yet the article seems to imply that the e-bike’s presence was the compounding issue, instead of reading into the author’s very own sentence to realize that the true problem was that the road didn’t have anywhere safe for cyclists to ride. There was no protected bike lane.

By all accounts, the e-bike rider was correctly and legally using the roadway in the only way he could. In fact, according to eye-witnesses of the car crash that killed the e-bike rider, he “did everything right,” including signaling his turn…

As Visiting Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School David Zipper pointed out, every single e-bike crash listed in the article was a collision between a car and e-bike. None were simply e-bike crashes without the added of a car. “All could’ve been avoided if e-bike riders were protected from cars (or if there were no cars)”, Zipper explained on Twitter.“Fight the real enemy.”

The Electrek article goes on to add this about the second Times story.

Amazingly, the article uses a statistic pointing out how dangerous cars are, but flips it around to imply that because studies have proven that faster moving cars are dangerous, that means e-bikes shouldn’t travel too fast, presumably to also reduce the danger of these small and lightweight machines.

It’s right there. The answer is literally in the body of the NYT article. Unprotected road users (pedestrians and cyclists) are much more likely to be severely injured by cars as the car speed increases. And yet this statistic is used to imply that e-bikes shouldn’t be used at speeds of over 20 mph.

Thanks to Yves Dawtur for the heads-up. 

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Marcello Calicchio forwards news of a (insert negative descriptor here) Nextdoor user who claims to have witnessed a hit-and-run by an aged driver, but refuses to contact the police, somehow thinking a Nextdoor post is good enough.

Um, sure.

And somehow thinks she’s a victim, because commenters piled on telling her to fulfill her legal and moral duty to report what she saw to the police.

So if you were the victim of a hit-and-run on San Diego’s Highway 76 on Saturday, you know who to contact.

Or better yet, who to have your lawyer contact.

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Speaking of those new bike lanes/sharrows on Doheny in Beverly Hills, as we were last week —

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Make it safe and convenient to ride a bike, and people will.

In droves.

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More than once I’ve found myself singing “The harder they come, the harder they fall,” as I scraped myself off the pavement.

Those times I’ve still been able to sing, that is.

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That feeling when a mountain biking god, and one of your lifelong biking heroes, is having dinner with his family just walking distance from your Hollywood apartment.

And yes, I would have dropped everything if he’d said to c’mon over.

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

No bias here, either. A Minneapolis cop used his loud speaker to order a group of bicyclists to ride in single file — in a public park.

Once again, someone has tried to sabotage a bikeway, this time dumping screws and nails on a controversial new bike lane in Victoria, British Columbia. This should be treated as terrorism, since it’s a deliberate attempt to kill or injure innocent people for political ends. But won’t be. 

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Local 

LADOT wants your opinion on bikeshare, and is willing to give you a shot at a $100 gift card to get it. Thanks to Steven Hallett for the tip.

 

State

A Fullerton writer asks if the city’s bike plan is in danger of being nibbled to death. Although that may be better than simply ignoring it, like a certain megalopolis to the the north.

The Newport Beach Police Department is using mounted cops to crack down on illegal ebikes.

Some residents of San Diego’s Serra Mesa neighborhood are upset about new lane reductions and buffered bike lanes, accusing them of causing traffic congestion and frustrated drivers, even as the traffic in the background continues to move smoothly.

Sad news from the Bay Area, where a 51-year old Santa Rosa man was killed when a pickup driver crashed into his bicycle leaving a parking lot in Rohnert Park.

 

National

Bicycling reports that a new survey shows the Congressional E-BIKE Act, which would cover 30 percent of the cost of a new ebike, is supported by 70% of Americans living in major cities, and nearly half would be extremely likely to buy one if the bill passes. As usual, read it on Yahoo if the magazine blocks you. 

Even bikes that don’t move can cause dangerous falls, as Peloton recalls more than two million of their popular exercise bikes.

Auto Evolution says the new European-style ebike from America’s last remaining Tour de France winner fits perfectly with the Barbenheimer zeitgeist.

Life is cheap in Arizona, where the “driver” who was behind the wheel watching videos on her phone when a self-driving Uber test car ran down Elaine Herzberg as she crossed a Tempe road with her bike walked without a day behind bars, after copping a plea to just three lousy years of supervised probation. Which is three years more than Uber got, while Herzberg got the death penalty just for crossing the damn street.

Tragic news from Colorado, where a motorcyclist was killed, and a couple riding a tandem bike were seriously injured — the man severely — when the motorcyclist crossed the centerline in a winding canyon, and slammed into their bike before sliding off the roadway; a Boulder paper suggests the motorcyclist was attempting to flee the scene when he crashed a second time.

The Associated Press says the massive RAGBRAI bike ride across Iowa puts small town America into focus.

An op-ed from the advocacy director of a Chicago active transportation group says the city may be near the bottom of PeopleForBikes ratings for bikeability, but public support could help make it the nation’s best city for bicycling. Then again, we could say the same about Los Angeles. 

Gothamist says last week’s bloody scooter crash on the Manhattan Bridge bike path has left four people injured and the cycling community shaken, as riders of traditional bicycles compete for space with motor-scooter riders illegally using it.

A Virginia man’s dream European cycling vacation was saved when his stolen bike was recovered by using an AirTag, as well as bugging the hell out of the airline. Thanks to David Drexler for the link.

 

International

Momentum offers a beginner’s guide to learning to ride a bicycle later in life.

A 48-year old Welsh driver has been charged in the death of triathlete Rebecca Comins as she was taking part in a bicycle time trial last year.

London’s Daily Mail describes how a deaf and endearingly daft bike-riding cat became an instant Instagram star.

A retired French school teacher has created his own job, riding his recumbent bike across the country personally delivering handwritten letters “to friends of friends and soon-to-be new ones.”

NPR reports that Berlin bike riders are standing up to the city’s new conservative mayor, forcing him to backpedal on a campaign pledge to standup for the city’s poor, downtrodden drivers.

Life is cheap in India, where an Army doctor got a single year behind bars, seven years after the speeding crash that killed the father of a young child while he was riding his bike.

A nine-year old Guyana junior cycling “prodigy” made waves in her bike racing debut, following in the footsteps of her late father, three years after the former national cycling team member was killed by a drunk driver on a training ride.

This is who we share the road with. After a Singaporean school bus full of kids nearly ran over a bicyclist before smashing into three cars, the bike rider realized there was no one driving the bus, because the driver had apparently fallen out.

 

Competitive Cycling

Gut-wrenching news from Boulder, Colorado, where 17-year old rising cyclist Magnus White, a member of the US Junior Men’s National Team and the 2021 Junior 17-18 Cyclocross National Champ, was killed when he was struck by a driver while training for the world junior championships in Scotland next week; a crowdfunding campaign in his memory has raised nearly $60,000 of the $70,000 goal. We’ve got to stop murdering our children. Let alone so many of our best and brightest.

Dutch cyclist Demi Vollering won the second edition of the revived women’s Tour de France on Sunday, after demolishing her competitors on Saturday’s Tourmalet climb.

Rising American cyclist Veronica Ewers was sent home with a broken collarbone after crashing hard and flying into a ditch on Friday’s stage of the Tour.

The Los Angeles-based Bahati foundation is sponsoring the Ghana Cycling Federation to help groom young cyclists to compete in major international events.

 

Finally…

Forget carb loading and chug a bicarb, instead. Bicycles get blamed for crashes, even when no one is riding them.

And who needs a moving van when you’ve got a bicycle?

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin

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

Update: Bike-riding mom killed Sunday in apparent collateral damage crash in Lake Forest

June 14, 2023 / / 7 comments

This news from this past weekend just keeps getting worse.

Longtime Orange County bike advocate Bill Sellin has forwarded news that a woman was killed while riding her bike in Lake Forest Sunday morning, apparently the victim of an out-of-control driver.

While the initial reports appeared on Nextdoor, which is not always the most reliable source, the Orange County Sheriff’s department confirms a crash occurred just before 8 am on El Toro Road at Normandale Drive.

Sellin confirmed with Lake Forest officials that the victim of the crash was killed.

Meanwhile, a woman identifying herself as the victim’s daughter reports that the crash occurred when a driver apparently lost control, jumping a curb and hitting a light pole on one side of the street, then ricocheting across the street to hit the victim before crashing into another light pole on the opposite side of the street.

All of which implies the driver may have been traveling at an extreme rate of speed, even given the irrational 55 mph speed limit on the roadway.

Photos from the scene taken from Nextdoor show the mangled bike resting on the sidewalk in front of the smashed pickup; Sellin reports the location of the victim’s body was marked in front of her bike.

There’s no word on the victim’s name or age, though we can surmise her last name from her daughter’s post.

A person identifying themselves as her neighbor reports the victim was a mother of three.

There has been nothing in the news yet, and no official confirmation from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, which patrols Lake Forest, or the Coroner’s office; unfortunately, the OC Coroner no longer posts death notices online.

This is at least the 19th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the fourth that I’m aware of in Orange County.

Update: The victim’s daughter has identified her as Sara Wheaton; sadly, she turned 49 the day she died. 

According to the daughter, Wheaton’s body was thrown 20 feet from her bike by the force of the impact. And neighbors who heard the crash don’t recall the sound of braking. 

My deepest sympathy and prayers for Sara Wheaton and all her family and loved ones. 

Thanks to Bill Sellin for doing all the legwork and tracking down the information for this story. 

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

Aluminum foil foils traffic light sensor fails, unconfirmed report of Newport Beach bike death, and new Downey bike lane

June 23, 2021 / / 2 comments

Phillip Young writes today with a brilliant DIY workaround for the problem of carbon wheels not being recognized by traffic signal sensors.

Would you please pass this traffic light safety tip along to your readers with carbon rim wheels?

Carbon rim bicycle wheels usually do not trigger traffic signal light sensor coils buried in the pavement and can be a safety issue. The non-conducting carbon rims do not change the magnet field around sensor coils, so the traffic light doesn’t change for you.

If the traffic signal light doesn’t trip in your travel direction and you have waited for 2 or 3 minutes, you may be inclined to run the red traffic signal light dodging traffic at your peril.

My carbon rim bicycle wheels would not trigger traffic light sensor coils buried in the pavement until aluminum foil tape was applied to the rim circumference with some foil tape overlap.

I added 3M adhesive backed aluminum foil tape cut about the width of rim tape where the normal cloth rim tape goes. The adhesive backed aluminum foil tape sticks well to the carbon rim material and weighs almost nothing. This should work on all carbon rims using inner tubes.

Push the aluminum foil tape down against the rim to get full contact and adhesion. Install the normal cloth rim tape on top of the aluminum foil tape. The foil tape also offers additional support to the rim tape over the rim spoke holes.

The rim with aluminum foil tape now reliably triggers traffic light sensor coils. The bicycle wheel rim with aluminum foil should be positioned parallel to and directly over the sensor coils buried in the pavement rewarding you with a green light.

May your travels be safe and green lights will always be with you,

Phil

PS: Aluminum rim bicycle wheels usually work triggering traffic signal lights if the wheel is positioned parallel to and directly over the pavement sensor coils.

For those looking for a more detailed explanation of why this works, Young followed up with this post from Cyclelicious.

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Nextdoor users have been reporting a possible bicycling fatality Monday morning on Dover Drive near PCH in Newport Beach.

So far, though, I’ve been unable to find any confirmation. So let’s hope that Nextdoor, which is not exactly known for its veracity, is wrong this time.

Thanks to David Huntsman and Lois for the heads-up.

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Downey has a new painted bike lane on Old River School Road.

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A crowdfunding campaign to help the victims of Saturday’s vehicular attack at a master’s bike race in Show Low, Arizona has raised nearly $60,000 of the $100,000 goal.

Which works out to just $10,000 for each of the critically injured victims.

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For anyone who needs a little something to entertain yourself on the rare moments you’re not riding your bike, how about coloring a few LA landmarks?

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This is who the anti-bike crowd are really opposing when they stand up against bike paths and protected bikeways.

https://twitter.com/tomflood1/status/1406600413026127875

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Nothing like heading out for a McDonald’s run with a tandem bike-powered car.

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

No bias here. After a California man was killed when he struck a chain blocking a Carson City, Nevada trail, the local sheriff warns against riders over-extending their confidence levels, instead of warning about dangerous chains strung across pathways that can kill unsuspecting people on bicycles.

Pennsylvania police are looking for the hit-and-run driver who sideswiped at least five bike riders with his passenger side mirror; the victims believe it was a deliberate attempt to buzz, if not injure, the riders.

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Local

Los Angeles received an $18 million grant for safety improvements to the Broadway corridor in South Los Angeles, rather than the $64 million the city asked for, on the condition that they limit the project to the safe street infrastructure component of the application for the deadly street, and guarantee completion; the street is one of LA’s most dangerous streets for bike riders and pedestrians.

LAist examines how Van Nuys’ Retro Xpress Bicycles navigated the pandemic as an essential business.

NoHo ‘bent dealer Bent Up Cycles is now the proud owner of Florida recumbent maker Bacchetta Bicycles.

 

State

San Diego drivers are complaining about a lack of parking in certain parts of town. Which is a pretty good argument to not drive if you don’t have to.

That’s more like it. A TV reporter tries out San Francisco’s Lyft bikeshare ebikes, and swears she’ll never drive again.

 

National

NBC News examines whether removing freeways built on a legacy of inequity can heal historic wounds.

VeloNews offers tips on how to avoid cyclist’s palsy, the painful numbness and tingling in your hands and arms from gripping the handlebars.

A new report shows that the jump in traffic deaths during the pandemic was more likely to affect Black people, who were killed at a rate 25% higher than white people.

Tragic news from Texas, where a man drowned in a North Texas lake when he rode his bike into the side of a bridge and fell over the guardrail.

The New Yorker takes a stab at humor by suggesting that riding a bicycle isn’t just like riding a bike, after all.

 

International

Yet another new study shows that ebike riders can complete a trip faster and with less effort than on a conventional bike, but still gain significant health benefits.

Vancouver has honored fallen mountain biker Jordie Lunn by naming a new bike park after him, two years after the famed stunt cyclist was killed trail riding with friends in Mexico.

An Ontario, Canada man begged a judge for mercy after he was convicted of the hit-and-run death of a bike-riding woman, insisting he just “panicked and made a mistake.” Never mind that the prosecutor is only asking for a “stiff sentence” of only two years behind bars. Then again, how much mercy did he show his victim, who was sentenced to death at his hands?

A British filmmaker stayed relatively close to home during the pandemic by filming a challenging 450-mile ride around Wales.

Over 85% of readers of the UK’s Courier newspaper think bike helmets should be made mandatory. Which only shows just how wrong 85% of readers can be.

Berlin is expanding the city’s bike network by making 15 miles of popup bike lanes installed during the pandemic permanent. Unlike a certain Southern California megalopolis we could name, which missed out on a once-in-a-generation opportunity by failing to install any to begin with.

 

Competitive Cycling

Defending Tour de France champ Tadej Pogačar may be one of the few people who can claim to have pedaled a path from village unicyclist to winner of the world’s greatest bike race.

Cycling News considers the unique mystique of Mont Ventoux in Tour de France history; competitors in this year’s race will have to surmount the mountain twice in a single stage.

Four-time Tour de France winner Chris Froome lowers his sights, insisting he’ll be happy just winning a stage in this year’s Tour.

Cycling Tips examines the eternal question of what team sponsors actually do on the men’s WorldTour.

Reuters looks at five women’s cyclists to watch at the Tokyo Olympics, including pink sock-wearing American speedster Chloe Dygert.

Cyclist considers the top rivalries in pro cycling, dating back to 1940s cycling legends Fausto Coppi and Gino Bartali.

 

Finally…

Not every Olympic cyclist has her very own Chipotle bowl. That feeling when your epic bike ride from Moscow to California only takes a few hours.

And probably not the best idea to growl at the bear you just startled.

Just saying.

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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

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

Longest-serving LACBC staffer out due to Covid-19 shutdown, and Nextdoor user claims bikes can’t use bikeways

April 1, 2020 / / One comment

Normally, I’d wish you a happy April Fools Day. 

But with everything that’s going on in the world, we all need to be able to trust what we read right now. Here, and everywhere else.

Photo by Татьяна Чернышова from Pexels.

…..

Very disappointing news today, as the coronavirus shutdown claimed another victim.

This is part of an email that was forwarded to me today.

…I’m writing to tell you that this will be the last email you get from me at LACBC. As of Friday March 27, my time as an employee of the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition officially came to a close.

As you probably know, LACBC has been struggling financially for over a year now. Thanks to the tremendous work of Eli Akira Kaufman, the Board of Directors, and my fellow staff, we were on a path to recovery, until recently. Unfortunately, the current pandemic has effectively put a hold on the contracts I’ve been managing, our annual LA River Ride is hanging in the balance, and our finances are even tighter than before. Eli and the board have had to make some difficult decisions for the sake of keeping LACBC rolling.

That message comes from Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition Education Director Colin Bogart, the coalition’s longest serving staff member, and the last remaining link to the group’s founding.

I also want you to know that it’s been a great joy and a pleasure to work at LACBC and with all of you. I’ve always considered myself lucky to be doing this work and to be able to work with so many great people. And I’m forever grateful to those of you who have volunteered your time or supported LACBC through various fundraising efforts. I hope that you will continue to do so. LACBC still needs all of you.

Lastly, this is not good-bye. Instead, it’s more like “see you later.” As many of you know, I truly believe in bicycling as a means to make our world a better place. I’m not going anywhere and I intend to stay engaged. (Some of you may recall that I myself was a volunteer and a board member for years before I was hired)…

If you believed, like me, that Colin would be the one turning out the lights if the worst ever came for LA County’s leading bicycle advocacy group, this day brings special sadness.

It marks an end of an era stretching back two full decades, and the final, last loss of institutional memory for the LACBC. Thanks to board term limits and staff turnover, no one is left who has been with the coalition more than four years.

He will be very missed.

And so, too, will the LACBC if we don’t all pull together to save it.

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Nothing like citing just half a law.

And trying to tell people they can’t ride bikes on a bikeway. Or let their kids ride legally on a sidewalk.

Actually, that section of the Municipal Code reads,

No person shall ride, operate or use a bicycle, unicycle, skateboard, cart, wagon, wheelchair, roller skates, or any other device moved exclusively by human power, on a sidewalk, bikeway or boardwalk in a willful or wanton disregard for the safety of persons or property.

Which kinda changes the whole meaning.

So you and your kids can feel free to ride any bikeways, boardwalks or sidewalks that are still open right now.

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

A British woman opens up about the sabotaged bike trail that left her mountain biking husband in a wheelchair, just two years after he survived a heart attack.

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

San Diego deputies busted a man who escaped by bicycle after he allegedly assaulted a woman in a Poway park. Let’s hope he goes away for a long time.

Not many homicides are solved as easily as this one, after a Charleston SC man rode his bike up to the crime scene and shouted out his confession to the shooting.

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Local

The only upside of the coronavirus crisis is the clean air in the mostly carfree City of Angels.

Gossip Girl actor Chase Crawford is one of us, taking a spin through Los Feliz on his ebike.

 

State

The Santa Barbara Bicycle Coalition is looking for a new executive director.

A half dozen high school art students will ride from San Francisco to New York to spread the message of pedal power over gas power.

 

National

NACTO suggests ten ways cities should respond to Covid-19 on their streets, including getting rid of beg buttons, which LA is starting to do in DTLA and MacArthur Park.

PeopleForBikes is is looking for ambassadors for their Ride Spot digital biking platform.

Your next bike could fold all the way down to its airless tires.

A writer for Golf takes on the sport’s Peloton king, and wins. Call it a good ride ruined.

Portland’s annual Filmed by Bike festival will be streaming online instead of in theaters, starting this Saturday.

Nevada encourages families to get out and walk, bike or hike on Wednesdays.

Pink Bike takes a field trip to Sedona to try out four sub-two grand mountain bikes.

Nice guy. The bighearted owner of an Idaho bike shop is giving away 5,000 pounds of potatoes to people affected by the coronavirus shutdown to thank community members for their support over the years.

Unfortunately, the federal ruling that bike shops provide an essential service doesn’t carry the force of law, allowing New Mexico to conclude the opposite and order them shut down.

The 19-year old driver who killed professional mountain biker Benjamin Sonntag outside Durango CO was traveling nearly twice the speed limit at the time of the crash.

A Chicago bike courier collective is helping restaurants survive the shutdown by safely delivering meals across the city.

New York installed a temporary protected bike lane to fix a dangerous gap during the city’s Covid-19 bike boom, only to have someone move the cones off the street onto the sidewalk.

The celebrity bike boom moves to the other coast, as former Wolverine Hugh Jackman rides the streets of New York in the protective gear of our times.

A bighearted Florida man is refurbishing bikes and giving them to people who’ve lost their jobs due to the coronavirus lockdown.

Asking for a little more tolerance on the road, a Florida bicyclist complains when a pedestrian tells his bike club to get off a shared use path, and another tells them to get off the road a few minutes later.

 

International

Forbes says bikes are making a comeback, as social distancing has led to a bike boom around the world, including Chicago, Florida and Sheffield, England.

Pez Cycling News talks with bike brands on both sides of the Atlantic about how they’re doing during the coronavirus crisis.

Cycling Weekly suggests eight places in the UK to add to your bike bucket list once the country’s coronavirus lockdown is lifted.

Cycling Tips has advice on fifteen mistakes to avoid if you’re doing your riding indoors on Zwift.

Two men have confessed to being the lowlife jerks stealing bikes from Nottingham, England hospital workers while they were treating coronavirus patients.

The Verge calls the new ped-assist ebike from Dutch bikemaker Stella a “near-perfect city bike.” Meanwhile, New Atlas calls the new bike from the Netherlands’ Mokumono Cycles “the perfect urban ebike.”

No irony here. A New Zealand man was rescued by helicopter after he hit a pothole and went over the handlebars, while he was on a fundraising ride for a rescue helicopter service.

Clearly, not everyone has given up on April Fools Day.

 

Competitive Cycling

No surprise here, as the annual Redlands Bicycle Classic stage race is officially kaput for this year.

Former Tour de France champ Geraint Thomas says he just wants to race his bike again.

 

Finally…

No. Just…no. Seriously, don’t do that. Ever. 

And this is what happens when an actual pro cyclist tries to ride with Zwift.

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Be safe, and stay healthy.

 

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

Morning Links: No Carmageddon on Venice Blvd, auto-centric capitalism, and four-wheeled scofflaw cyclists

July 26, 2017 / / 2 comments

Yesterday, I wasted far too much of my life.

Hours, in fact, that I will undoubtedly regret on my dying day, trying in vain to defend the Mar Vista and Playa del Rey lane reductions, both here and on Twitter.

And yes, I should know better.

But I’m a firm believer in engaging with people of all viewpoints, in hopes that I can correct inaccurate beliefs, and that I might learn something from them. And maybe, just maybe, we could come to some kind of a consensus.

Hopes that were quickly dashed on the rubble heaps of online discourse.

The best one, by far, was a comment from someone complaining that traffic backups caused by the Venice Blvd Great Streets project had pushed cut-through drivers onto the surrounding side streets. So he insisted that since the project included bike lanes, bike riders should be licensed and taxed to mitigate the problems caused by… drivers.

Uh, sure.

However, the primary argument cited by virtually everyone opposed to the projects was the accusation of soul crushing traffic congestion causing total gridlock and destroying the vehicular lifeblood of the communities.

But as the song says, it ain’t necessarily so.

Yesterday, we included a bike cam video made by Jon Phillips as he rode on Culver Blvd through Play del Rey, showing almost no congestion during the evening rush hour. Though as we noted, that was just one trip, and another journey at another time might have shown something different.

John Montgomery thought of that.

The author of the excellent Digital Slurry website, he set out to explore traffic on Venice Blvd following the lane reductions, and made a point of riding at different times of day, and on multiple days, to get a feeling of what traffic is really like on the street.

What he found was similar to what Phillips found on Culver. Traffic did back up at times, but it started flowing again once the light changed. And at least part of the problem appeared to stem from poor synchronization of traffic lights.

But don’t take his word for it. Or mine.

Read his report and watch the videos, whether the full 14 minute version, or the three minute highlight reel.

And decide for yourself is this is really the return of Carmageddon.

Which turned out to be no big deal, either.

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Montgomery also forwarded this screen shot from the North Venice Beach Nextdoor, giving what may be the single most bizarrely auto-centric and capitalistic perspective ever on using a bicycle for transportation.

Meanwhile, the other argument used anytime the subject of bicycling comes up is the accusation that bike riders don’t deserve equal treatment on the streets because we all break the law anyway.

So he set out to record those scofflaw cyclists in action.

And this is what he found.

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Sad news from Iran, where a 19-year old member of the national women’s cycling team was killed in a car crash.

Next month’s Colorado Classic four-stage race is attempting to reinvent pro cycling by charging a fee to participate in a music festival and view the final two stages.

Cyclists participating in Sunday’s Manhattan Beach Grand Prix will race backwards in pursuit of a total $21,500 purse.

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Local

LADOT has selected a new polymer color treatment for green bike lanes that was developed in conjunction with the film industry. Because Hollywood should always have the last word when it comes to traffic safety.

REI will open their first flagship store in LA County next month, taking over an old Sports Authority location in Burbank.

A Pasadena bike rider stole a 64-year old man’s backpack, then discarded it after rifling through it and stealing two beers. Let’s at least hope they were crappy beers.

West Covina is hosting a community open house – workshop tonight to discuss the city’s proposed Active Transportation Master Plan.

The Santa Monica Lookout talks with the rest of the SaMo city council about how they go carfree at least part of the time; the first part of the story appeared on Monday.

The rich get richer. Construction will begin on Monday on another east-west bike boulevard in bike friendly Long Beach.

 

State

Pink’s seven-month old son is one of us, too.

A Simi Valley bike tour operator could be out of business after thieves stole over $25,000 worth of high-end mountain bikes out of his garage.

San Diego is looking for people to adopt one of the city’s 54 largely abandoned bike and pedestrian counters.

Lompoc is experimenting with closing streets to cars for a weekly Friday evening market, while the Santa Barbara Bicycle Coalition gave dozens of kids refurbished bicycles to take advantage of it.

A DUI hit-and-run driver faces up to ten years in prison after pleading guilty in the death a Watsonville cyclist last year; she was also texting at the time of the crash, as well as driving with a suspended license.

San Francisco’s Public Works Department will enforce a proposed ban on bike chop shops, rather than the police. Because why would you want to arrest anyone for trafficking in stolen bikes and parts?

Dockless bikeshare is getting closer to LA, as Spin is moving into South San Francisco after colonizing Seattle.

No justice for the Sacramento running legend who was hit by a bicyclist on a river pathway, because prosecutors aren’t sure if California’s hit-and-run statutes apply to bikes ridden on trails instead of streets. Here’s a crazy idea: File charges and let a judge decide if the law applies. Because that’s what they do.

 

National

Most US students can legally drive a car before they’re old enough to legally ride a bikeshare bike, even though a bikeshare membership can be provided for a fraction of the cost of busing them to school. We should be encouraging students to ride any kind of bicycle rather than clogging the roads with more buses and cars. Thanks to Mike Wilkinson and David Drexler for the heads-up.

Streetsblog says autonomous cars should have to rely on their own sensors, rather than forcing bicyclists and pedestrians to wear sensors to avoid getting run over.

If you ride offroad, book your trip to Oregon now, where they’ve just opened a 668-mile singletrack course that covers the entire state.

A Colorado Republican legislator is shocked that anyone was shocked that he proposed taxing bicycles.

A generous Milwaukee man bought a stolen bike for $20 to return it to its owner after she posted the theft on Facebook.

A university website profiles MIT emeritus professor David Gordon Wilson, author of Bicycle Science, which they call the industry bible for bike design.

Talk about getting Vision Zero wrong. After a New York cyclist was killed in a hit-and-run, the NYPD responds by cracking down on bike riders, rather than the people in the big dangerous machines. Thanks again to Mike Wilkinson.

A proposed New York state law would require all bicyclists in New York City to wear bike helmets, including users of the Citi Bike bikeshare — even though there’s only been one fatality, and just 50 injuries requiring medical attention, in over 43 million Citi Bike rides. The real question is why the law would only apply to NYC; evidently, no one else in the state has heads worth protecting.

After a kindhearted South Carolina cop fails to recover a boy’s stolen bicycle, he buys him a new one.

A group of three boys and two girls in their early teens have been arrested for beating and stomping a 19-year old Orlando man, stealing his bike and sandals, and throwing away his groceries.

 

International

Bike Radar offers advice for how to manage riding during your period. Assuming you have one, of course.

The war on bikes continues, as a Canadian jogger stepped on a nail-filled board concealed on a bike trail.

The Guardian’s Peter Walker says that no matter what the safety issue, bike-hating commenters always shift the blame to cyclists. Which is exactly what’s happening in Mar Vista and Play del Rey, and pretty much everywhere else in Southern California; more proof that cyclists face the same issues virtually everywhere.

Caught on video: A British bike rider is shown riding through a red light as cars turn into his lane. No, seriously. Don’t do that.

After a 91-year old English man was killed in a collision while participating in a time trial, the proposed solution is banning bikes from divided highways, rather than expecting people to actually pay attention when they drive.

A 15-year old Irish boy received a twelve-month sentence for bashing another boy over the head with a board to steal his bicycle, on top of the eight-month sentence he’s currently serving for threatening to kill someone else. Along with his previous 24 convictions. Did I mention he’s only 15?

Caught on video too: An Irish cyclist gets doored; notice the driver not rushing to his aid.

World Bicycle Relief has distributed 78,000 bicycles in Zimbabwe after a 2010 New York Times story about a then 17-year old man who longed for a bike instead of walking nine miles to school.

The Guardian says cycling campaigns focusing on women and girls are changing the dynamics on African roads.

More Malaysian office workers are choosing to bike to work.

An Aussie writer says drivers in Western Australian can’t handle the concept of an Idaho Stop Law.

 

Finally…

No, Graeme Obree is not a fictional character. Now you, too can ride a modern take on a commie bike.

And now you won’t have to choose between a Bianchi and a Ferrari.

 

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