Last week we linked to Outside’s deep dive into the murder of rising gravel cyclist Moriah “Mo” Wilson.
As you’ll recall, Wilson was shot to death in Austin, Texas last year in what reportedly amounted to a one-sided love triangle.
Wilson was — allegedly — murdered by Kaitlin Armstrong in a fit of jealousy, after Wilson spent an afternoon with top men’s ‘cross pro Colin Strickland. Armstrong, Strickland’s on-and-off-girlfriend, apparently saw Wilson as a rival for his affections, even though Strickland and Wilson both denied any romantic involvement.
But not only did Strickland buy the gun Armstrong allegedly used, he also bought the ammunition.
Now top cycling journalists are strongly criticizing the magazine for what they see as basically an apologia for Strickland, written by his friend, Austin-based writer Ian Dille.
Not exactly the objective reporting you’d expect from a credible major magazine.
https://twitter.com/joelindsey/status/1620099536009166854
https://twitter.com/joelindsey/status/1620099542963359744
https://twitter.com/joelindsey/status/1620099545672863746
https://twitter.com/joelindsey/status/1620099549443522566
https://twitter.com/joelindsey/status/1620099550773141504
To state what should be obvious, 1) you don’t make this assignment, 2) this is not the way you phrase a disclosure, and 3) you don’t put it in the 28th paragraph. @outsidemagazine has a lot of explaining to do. https://t.co/Ny4cMNMavm
— Dan Saltzstein (@dansaltzstein) January 24, 2023
For some reason, I can’t get the tweet from Laura Weislo to load, but here is what she had to say.
Great work from @outsidemagazine and @iandille on this – not only re-traumatizing everyone close to Mo with this salacious slanted story but also naming those who wanted to stay anon & possibly setting yourselves up for libel suits for some of the details.
I don’t pretend to know enough about the situation or the people involved to offer any objective insights.
But I do know when people like that are telling the magazine to do better, maybe they should listen.
Photo by Ivan Samkov from Pexels.
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That’s more like it.
Pomona announced an $11.3 million grant from LA Metro to build the San Jose Creek Multi-Use Bikeway, completing a missing link in the San Gabriel Valley Regional Greenway Network.
Although that kind of pales in comparison to the nearly $300 million the agency is spending to create still more induced demand-induced traffic congestion on the 57/60 Freeways. Never mind that it comes in the midst of a climate emergency, when we desperately need to reduce driving, not encourage more of it.
Maybe they could reverse the funding, and give $300 million to bikeway expansion and the relatively paltry $11.3 to freeways.
It’s a thought.
https://twitter.com/ActiveSGV/status/1620218372763054080
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Calbike is still in the market for a new executive director, in case you’re looking for something to do with all your free time.
https://twitter.com/CalBike/status/1620104760656334860
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Minnesota Public Radio goes for a winter fat bike ride through the snow.
The sport of winter fat tire biking is booming in popularity. It’s an accessible, low-cost and fun way to get outside in nature during the colder months — and @kirstimarohn tried it.
Read more here:https://t.co/mEyoDF7QKB pic.twitter.com/zFNoGjlITo
— MPR News (@MPRnews) January 30, 2023
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
When a San Francisco bike rider blocked a driver from illegally entering a Shared Space street, where non-resident drivers are prohibited on weekends, an enraged driver yelled “You’re the fucking white people that should die” before speeding off. And yes, the driver looked to be white, too.
No bias here. British Columbia’s no-fault insurance program somehow ruled that liability was evenly split between a bike rider and a driver — even though the road raging motorist drove over the victim’s bike, rather than going around her.
But sometimes it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
Tres shock! A writer for Road.cc confesses to not waving at other bicyclists when out for a ride, questioning why a simple nod isn’t enough.
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Local
Streetsblog looks forward to a long list of open streets events in and around the City of Angels, including CicLAvia and 626 Golden Streets, as well as handful of other events. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that no one was even sure the first CicLAvia would succeed, let alone all the others that have followed.
This is who we share the road with. A pipe-wielding Tesla driver has been arrested in a string of road rage attacks against other motorists stretching back for months.
Our friend Michael Wagner writes CLR Effect about the first bike rodeo held by advocacy group Sustainable Claremont. You really should be reading his site if you ride on the other side of LA County, if you don’t already. And you do, right?
State
They get it. The Los Angeles Times says California’s CEQA laws are too easily and too often used to block housing and slow environmental progress.
Mission Viejo’s Providence Mission Hospital is giving away free bike and multi-sport helmets for kids between 2 and 17 at the hospital gift shop.
Streetsblog takes a look at Oceanside’s planned Complete Streets makeover of the Coast Highway 101, saying one of the project’s key drivers is drivers using it as a cut-through to bypass traffic on the 5 Freeway.
San Francisco’s Vision Zero program is going the wrong way, as the city suffered the most traffic deaths since the program was adopted in 2014.
Speaking of Streetsblog, Roger Ruddick rides the new Hesperian Boulevard Corridor Improvement Project in Alameda County, describing the ostensible Complete Streets makeover as a hellscape, and concluding that Alameda County once again “lived up to their well-earned reputation for not having a clue how to build a multi-modal corridor.”
National
The Bike League’s Bicycle Friendly Community program has now topped 500 communities, spread throughout all 50 states.
Cracked looks back to the good ol’ days “when men thought bicycles wold make women ugly and slutty.”
Winter Bike to Work (or Wherever) Day returns to my platinum-level bike-friendly Colorado hometown next week. Which serves as a reminder that we still don’t have a winter Bike to Work Day here in Los Angeles, where the winter weather is so much better. Then again, judging by the last few years, we barely do a regular Bike to Work Day any more, either.
Surprisingly, nearly half of all the ebike vouchers went unused in Denver’s exceptionally popular ebike rebate program, with just 56% actually redeemed to purchase a new ebike.
A Harvard researcher asks if bicycling is safe, particularly for women, and other groups like less-fit men, seniors and parents with children, concluding the answer is no. And not surprisingly, that the danger comes from cars and their drivers.
Connecticut’s legislature is considering 18 recommendations from the state’s Vision Zero committee, including increased use of speed cams to combat the state’s record traffic deaths.
What’s wrong with this picture? A Louisiana bike rider was killed in a head-on collision, even though police investigators later concluded both the victim and the driver were traveling in the right directions on the right side of the road; the driver was booked for vehicular homicide, possession of an alcoholic beverage in a motor vehicle, and driving on the right side of the road. Which usually isn’t a crime, and doesn’t explain how they crashed if they were both in their own lanes.
International
Bicyclists participating in the weekly Bikes and Beer ride in Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico passed on the usual raucous celebration to remember the victims of the city’s rising toll from traffic violence.
A Toronto committee backed a staff recommendation to make a contentious popup bike lane through the city’s midtown neighborhood permanent, despite opponents claims that they cause gridlocked streets. Meanwhile, Canadian Cycling profiles a fierce advocate of the contested bike lanes.
No bias here, either. A British driver is “horrified” to see — or rather, not see — so many bike riders and pedestrians failing to wear hi-viz or carry flashlights in the early morning gloom. Apparently, she’s unaware that cars have headlights, and drivers are supposed to slow down in low light conditions so they can actually see others on the roadway.
Clean Technica joins the pack extolling Amsterdam’s massive new 7,000 bike underwater parking garage.
Finally…
That feeling when your toddler somehow needs a $1080 titanium balance bike, complete with carbon fork. When you feel the need to show the world your cut on the butt from your “near fatal” bike crash.
And who doesn’t need an e-scooter that magically converts to a throttle-controlled ebike?
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin, too.
