Tag Archive for right hook

“Coming out of nowhere” to get right hooked by clueless driver, Streets For All virtual Happy Hour, and classic bike ads

September 6, 2022 / / Comments Off on “Coming out of nowhere” to get right hooked by clueless driver, Streets For All virtual Happy Hour, and classic bike ads

One quick personal note before we get started. 

You may recall an LA Times story from a couple years ago about how my wife and I took in a foster corgi for a homeless man for a few weeks after our corgi died, so he could get into a shelter and get back on his feet.

Those few weeks turned into nearly six months. But in the process, that little dog helped heal three lives. 

Sadly, the corgi — whose owner asked us to keep his name private — died on Friday, after suffering from cancer and doggie dementia. 

He was 15 years old. 

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SoCal bike writer Peter Flax was the victim of a right hook by a driver who cut in front of him after passing, then claimed he “came out of nowhere;” turning so close Flax actually brushed his shoulder against the moving SUV.

Which serves as yet another reminder that, in the entire history of cars and bikes, no one on a bicycle has ever come out of nowhere. Though it may sometime seems that way to careless and/or distracted drivers.

Click on the tweets below to read the whole thread.

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Streets For All will host their latest virtual Happy Hour a week from tomorrow, featuring my state assembly member.

Although probably not just because he’s my assembly member.

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Your periodic reminder that bike advertising was so much better back in the day.

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

No bias here. A writer for Vice responds to last week’s anti-ebike screed in The Atlantic by saying the lack of appropriate infrastructure for ebikes is making bicycling worse, and that we have an ebike problem that more ebikes won’t solve.

A DC bike rider was hit in the face with a metal water bottle thrown by a road raging driver, who then reversed into him and tried to run him over; fortunately, he escaped with a few bruises.

Former Canadian pro cyclist Marcel Zierfuss was the victim of a road raging driver in Toronto’s contentious High Park; the man started by driving erratically and swearing about entitled cyclists, before swerving towards Zierfuss and finally brake-checking him, leaving Zierfuss with a serious concussion, nose injury and whiplash. Thanks to Megan Lynch for the heads-up. 

An English city painted over a previously existing bike lane because drivers couldn’t manage to avoid a new pedestrian island without swerving into it.

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

Houston police are looking for a man who fled by bicycle after fatally shooting another man following an altercation outside a convenience store.

A bike-riding thief punched a student walking on an Illinois university campus before making off with the victim’s cellphone.

A 20-year old British man fled from police on his bike after showing up late for a court hearing, then hurling abuse at social workers.

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Local

Long Beach bike riders enjoyed a tour of new murals painted over the weekend as part of The Long Beach Walls and Art Renzei Festival.

 

State 

No news is good news, right?

 

National

Tour de Fat is back in my Colorado hometown after a two-year pandemic layoff.

A Colorado man got 16 years behind bars for his part in an organized bike theft ring that used stolen cars to break into 29 Boulder area bike shops, then shipping the stolen bikes to a Mexican bike shop for resale.

The Chicago Tribune offers photos from Sunday’s Bike the Drive open streets event on the city’s iconic Lake Shore Drive; a growing number of those riders were using ebikes.

Five kids from the Cleveland Boys & Girls Club hopped on new loaner bikes to help a videographer with the local paper finish the last three-tenths of a mile of his century ride — then are shocked when they get to keep the bikes, along with other gear.

They’re one of us. Or maybe four of us, as Kate Hudson and her fiancé Danny Fujikawa, and Sophie Turner and husband Joe Jonas go for separate bike rides in New York.

This is why people keep dying on our streets. After a Pennsylvania driver drifted onto the shoulder of a roadway, critically injuring a 61-year old bike rider, police gave him a pat on the wrist by writing a pair of traffic tickets. As someone noted on Twitter, that could cost the driver tens of dollars.

Hundreds of DC area bike riders turned out to honor a fallen bicyclist at her ghost bike ceremony; the veteran diplomat was killed by a driver while riding in Bethesda, Maryland last month.

 

International

A new book details the world’s largest collection of bicycle derailleurs.

Smart bike helmet maker Lumos has introduced a set of magnetic bike lights that can display red, white and yellow lights, which combine with an app to work as turn signals and brake lights; there’s still a few left at two for $65.

Wired likes Skarper’s new ebike conversion prototype, but questions why someone wouldn’t just buy an entire ebike for the $1,190 price tag. Although we’re getting closer to the Holy Grail of conversion kits, where they’re small enough to toss in a backpack and just clip on as needed.

Hats off to a four-year old Welsh girl, who has raised the equivalent of over $1,100 by riding her bicycle 93 miles over the past six weeks.

Once again, authorities managed to keep an elderly driver on the road until it’s too late, after a 70-year old English man was killed when he was run down on his bike by an 82-year old driver with failing eyesight, who couldn’t manage to read a license plate from ten yards away.

After a Bristol, England woman’s bikes were stolen, she spotted one of them when she went to the police station to file a report — and was mugged by the thief when she tried to reclaim it, even though they were right outside the doors of the cop shop.

Then there’s the Lancaster, England thief who denied stealing a bicycle when he was questioned by the police , but they saw him riding the purloined two wheeler the next day. Oops.

A UK woman says she made her two kids stop riding their bikes after it got too dangerous when officials started removing the pandemic popup bike infrastructure; a British bike advocacy group blames the removal of those bikeways for a drop in bicycling rates.

Good news, as Welsh decathlete Ben Gregory is breathing on his own and slowly coming out of a coma after suffering a fractured neck and skull, and multiple brain hemorrhages when he was struck by a driver in a near-fatal collision while riding his bicycle last month.

No bias here. Stuff says the data is inconclusive on whether Christchurch’s protected bike lanes are improving safety, with four of 13 planned major bikeways in operation — except the data is only inconclusive because it’s based on the entire city, with no specific safety information for the new bike lanes themselves. The website also asks why Christchurch lost its position as New Zealand’s bicycling city, where bikes outnumbered cars on the streets as late as the 1950s.

A drunk driver in Hunan, China could face a charge of intentional murder or injury for the hit-and-run crash where she ran down an ebike rider, then dragged the victim for more than one thousand yards after her clothes got caught on the car’s bumper. We could use a law like that here.

 

Competitive Cycling

Veteran Belgian cyclist Sep Vanmarcke won Baltimore’s inaugural Maryland Bicycle Classic, out-sprinting four other riders who survived a lengthy breakaway; more than 50,000 spectators turned out for a brief glimpse of the riders zooming by, with downhill speeds of up to 45 mph.

Things are getting more interesting in the Vuelta, where Remco Evenepoel is holding on to the red leader’s jersey by one minute 34 seconds over second place Primož Roglič, after the three-time winner shaved over a minute off Evenepoel’s lead in Sunday’s 15th stage.

Now you, too, can own your very own replica of Tadej Pogačar’s Tour de France-winning yellow Colnago V3Rs signed by the cyclist; the current bid is the equivalent of just over $550,000 — yes, over half a million bucks — with the proceeds going to a nonprofit that provides access to education for vulnerable children. Did I mention it’s a replica?

This is what a photo finish looked like in Monday’s Tour of Britain.

https://twitter.com/TourofBritain/status/1566796521865101318?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1566796521865101318%7Ctwgr%5E0a8968b61c05a60715b4656fc6a7d2e8221ac8ea%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Froad.cc%2Fcontent%2Fnews%2Fcycling-live-blog-5-september-2022-295707

 

Finally…

Oddly, advice on how to treat common bike injuries doesn’t involve wrenches, spokes of bike lube. Seriously, who doesn’t need a 153-pound ebike with a sidecar?

And that feeling when a man decides to take up bicycling after a judge bans him from driving for the next year for driving while high.

Even though he couldn’t legally drive in the first place.

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

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

LA Council rejects adopting Healthy Streets, protest street racing in Angelino Heights, and Santa Ana gets it all wrong

August 25, 2022 / / 3 comments

Why do I get the feeling the city council is Lucy.

And we’re Charlie Brown.

And they really think we’re going to fall for that damn football trick one more time.

Yesterday, the city council had the chance to adopt the Healthy Streets LA ballot proposal.

Instead, they pulled the football away one more time, voting to develop their own plan, which will be based on the Healthy Streets LA plan, but with a greater focus on equity.

And voted to place Healthy Streets LA on the 2024 ballot.

In other words, they’re kicking the can down the road once again. Which seems to be the city’s favorite sport.

It really was typical Los Angeles.

A number of council members spoke, seemingly with their hair on fire, about how dangerous LA streets are, how little the city has done, and how they need to be forced to keep their commitments.

Then they voted unanimously not to.

Shamefully, they also chose to ignore the large turnout in support of the measure, with Council President Nury Martinez cutting off comments while over 30 supporters were still waiting to speak.

Although they somehow had time to listen to those opposed to the measure, for some reason.

If you’re wondering why I sound angry, it’s because we’ve been here before.

In 2010, then-Councilmember Bill Rosendahl famously declared “Car culture ends today!” 

In a powerful statement before the full council, Rosendahl said “The culture of the car is going to end now!” He reminded his fellow council members about the harassment cyclists face on the road, as well as the lack of support riders have received from the LAPD in the past. “We’re going to give cyclists the support they should have been getting.”

“This is my pledge to the cycling community.”

That pledge lasted until Rosendahl left the council to battle a recurrence of the cancer that took his life.

Under Rosendahl’s guidance, the city preliminarily adopted the Cyclists’ Bill of Rights, written a group of bike bloggers known as the Bike Writer’s Collective, sending it to the City Council for review and inclusion in the 2010 bike plan.

Except it never made it into the plan. In fact, it was never heard from again.

Rosendahl also shepherded approval of the innovative 2010 bike plan, with its three levels of bikeways forming a unified network designed to channel bike riders through their neighborhood, and throughout the city.

That was subsumed into 2015’s Mobility Plan 2035. And once again, never heard from again.

In fact, we were soon told the plan was merely “aspirational,” which probably explains why only 3% of the plan has been built out in the seven years since.

Charlie Brown, meet football.

Then there’s the city’s Vision Zero plan, also adopted in 2015, which pledged to eliminate traffic deaths in the City of Angels by 2025.

Hint: we ain’t gonna make it.

In fact, traffic deaths have continued to climb virtually every year since, jumping 19% in 2019, and 21% in 2020.

There goes that football again.

That was followed by the mayor’s Green New Deal, which promised to phase out gas-driven cars while providing safe and efficient alternatives to driving.

You can probably guess what comes next.

Now the city council expects us to trust them while they tee-up the ball yet again, pledging that the new ordinance they’re going to write will be even bigger and better than Healthy Streets LA.

Except (soto voce, crossed fingers hidden behind their backs) any ordinance they write they can also change at any time, for any reason. Unlike the Healthy Streets LA proposal, which could only be changed by a vote of the people had they adopted it yesterday.

So if a councilmember doesn’t want a particular project in his or her district, or LA’s notorious NIMBYs rise up in opposition, they can reject it in part, or in toto.

Or when a new council comes in, they can overturn it, again in whole or in part.

So much for forcing them to keep their commitments.

I’ve worked hard for 14 years now to kick over SoCal rocks, and shine a light on all the ugliness underneath, at serious harm to my own mental, physical, emotional and financial health.

But days like this, combined with the ongoing carnage on our streets, make me wonder if it’s all worthwhile.

And I know I’m not alone in feeling that way. Especially now.

But let’s give credit to Michael Schneider and Streets For All for all their hard work in getting us this far. And to everyone who turned out yesterday to speak to the council, whether or not they bothered to listen, and everyone who emailed and called their councilmembers fighting for a better result than the one we got.

You deserve better. We all do.

Instead we have to wait another two years for an expensive, uncertain electoral battle against the full force of LA’s NIMBYs.

Meanwhile, we need to hold the council’s feet to the fire to ensure they keep their promises, and come up with a workable alternative.

And stick to the damn thing this time.

Because I can’t speak for you. But I’m done falling for the same damn trick again.

Peanuts drawing from ClipArtMax. 

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It looks like Hollywood has worn out its welcome in LA’s Victorian Angelino Heights neighborhood — especially the seemingly endless series of Fast & Furious sequels.

A protest is planned for tomorrow to halt filming, in an effort to reduce the number of boneheaded copycats attempting to duplicate the stunts there.

Thanks to Dr. Michael Cahn for the heads-up.

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Santa Ana cops are on the lookout for a bike rider who kicked a motorist after crashing into his car, then possibly threatened the driver with a knife.

Although there’s so much wrong here, I don’t even know where to start.

Reading between the lines, the driver apparently right hooked the bike rider, while illegally turning across the bike lane instead of safely merging in to make his turn, as required by California law.

And while the bike rider was clearly in the wrong to kick and threaten the driver, LAPD officers have made it clear to me in the past that a driver commits assault simply by getting out of his vehicle.

In other words, the bike rider was the victim of the crash, and could have been acting in self-defense when he threatened the driver, since leaving the car could have been seen as a threatening act.

A good lawyer could have a field day with this one if they find the guy.

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The LAPD is looking for a hit-and-run driver who left a Vespa-style moped rider with severe injuries at 3rd and Flower in DTLA earlier this month.

Los Angeles has a standing reward of $25,000 for any hit-and-run resulting in serious injuries.

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Yeah, I’d probably use it.

Although as someone noted, the weak spot is still the cable.

Thanks to Megan Lynch and Jon for forwarding the tweet.

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

There’s a special place in hell for the British man who appeared to come to the aid of an injured mountain biker who fell off his bike, only to steal his nearly $2,800 bicycle while he was laid out on the ground.

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

A Connecticut man faces charges for groping two women while riding his BMX bike.

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Local

LA Progressive endorses a slate of candidates throughout the LA area, including Alex Fisch and Freddy Puza in Culver City, who it says face a well-funded NIMBY backlash from “homeowners who want to keep apartments, bike lanes and non-rich people out of their neighborhoods.”

The Silver Lake Neighborhood Council is pushing for safety improvements at the extremely complicated disjunction junction of Glendale Blvd, Fletcher Drive and Silver Ridge Ave, citing a lack of bike lanes and sidewalks, as well as potholes and frequent gridlock.

Tony Palos Verdes Estates is pulling the plug on plans for a roundabout at Palos Verdes Drive West and Via Corta in Malaga Cove, after local residents got out the torches and pitchforks because they fear what they don’t understand.

 

State 

California is banning the sale of gas-powered vehicles starting in 2035.

Newport Beach considers what to do about speeding ebike riders, from restricting ebikes from certain trails to a blatantly illegal scheme to license ebikes, while limiting the licenses to local residents, the banning unlicensed bikes from the streets.

A 68-year old San Diego man was lucky to escape serious injury when he was right-hooked by a hit-and-run driver while riding his bike near Sunset Cliffs in the Point Loma neighborhood.

Pismo Beach has received $14.7 million for new curb cuts, bike lanes and wider road shoulders to comply with Complete Streets requirements and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

 

National

Streetsblog considers three common bike laws that are overdue for a change, including requiring safety equipment instead of safe streets.

Good question. GearJunkie asks whether the great pandemic bicycle shortage is ending, or if it’s really just getting started.

Writing for Bicycling, a woman says she fell in love with bicycling — lower case — by delivering weed on two wheels. As usual, read it on Yahoo if the magazine blocks you.

Bicycling also highlights the best early Labor Day sales on bike gear, in an article that doesn’t appear to be paywalled.

Autoevolution reviews Jeep’s new ped-assist ebike, calling it $7,600 of awesomeness. For that price, it damn well better be.

New nonprofit City Thread worked with five American cities — Austin, Denver, New Orleans, Pittsburgh and Providence — to build out 335 miles of bike lanes in just two years, a full 25 years earlier than otherwise expected. Someone please give LADOT their phone number. Pretty please. 

A Eugene, Oregon paper says ebikes and high gas prices are making this bicycling’s golden hour in the city.

Tacoma, Washington takes advantage of an eroding bluff to ban cars from a 2.5-mile loop in the city’s Point Defiance Park, opening up the roadway to walkers, bike riders and skateboarders.

The Austin, Texas judge in the homicide case against Kaitlin Armstrong for the death of pro gravel cyclist Moriah “Mo” Wilson says the case will likely be delayed to give her time to consider motions.

Texas-based Volcon just quietly rolled out the company’s first moped-style, ped-assist ebike, which is designed to look like a motorcycle.

Tragic news from Indiana, where a 67-year old South Bend parish priest was killed by a hit-and-run driver as he was riding his bike.

The Bike League’s policy director helps the New York Post pick the best bike helmets for different types of riders.

A New York bike rider was the victim of a hit-and-run salmon bicyclist who plowed into him head-on while riding in a bike lane; a photographer just happened to be there to immortalize the aftermath.

 

International

Bicycling Retailer says the late Lotus Bike designer Mike Burrows was much more than just a legendary bike designer; Burrows succumbed to lung cancer last week at 79.

Canadian Cycling Magazine calls a Toronto parking cop the greatest of all time for ticketing drivers parked in bike lanes.

Scottish mountain bike champ Rab Wardell apparently died of a heart attack in his sleep, as his girlfriend, Olympic track cyclist Katie Archibald, fought to save his life.

A British writer says the proposal to require numbered license plates on bicycles is so bad it could result in the dissolution of the United Kingdom.

More proof that drivers aren’t the only threat we face. A pair of French bicyclists are in critical condition after they were each stung nearly 50 times by European hornets, while a third rider was stung 15 times.

F1 star Valtteri Bottas is one of us, as Cycling Weekly goes gravel biking with the Finnish race car driver, while falling in love with the country’s trails. Thanks to Pops for the link.

Add this one to your bike bucket list, as The Guardian takes a bike ride through the “vast panoramas and the gleaming Adriatic” of west Slovenia.

A 23-year-old New Zealand woman pled guilty to careless driving for dooring a 19-year old bike rider, who was killed when he was knocked into the path of another car; she’ll be sentenced in November.

 

Competitive Cycling

Talk about a good problem to have. Danish cyclist Jonas Vingegaard is reportedly having a very hard time adjusting to life after winning the Tour de France.

American Lawson Craddock gambled on a breakaway on the next-to-last climb during Wednesday’s fifth stage of the Vuelta, but had to settle for fifth when he was reeled in by stage winner Marc Soler.

Slovenia’s Primož Roglič had to peel off his newly won red leader’s jersey, giving it up to Frenchman Rudy Molard after stage five.

Britain’s Fred Wright stands 2nd in the Vuelta GC, while Craddock moved up to 4th; previous leaders Roglič and American Sepp Kuss slipped to 5th and 6th, respectively.

 

Finally…

If you’re carrying crystal meth on your bike and riding erratically, put a damn light on it, already. That feeling when your new bike lanes look like they were striped by a drunk.

And this is one of the best bike ads I’ve seen recently. Maybe we can get them to do an American version.

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

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

69-year old man riding bike killed in Simi Valley right hook crash; 32nd SoCal bicycling death already this year

April 29, 2022 / / Comments Off on 69-year old man riding bike killed in Simi Valley right hook crash; 32nd SoCal bicycling death already this year

There just doesn’t seem to be any end to the carnage on Southern California streets this year.

Ventura radio station KTVA is reporting a man riding a bicycle was killed in a Simi Valley collision Wednesday afternoon.

According to Ventura County Star, 69-year old Simi Valley resident Stephen Wright was riding his “10-speed style” road bike north on Sycamore Drive, south of Los Angeles Ave, when he was right hooked by the driver of commercial flatbed truck around 12:15 pm.

He died at the scene.

The driver stopped following the crash and cooperated with investigators. Police don’t suspect he was under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

There’s a painted bike lane on northbound Sycamore, but nothing to protect riders from vehicles turning onto Los Angeles, or into the parking lots below it.

A police commander notes Wright was wearing a helmet, which clearly didn’t do any good in this case. Nor would it be likely to in a collision like that.

Anyone with information is urged to call Simi Valley Traffic Officer Bryan Sarfaty at 805/583-6189 or email bsarfaty@simivalley.org.

This is at least the 32nd bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the second that I’m aware of in Ventura County.

That puts us on a pace for nearly 100 bicycling deaths this year — almost twice the average from just a few years ago.

My deepest sympathy and prayers for Stephen Wright and all his loved ones. 

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

CHP gets bike law wrong after 13-year old right hooked, Phil Gaimon gets it, and gravel bull buffoonery in Bakersfield

February 25, 2022 / / Comments Off on CHP gets bike law wrong after 13-year old right hooked, Phil Gaimon gets it, and gravel bull buffoonery in Bakersfield

Once again, the CHP gets basic bike law completely wrong.

After a 13-year old Temecula boy was right hooked by a driver while riding his bike on the sidewalk on his way to school, a CHP officer blamed the victim, stressing that he was riding against traffic.

Except there is no right or wrong way on a sidewalk.

As any pedestrian can tell you, sidewalks are bidirectional, with no requirement to walk one way or the other.

The same holds true for riding a bike — assuming sidewalk riding is legal there. The requirement to ride with traffic only applies if you’re riding in the street.

If the CHP can’t manage to teach their officers that, maybe they shouldn’t be investigating bike crashes.

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Phil Gaimon gets it.

His latest video calls for everyone who rides a bike in LA to sign the Healthy Streets LA ballot petition, which would require the city to build out the mobility plan whenever a street on it is repaved.

And it doesn’t hurt that he features a recent story from this site, even if it was bad news.

Although you may have to suffer through an ad or two first.

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Gravel Bikes California offers what they describe as bulls, bees and buffoonery, and the madness that’s the pure joy of gravel.

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Proof that a separated bike lane is no guarantee against being the victim of a hit-and-run.

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Now that’s a close pass.

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

A Florida driver will apparently get away with killing a man riding his bike on the shoulder of a highway, despite veering all the way off the roadway to strike the victim, who police say did nothing wrong. And despite the driver’s long record of traffic violations and license suspensions. Just one more example of authorities keeping a dangerous driver on the road until they kill someone.

A 71-year old Welsh driver was convicted of backing into a group of bicyclists following a punishment pass, while calling them “English bastards.” The joke’s on him though, since one of the riders was Dutch.

Someone is stealing the protective iron barriers from the world’s longest continuous bike lane in Turkey.

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Local

A Metro board motion once again reaffirms that funding for the now cancelled 710 Freeway extension will go for multi-modal and safety enhancement projects, rather than the auto-centric projects the head of Metro’s Highways Program keeps insisting on.

 

State 

A San Diego woman beats the odds by taking to her bike after nearly dying from an infected heart valve, with her husband of 40 years riding by her side.

San Mateo proves that it is possible to build out a bike plan while overcoming objections from residents over a loss of street parking; the city approved a plan to install bike lanes on three streets, as well as building three separate bike boulevards, while removing 170 parking spaces to make room for the project.

Berkeley approves plans to install a bus lane on Telegraph Ave, while building protected bike lanes on three nearby streets.

A Berkeley bike advocate reflects on her brush with death when she was struck by a driver while riding bikes with her son last year.

 

National

Bicycling recommends the best bike tubes for all types of bicyclists, including one that’s pretty in pink. As usual, read it on Yahoo if the magazine blocks you.

A couple in their 60s shares what they learned riding a tandem 3,800 miles across the US. Although the first lesson should be how to get past the Wall Street Journal’s draconian paywall.

VeloNews examines how Black style is transforming cycling culture.

A Portland website tells the tale of the city’s 1890s bike factory, which was originally opened to build an ether-powered bicycle, which was dropped when they couldn’t keep up with demand for pedal-powered bikes.

Clearly, a sidewalk is no protection from a drunk driver, as Tucson AZ bike rider was killed when a reckless DUI driver veered onto the sidewalk he was riding on; in an unusual development, the driver was also hospitalized with life-threatening injuries.

The body of a Colorado man was just recently discovered and identified, after he went missing on a. bike ride last September.

Houston moves forward with plans for a road diet and bike lanes, despite last minute opposition to the project after three years of public meetings.

A New York op-ed says the city must commit public funding to expand the Citi Bike bikeshare system, noting it’s the city’s only transit network that doesn’t receive financial support.

DC considers adopting the full Idaho Stop Law, allowing bike riders to treat stop signs as yields, and red lights like stop signs, while also banning right turns on red.

Bighearted residents of Biloxi, Mississippi pitched in to crowdfund a new bike for a 76-year old man who relies on a bike for transportation, after his was stolen.

Kindhearted Florida cops bought a new bike for a young girl after hers was stolen, and they couldn’t recover it.

Another bike rider was caught dangling from a Florida draw bridge, but fortunately, this one survived.

 

International

No surprise here. A new review of 170 studies from around the world confirms that cities where where walking and bicycling are safe and convenient have a lower rate of diabetes and obesity. Although you’ll have to sacrifice your privacy and sign up to view the story.

Despite adopting a constitutional amendment enshrining the right to safe mobility, Mexico’s car-centric infrastructure continues to put bike riders and pedestrians at risk.

Road.cc offers advice on how to stop the dreaded speed wobbles, which can be scary as hell when they come for you.

A British man was finally able to overcome his fears and get back on his bike, three years after he was injured by a driver in a 2018 terrorist attack.

The war in Ukraine hits home for the bicycling community, as video posted to social media appears to show a bike rider hit by a missile strike. Although there are a lot of fakes circulating now, so take anything you see, read or hear with a big grain of salt.

 

Competitive Cycling

Despite drawing over 300,000 spectators, hosting the Grand Depart of the 2014 Tour de France in Yorkshire, England has shown no lasting financial benefit.

 

Finally…

Your next bike lock could be your bike. That feeling when your cat becomes a star for riding around town with you.

And why you’ll never beat Peter Sagan if you have periods.

No, really.

https://twitter.com/amylaurenjones/status/1496863263858073614?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1496863263858073614%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Froad.cc%2Fcontent%2Fnews%2Fcycling-live-blog-24-february-2022-290577

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

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

Bike rider brake checked and right hooked by Miami cop, and Harvard Law Review says throw out MUTCD and start over

October 22, 2021 / / 2 comments

No irony here.

A job title turned sadly prophetic when a director of high-impact experiences for the McClatchy newspaper chain had his own high-impact experience when he was brake checked and right hooked by a Miami cop.

The victim was riding with a group of bicyclists on the city’s Rickenbacker Causeway when the officer pulled the patrol car out from the shoulder ahead of the group with red lights flashing, then cut right across the bike lane without warning.

Not surprisingly, people taking part in the ride were quick to blame the cop for putting their safety at risk.

While police say the officer was trying to pull over a bike rider ahead of the group, there’s no sign of that as he turned onto the shoulder and drove back up the other way on the grass.

So here’s my take. And feel free to disagree.

The cop was careless in entering the roadway in front of the group of bike riders, and made no effort to ascertain whether it was safe to turn in front of them.

And if he knew he was going to turn off onto the shoulder, he should have driven on the bike lane, safely following any riders ahead of him, to ensure he did not endanger the riders behind him.

But the people on the bikes also bear responsibility, since they should have maintained their distance while a patrol car had its red lights flashing, rather than closing in behind it.

Now the victim is hospitalized with a broken pelvis.

And the police department is looking at a lawsuit.

Photo by Kindel Media from Pexels.

………

Powerful essay from the prestigious Harvard Law Review, suggesting it’s time to throw the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices for Streets and Highways, aka MUTCD, and start over.

While such provisions may sound inconsequential, some of the Manual’s provisions have far-reaching, even deadly, consequences. They prioritize vehicular speed over public safety, mobility over other uses of public space, and driving over other modes of mobility. With these car-centric priorities, the Manual has helped generate a nearly constant and fast-moving stream of vehicle traffic that renders road users like pedestrians, wheelchair users, and cyclists vulnerable. Moreover, by giving preference to driving over other modes of transportation, the Manual has indirectly facilitated a rise in transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions that are the single largest contributor to climate change…

This Essay explains how the Manual biases transportation behavior in dangerous and inequitable ways. It urges the FHWA to use its emergency powers to rescind its most damaging provision — the so-called 85th Percentile Rule, which legalizes dangerously high speeds of traffic — and to undertake a complete rewrite that follows a scientifically sound, evidence-based approach; prioritizes safety, access, equity, climate action, and prosperity; and incorporates feedback from diverse stakeholders.

As you’d expect, it’s not exactly light reading.

But if you care about safety on our streets, it matters.

………

Transportation conference CoMotion LA returns online and in person next month. Although the free online access is a lot cheaper than the nearly one grand in-person pass.

………

More proof that there’s no such thing as a carfree space in Southern California.

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How to instantly turn one parking spot into eight.

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

Guardian Angels founder and New York mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa vows to end the city’s entirely imaginary war on vehicles by removing bike lanes and speed cams. So if there’s a war on cars, why are the only victims on the other side?

Someone appears to be boobytrapping an Alabama mountain bike trail by planting sharpened wooden stakes into the ground that could seriously injure riders, or worse. But local officials insist it ain’t necessarily so.

Riding a bicycle on a Malaysian highway could get you up to a year behind bars.

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Local

Streetsblog offers more details on the series of motions by Councilmembers Mike Bonin and the two Pauls, Koretz and Krekorian, to reduce speed limits, make some Slow Streets permanent, and allow cams on buses to enforce bus lanes, based on recently passed new state laws.

Metro is teaming with People for Mobility Justice for a taco ride through DTLA, touring taco vendors and bike infrastructure in Downtown Los Angeles.

SWAT teams surrounded a Huntington Park home after a hit-and-run driver broke in and barricaded himself inside after running down someone on a bicycle; no word on the condition of the victim.

 

State

A San Diego letter writer complains that bike lanes aren’t enough, and the city needs to consider both the quality of the lanes and the air riders are forced to breathe, while another wonders what’s taking so long.

A new report from the nonprofit Climate Action Campaign says San Diego’s ambitious regional transportation plan still isn’t enough to reduce car traffic and meet the city’s climate goals.

Woodland Hills Magazine recommends a handful of “serene” places to ride your bike in the area.

Ventura is hosting the second of two free bike rides this Saturday, as the city seeks public input on planned improvements for pedestrians, cyclists and transit users.

San Mateo is considering lowering speed limits around schools to 15 mph.

A 31-year old driver was arrested for the hit-and-run death of a 53-year old Fairfield man riding a bicycle after the crash was captured on security cam; he faces DUI and hit-and-run charges, as well as a first degree murder count, as a result of a previous DUI conviction.

 

National

A new report from Trek says you only have to ride your bike 435 miles to offset the C02 emissions generated by making it.

Now you, too, can own a folding ebike made to fit under your desk.

While some people continue to call for mandatory helmet laws for bike riders, Seattle’s Kings County Board of Health is moving towards removing theirs over questions of effectiveness and racial disparities in enforcement.

This is the cost of traffic violence. The Portland father who was killed in a Utah crash just four days into a cross-country bike tour was the founder of a nonprofit program designed to inspire children and teens to learn music.

The mayor pro tem of Dallas and a pair of councilmembers led an annual bike ride to city hall to raise awareness around bicycling, where one rider says biking in the city “feels like a death wish.

Plans for a 25 mile Maine rail trail could be on hold, as the state considers extending the rail line’s lease on the unused right-of-way.

He gets it. A Boston Globe columnist takes “cranky” Providence RI to task over complaints that bike lanes are “destroying the fabric of the city, ruining small businesses, and terrorizing innocent walkers who just want to take selfies on the pedestrian bridge without getting run over by Mayor Jorge Elorza on his Huffy.”

New Yorkers call on the state’s new bike-riding governor to sign a bill that adds bike and pedestrian advocates to ridership councils for New York City Transit, the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North.

No surprise here, as the person seen riding a bicycle in Florida last week was definitely not Brian Laundrie, the fiancé and prime suspect in the death of Gabby Petito. Unless it was a ghost bike in the most literal sense.

 

International

Officials will place the equivalent of $215,000 of artwork along a Welsh bikeway network, after determining they couldn’t spend it for anything else.

Cycling Weekly considers where people in the UK can buy a bike when shortages are predicted to last into 2023.

Life is cheap in Great Britain, where a speeding, sun-blinded driver walked with a suspended sentence and a six-month curfew for killing a woman who was riding a bicycle just steps from her home.

Paris has committed to spending the equivalent of $290 million to make the entire city 100% bikeable.

We may have to deal with dangerous LA drivers, but at least we don’t have to worry about hungry lions, after a Zimbabwean woman disappeared while riding her bicycle, and was later found after apparently becoming a lion’s dinner.

Bike jerseys become wearable art, courtesy of a South African company and a local artist.

Momentum Magazine rides along with Barcelona’s popular school bicycle buses, also known as a bike train.

A Singapore cop was fined $3,000 for falsely reporting his bike had been stolen because he lost the key for the lock, and wanted the police to cut it off for him for free.

 

Competitive Cycling

Former Canadian national time trial champ Rob Britton called it a career after 12 years on the pro tour.

 

Finally…

Who needs wheel hubs, anyway? Turn an empty beer keg into your own DIY bicycle sidecar.

And that feeling when your bicycle is designed to go 200 mph.

No, really.

………

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

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

Irrational bike hate on the roads, Black bike rider confronted by wealthy white SF resident, and right hooked in Los Angeles

June 7, 2021 / / 2 comments

She gets it.

A New Zealand writer perfectly captures the fear and frustration bike riders feel, where we’re blamed and threatened just for being on the road.

Or maybe on the planet.

Discrimination based on stereotypes and assumptions is unacceptable, whether it’s racism, sexism or speciesism. Hatred of bike riders is another -ism, and there’s no justification for it. It’s bullying. It incites drivers to harm or intimidate people on bikes. Whether it’s a shock jock on talk back or The Daily Blog, hating on bike riders is dangerous and can endanger peoples’ lives.

When you ride a bike, it’s like you have a target painted on your back. Every day, when I get on my bike, for fun, fitness and transport, I become a target for people who suddenly irrationally hate me– because maybe they saw someone on a bike who ran a red light once, or something. But I don’t suddenly turn into a bad person on my bike – to the contrary, I’m very happy!- I’m just someone trying to do my bit for the planet, who wants to get home alive…

It’s not rational to hate cyclists even though it seems to be a national sport, whether you’re a driver or not. So give us a break. Car drivers don’t actually own the road. People on bikes aren’t some foreign species undeserving of the right to life. We’re mums and dads, brothers, sisters, uncles and aunties. We’re loved, and we love life. But every time you hate on us, condemn us for riding, you risk us staying alive.

………

What the fuck is wrong with people these days?

Once again, a Black bike rider is confronted by an allegedly racist White man. And once again, the interaction is caught on video.

In this case, the man on the bike is delivering Narcan to a halfway house to help prevent opioid overdoses in San Francisco’s wealthy Pacific Heights neighborhood, when he’s accosted by a man questioning what he’s doing there.

As if bike riders of color don’t belong in the overwhelmingly white community.

And yes, driving and biking while Black or brown is a real thing.

Or walking, for that matter.

And not just in the Bay Area.

………

This is what a right hook looks like.

And how to bail to avoid one.

https://twitter.com/EntitledCycling/status/1401551927062667264

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Great video showing hundreds of Angelenos Riding for Freedom in South LA on Saturday.

https://twitter.com/bRuc14/status/1401382048363794435

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Paris wasn’t Paris that long ago, either.

Just remember that the next time someone says Los Angeles isn’t Amsterdam. Or Copenhagen. Or New York.

Or anywhere else, for that matter.

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Never mind the trashcan in the bike lane.

Thanks to Keith Johnson for the heads-up.

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Yeah, no.

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How to vinyl wrap your bike shoes to add a little bling, without suffering the indignity of bedazzling them.

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Adventures in bad headlines. Something tells me the unfortunate bicyclist was more than just “involved.”

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Here’s your Monday mountain bike break.

Although you may want to take your dramamine first.

Unless maybe you’d rather ride in Utah.

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

No bias here. A surfing writer admits to fantasizing about running down bike riders on PCH, and says ultra-surfer Kai Lenny reveals a sadistic side by embracing the pain that comes with surfing and his newfound love of road cycling. Apparently he’s confusing sadism — inflicting pain and suffering on others — with the self-inflicted suffering of masochism.

A New York state legislator calls for requiring helmets, operator’s licenses and registration plates for every bike and scooter rider in the state, regardless of age — because he nearly killed a bike rider “who came out of nowhere” while he was driving. Even though all of those requirements have been show to be ineffective or counterproductive, at best. And maybe he’d be better off paying more attention to the road, because no one ever comes out of nowhere.

A Kiwi hardware chain has to publicly apologize after an employee used his personal Facebook page to threaten bicyclists — while including a reference to the company he worked for. Oops.

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

Police at the University of California Sacramento, aka Sacramento State, are looking for a bodycam that was stolen from an officer after he or she was rammed with a bike when he told a group of bicyclists to stop doing stunts on a sign they tore down to use as a ramp, then was surrounded and attacked by a group of 10 to 12 riders before backup arrived; two people were arrested.

Once again, Minneapolis police are accused of using their bicycles as weapons against protesters. Thanks to Megan Lynch for the link.

This is the cost of traffic violence. Gone Girl, Six Feet Under and Nashville actor Lisa Banes is in critical condition after an apparent hit-and-run collision involving someone on a motorized bicycle or scooter in New York City’s Upper West Side.

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Local

Nice to see LA Times columnist Nita Lelyveld profile Kenny Uong, everyone’s favorite Metro transit meister, who many of us have watched come of age on Twitter.

Learn how to fix your rear derailleur with Metro this Wednesday. Thanks again to Keith Johnson.

 

State

San Diego proposes eliminating parking requirements for businesses near mass transit or in small plazas near dense residential areas, allowing them to immediately transform parking into outdoor dining areas or extra retail space.

Team USA BMX Cycling champ Brooke Crain was censored by administrators when she was invited to talk to students at her Visalia alma mater, who refused to let her share her coming out story while calling for suicide awareness and prevention, following the death of her own father at his own hand.

 

National

Bloomberg says bike prices are up, if you can find one — and you might have to wait until the new models come out later this year.

A bighearted 29-year old Illinois man set out to ride 4,400 miles across the US to raise $4,400 for the Trevor Project to help prevent suicide among LGBTQ youth. Then he just kept going, riding 17,000 miles through the US and Central and South America, raising over $11,000 in the process. Make that nearly $13,000.

A Spokane, Washington paper celebrates the state’s 700-mile Cross-Washington Mountain Bike Route. There’s no reason why California shouldn’t have a similar cross-state trail. And probably more than one.

A travel website makes the case for Tucson — yes, Tucson — as a bicycling paradise.

Nice move in Mad City, where advocates are helping to build a library of adaptive bikes for differently abled people.

Oneida NY’s Community Bike program donated over 200 refurbished bikes to children and adults who need an affordable means of transportation.

The director of a Pittsburgh advocacy group celebrates the progress they’ve made on the city streets and the likely election of the city’s first Black mayor, while noting they still have a long way to go.

Philadelphia’s edition of the World Naked Bike Ride will return this August, with riders expected to wear as much or little as they’re comfortable with. Just make sure you get the date right, otherwise it’s frowned upon. Thanks once more to Keith Johnson.

 

International

A new study shows more than half of all women who ride bikes suffer some genital numbness and mild sexual dysfunction, especially on bikes with drop handlebars.

A pair of Canadian First Nation members are riding 215 kilometers for the 215 children whose bodies were found buried at a Catholic Indian school; the 135-mile ride has raised $1,110 of a modest $2,150 goal.

Londoners walked and rode bikes on a trail named for a former bike-riding mayor to commemorate her death at 92 years old; Jane Bigelow was mayor of London from 1972 to 1978.

An English writer schools himself when he discovers, despite his own biases, that the overwhelming number of bike riders use bike lanes, rather than taking to the sidewalk as he suspected. But he never bothers to find out if there’s a reason why some people ride on the sidewalk, instead.

Bike commuting rates in Britain have more than doubled over the past year, from six percent to 13 percent, making it the nation’s third most popular form of transportation behind driving and walking.

Something doesn’t add up, though, as Scottish drivers call for scrapping popup bike lanes in light of the country’s 30% drop in bicycling rates over the past year — despite the pandemic bike boom, and the overall jump in bicycling in the UK.

Toyota gets ridiculed for a British ad showing a man on a cheap ass mountain bike next to a $38,000 SUV, while calling it their “ideal adventure.”

Seventy-seven years after the D-Day landing, a Canadian museum in Normandy, France received a folding bicycle carried ashore by a Canadian soldier landing on Juno beach; when his unit shipped out to Germany, he gave the bike to a French farm boy, who rode it for school and work for another 40 years.

A Catholic website looks at people making a two-wheeled pilgrimage to worship at Italy’s shrine to the Madonna del Ghisallo, the patron saint of bicycling.

Police in Berlin shut down streets in half the city to make room for over 10,000 people on bicycles, who rode to the Brandenburg Gate to demand faster implementation of a plan to build a citywide network of protected bike lanes and safer intersections, as well as reducing the number of deadly crashes. If Los Angeles could ever turn out even half that many bicyclists we might finally see some real action here, too.

A severe storm nearly turned fatal for a 12-year old year old German girl when she was hit by a driver after a nearby lightening strike knocked her off her bike.

This is who we share the road with. After the pandemic shut down the world of dance, a Kolkata, India dancer and choreographer took a job as a food delivery rider to make ends meet — and got hit and threatened by an allegedly drunk motorcycle cop after just two days.  Although he may have been on a motor scooter, since the Indian media doesn’t usually distinguish between bicycles and motor cycles.

The head of India’s opposition Congress party promises to take care of the family of the famed Bike Girl, who pedaled across the country carrying her sick father on the back of her bicycle at the beginning of the country’s lockdown, so she can continue her studies and her passion for bicycling after her father’s death from Covid. Which is great, but what about the countless other less famous Indian families that have been left destitute by the virus?

 

Competitive Cycling

American Ian Boswell took a stand for transgender rights while winning the Unbound Gravel race in Kansas, formerly the Dirty Kanza, raising his arms in victory while wearing an armband in the colors of the trans flag.

Now that’s dedication. American cyclist Kiel Reijnen ran 18 miles in his socks after busting a wheel during Sunday’s Unbound Gravel race; he finally threw in the towel two hours later after realizing he wouldn’t make the cutoff.

Five people were seriously injured in a crash during an Australian bike race, ranging from broken ribs and collarbones to major facial injuries that required a medivac flight to the ER.

 

Finally…

Your bike helmet could have 5G before your phone does. Apparently, riding a half-century is good for your golf game, too.

And that feeling when the new song from world beating boy band BTS seems to be about a bicycle.

Although it may help if you understand Korean. Which I don’t.

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And wear a mask. 

And get vaccinated, already.

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

Morning Links: Westbound PCH closures for fire repairs, CiclaValley gets right hooked, and more ‘Tis the season

December 5, 2018 / / Comments Off on Morning Links: Westbound PCH closures for fire repairs, CiclaValley gets right hooked, and more ‘Tis the season

It’s the 13th day of the 4th Annual BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive.

Your support keeps SoCal’s best source for bike news and advocacy coming your way every day.

And allows me to devote whatever I have left on this planet trying to make it a better place for people on two wheels. 

Anything you can give helps, and is truly and deeply appreciated!

………

Don’t plan on riding PCH anytime soon.

Caltrans will be closing sections of the right lane and shoulder on a 20-mile stretch of the westbound PCH in Malibu between Coastline Drive and Decker Canyon Road to repair damage caused by the Woolsey Fire.

The work will take place between 8:30 am and 3:30 pm, Monday through Saturday; no word on when they expect to be finished.

The state will also close one lane in each direction on PCH between Puerco Canyon and Corral Canyon roads to work on a median project.

………

CiclaValley has a notable ride to work for the second day in a row — and not in a good way — after yesterday’s high-speed buzz by a motorcyclist.

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A second Dutch bike rider barely avoided getting run down by a train after riding around crossing barriers, just days after video surfaced of a similar incident.

………

‘Tis the season.

One hundred kids from a Gardena youth and family services program got new bicycles courtesy of Chargers running back Melvin Gordon and Rally Health.

London’s Telegraph offers a holiday gift guide for roadies.

An English news site is attempting to raise the equivalent of nearly $160,000 for the country’s MS Society this holiday season; woman with MS who bought an ebike with a grant from the group calls it a game changer.

And in less happy news, a Cape Town, South Africa bike shop was vandalized and looted in the wake of a festival kicking off the holiday season; authorities were able to get four of the stolen bikes back.

………

Local

An environmental justice advocate is recruiting bicyclists to monitor air quality in Southeast and East LA.

Pasadena public radio station KPCC examines why California’s three foot passing law is so seldom enforced in the LA area, and how that contributes to the city’s well-earned status as America’s worst bike city; you can find the same report on LAist if you’d rather read than listen. Both versions have the extreme good taste to quote yours truly.

 

State

San Diego will spend $2.3 million to connect two existing bike paths in Carmel Valley, closing a missing link in the regional bike network.

A Palo Alto bike rider was the victim of a hit-and-run when he was run down from behind by the driver of a Porsche SUV, while riding in a green bike lane.

San Francisco voted to become the first major city in the US to eliminate minimum parking restrictions.

The City by the Bay will add parking protection to an existing bike lane to keep parents out of it when they drop off and pick up their kids from a nearby school.

On the other side of the Bay, Oakland approved plans for a purple and green parking protected bike lane.

 

National

Streetsblog offers suggestions of what a Green New Deal could look like.

The former head of the Chicago and DC departments of transportation says the solution to quickly and easily accommodating e-scooters and other forms of micromobility is restriping streets to create narrow “slow lanes.”

An 1896 Portland map shows the city’s bike culture goes back at least 122 years.

Oregon police use a bait bike to bust four bike thieves. That’s something that the LAPD still doesn’t use, despite the city’s soaring bike theft problem, due to the City Attorney’s office fears of entrapment.

A Washington man rode 4,233 miles through 13 Mid-American states in the shape of a heart to unite Americans in love and political balance. Although it doesn’t seem to have worked just yet.

The LA Times recommends a seven-day bike tour through the Arizona desert, beginning and ending in Tucson, for the low, low price of just $2,995. Or you could just, you know, go to Tucson, get on your bike, and start riding.

Now that’s more like it. A DC-area county has approved a new bike plan calling for an additional 750 miles of paths, trails and separated bike lanes, to go with 250 miles already on the ground; as usual, they just need the money to pay for it.

Florida bicyclists want to know why the distracted driver who killed two bike riders wasn’t charged; police say the sun was in her eyes, yet somehow it didn’t blind the group of riders she slammed into.

 

International

National Geographic offers their take on the world’s best bike cities. San Francisco made the list; oddly, Tucson got the only honorable mention, despite ranking just 24th in the US according to Bicycling. Needless to say, Los Angeles didn’t.

An Irish writer politely notes that some bicyclists are “bending the rules,” perhaps because the explosive growth in bicycling is outpacing bike infrastructure. Or it could be that some people are just jerks, whether on two wheels or four.

Dutch bike writer David Hembrow says overuse of motorized transport is destroying everything.

He gets it. The mayor of Tehran has joined the country’s Car-Free Tuesdays movement to help reduce the effects of air pollution, riding his bike to work this week, while taking a subway last week.

Apropos of today’s weather in Los Angeles, Bicycle Times offers tips from an Aussie rider on how to stay safe while biking in the rain.

 

Competitive Cycling

The Daily Breeze posted, then removed, a story reporting next year’s Amgen Tour of California would end with a stage from Santa Clarita to Pasadena. So maybe you now have advanced word if they took it down because they jumped a news embargo. Or not.

VeloNews explains why elite women’s ‘cross is must-see TV.

Phil Liggett say the death of close friend and broadcast partner Paul Sherwen is hard to believe, and hints that it may cause him to rethink his role as the voice of professional cycling.

American pro cyclist Ian Boswell explains what happens when a bike racer turns race promoter.

 

Finally…

The bicycling model of financial management. Evidently, wearing a mask on your bike in the cold can get you arrested for frightening children.

And London’s bike shop to rock royalty.

Somehow, it’s hard to imagine Keith Richards riding a bicycle. Fortunately, you don’t have to. 

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

Morning Links: Tour de Tucson this weekend, yours truly gets right hooked, and bike theft by drone

November 13, 2018 / / 2 comments

It’s a light news day, so let’s get right to it. 

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Frequent contributor David Drexler sends a brief note asking for a mention of this weekend’s Tour de Tucson.

One of the best road bike rides/races in the USA that everyone can participate in, Tour de Tucson, is this Saturday.

Last minute registration is allowed on site on Friday I did that last year, can’t go this year.

I have raced it 4 times over the years.

100 miles, everyone get a timing chip and you can race/ride in your age class so it’s possible to come in 1st, 2nd or 3rd.

Tucson really turns out for it, broadcasting it, shutting down all roads, driveways, tons of police, raised over a million for charity.

At the front start are pros some from Olympics, Amgen, and the WorldTour.

Your name is published with finishing time.

Today is the last day for online registration for the Tour de Tucson. You can learn more about the race — a lot more — here.

Photo by Markus Spiske via Pexels.com.

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Ride long enough, and you develop a sixth sense for when you’re about to get right hooked, long before a belated turn signal.

………

Local

CiclaValley looks at the before and after images of the tragic Woolsey fire, comparing the aftermath to the scenes from some of his previous rides.

What could be more LA than watching a bike rider get hit by a car in the background as TMZ interviews comedian Mike Ross as he steps out of a WeHo bar?

 

State

An Op-Ed in the Orange County Register says lawsuits against scooter makers threaten innovation.

The San Diego Bicycle Coalition invites you to join them for the opening of a new bike art exhibition this Thursday, as I Love To Ride My Bicycle opens at San Diego’s SDSU Downtown Gallery.

They’re onto us, comrades. A Palo Alto writer says a plan to add bus lanes and protected bike lanes on a major street is just a scheme to increase congestion.

 

National

Bicycling takes a photographic look at the “long and glorious” history of cycling.

A Seattle website says it’s time to take #MeToo to the streets because planners need to listen to women who walk and bike.

Houston residents argue that public safety isn’t a public health issue, even though public health experts disagree.

 

International

A local magazine offers ten reasons why an Ontario town is a car-first community.

A new report says ebikes could replace up to 813,000 trips in London every day, reducing CO2 emissions by 184 metric tons.

A British county is raising funds to buy five children’s ebikes in an effort to fight childhood obesity.

A Scottish bike advocacy group calls for dropping speeds on rural roads to 40 mph to improve safety for people on bicycles.

Life is cheap in Ireland, where a careless bus driver loses his license — and probably his job — for four years for killing a woman as she rode her bike, but won’t spend a day behind bars.

Another one to add to your bike bucket list, as a bicyclist photographs her way through Crete.

Founders of Moscow’s massively popular bike parades say the city’s Department of Transport is muscling in on them with a goal of taking them over and shutting them down; the three-times a year rides attract as many as 30,000 people each time.

An Aussie website recommends using an ebike to pull yourself out of a rut.

Kyoto, Japan is addressing climate change by setting itself on a path to become the Copenhagen of Asia.

 

Competitive Cycling

Transgender world masters track champ Rachel McKinnon is still facing a backlash — including death threats — a month after winning the title. I’ll leave it up to others to determine if being born male gives her an advantage or not — but she followed the rules, and beat cyclists who had previously beaten her. And no one deserves that crap, especially over a damn bike race.

 

Finally…

When your ride is interrupted by wild Alaskan cows. If you’re going to get drunk and trash a bar, try not to crash into a police car as you pedal away.

And now we have to worry about airborne bike thieves.

Or not.

Because that doesn’t look staged at all.

No, really.

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , ,

Morning Links: Woman injured by cyclist in Elysian Valley, and sidewalk cyclist injured in WeHo right hook

October 12, 2016 / / Comments Off on Morning Links: Woman injured by cyclist in Elysian Valley, and sidewalk cyclist injured in WeHo right hook

My apologies for the continued lack of email notifications for subscribers. We’re still working on it.

………

This is why you always have to ride carefully around pedestrians.

According to the Elysian Valley Neighborhood Watch, a woman was critically injured in a collision with a cyclist this past weekend.

This past Saturday, a senior citizen, a mother, grandmother, active member of the Jardin del Rio Community Garden and a beautiful EV neighbor sustained life threatening injuries while on her morning exercise walk on the Elysian Valley Pedestrian/Bike path. She is said to have been struck from behind by a speeding cyclist at or around 8:00 AM, near the Riverdale Ave. street access to the path. Minutes ago, I visited her at the USC Medical Center with her son, where she is in ICU (intensive care unit) with head injuries that have her intubated and with a “no bone flap on right side” of her skull.

The Elysian Valley Neighborhood watch has called for safety on the path and necessary City correction from the inception of the bike path, a flawed design that neglected area historical pedestrian use and that today has a beloved neighbor battling for her life. The decision by City officials to favor the cycling community and to respond to area calls for safety improvements with bandaid approaches makes the city complicit in this injuries and grossly negligent.

Unfortunately, there’s no word on whether the rider stopped following the collision, or just fast he or she was actually traveling.

It’s always possible the victim may have stepped into the path of the rider without looking, something familiar to many of us who have used shared pathways.

But regardless, it’s up to all of us to ride in a safe and careful manner around pedestrians, to slow down and give them as much passing room as we’d expect from a motor vehicle. And give some kind of audible warning before passing to avoid tragedies like this, whether it’s “passing on your left” or a cheerful “good morning.”

Because this is what can happen if we don’t.

However, the writer goes on to call for immediately closing the bike path to cyclists until improvements are made — even though no one would ever demand all cars be banned from a street if a driver hit someone.

Let’s hope this woman pulls through, and makes a full and fast recovery.

And that the local community will work with bicyclists to find solutions that will benefit everyone.

Thanks to Patrick Pascal and Colin Bogart for the heads-up.

………

A woman was injured in an apparent right hook collision with a big rig truck while riding her bike in a West Hollywood crosswalk yesterday morning; unfortunately, there’s no word on her condition.

This should be a reminder to always use extreme caution when entering an intersection if you’re riding on the sidewalk. Or better yet, ride in the street; statistics show you’re actually safer on the roadway where you’re more visible to everyone.

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You’d think for $12,000, the wheels would stay on.

Specialized is recalling 1,000 of their high-end Venge bicycles because the rear wheel can come out of the dropouts, fracturing the rear triangle and causing the rider to lose control and fall.

Which is a bad thing.

Thanks to Mike Wilkinson for the tip.

………

Stunt rider Danny MacAskill is out with his latest video; Red Bull discusses the making of a Wee Day Out.

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Local

A new “cycling lifestyle” shop is scheduled to open in Echo Park this Saturday; Banker Supply Co. is the second outlet of a Pittsburgh store designed to appeal to a wide range of non-spandex clad riders, including women.

The leader of rising band Warpaint goes for a bikeshare ride through DTLA.

DTLA’s Metro Bike Share will expand to Pasadena next summer with at least 400 bikes in 34 stations; however, most of those stations will be south of the 210 Freeway, potentially underserving the poorer communities to the north.

The Daily Breeze reports on Palos Verdes Estates’ decision to overrule the PVE Traffic Safety Committee and not place “Bikes May Use Full Lane” signs on the city’s streets, saying it would cause confusion since they aren’t posted in other cities on the peninsula. Even though those signs only clarify to drivers what bicyclists are already allowed to do under state law.

A Long Beach student paper says it pays to bike to work, as an Aussie study shows bike commuters saved an average of nearly $7.70 per day compared to motorists.

 

State

San Francisco cyclists get nifty new wayfinding signs.

Construction has been completed on the fully separated bike path on the east span of San Francisco’s Bay Bridge, although it won’t open for another few weeks. And even though it only goes halfway across the bay.

Santa Rosa nears the opening of a new pump track bike park, thanks to the unrelenting efforts of a local cyclist.

 

National

Keep your cool out there. A new study from the American Heart Association says exercising while angry triples your risk of a heart attack.

Colorado authorities file hate crime charges against a pair of men caught on video attacking another man, allegedly because he was gay, as he tried to ride away on his bicycle.

Texas police and fire departments surprise a Wataburger employee with a new bicycle after hers was stolen from behind the shop on Monday.

A Chicago fire lieutenant is the latest rider to lose his life in the Windy City; the city has already exceeded its average yearly total for bicycling fatalities.

The Minneapolis Bike Coalition questions whether bicyclists are being stopped for biking while black, after stats show nearly half of the tickets written to cyclists went to black riders in the overwhelming white city.

Once again, a Michigan driver has killed multiple cyclists, as a 76-year old man drifted across the fog line and rear-ended two women riding on the shoulder; that comes just four months after five riders were killed in the drug fueled Kalamazoo massacre.

 

International

Unbelievable. Police blame a Canadian cyclist after he’s hit by a city road patching truck, even though he was walking his bike in a crosswalk after suffering a double flat.

Caught on video: A London cyclist directs a driver out of a protected bike lane.

An Irish writer says she nearly killed three cyclists in just the last week because they were dressed in black and riding dark bikes, insisting it’s a disgrace that helmets and reflective vests aren’t mandatory. She’s got a point about riding with lights, although if she’s had that many close calls in a single week, the problem may not be with the people on the bicycles.

The head of Ireland’s no-frills Ryanair goes off on cyclists once again, ranting that Dublin’s city council had destroyed the city center through “nonsensical pandering to bloody cyclists;” it was only five months ago he said cyclists should be shot.

Britain’s Duchess of Cambridge visits an American-style bike co-op in the Netherlands, helping kids work on a bike wheel despite her haute couture outfit.

As bicycling booms in cities around the world, bikes are being crowded off the streets of Vietnam, where bike riders are seen as poor or low class.

 

Finally…

Evidently, doping is one thing, motor doping another — especially if it hadn’t been invented yet. It looks like sabotaging bikeways is nothing new.

And when the water’s over your wheels, maybe you should find an alternate route.

I’m just saying.

………

Thanks to Samuel Kuruts for his generous donation to support this site. If everyone who visits this site today donated just $10, it would fund BikinginLA for a full year.

 

Category: Bicycle Safety, Injuries and Fatalities, Morning Links / Tags: , , , ,

Last night’s ride, in which I flip off an impatient driver

October 31, 2013 / / 27 comments

In retrospect, I should have been further out into the lane.

Instead, I tried to be polite and let cars move up next to me, not anticipating that one incredibly impatient driver would deliberately right hook me.

She couldn’t wait two seconds — literally — for the light to change. And it was worth it to her to risk the life of a total stranger because I didn’t get the hell out of her way.

I don’t recommend flipping off anyone.

But this one earned it.

If I’d gone when the light turned green, I’d be in the hospital right now.

Or worse.

Category: Bicycle Safety, Bike Cam Video, Car vs Bike, Road Rage, Roadway Courtesy / Tags: , , , , ,
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