
Day 111 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025.
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Tragic news from Canoga Park, where a man was fatally stabbed while riding a bike Thursday night.
According to KNBC-4, the victim, publicly identified only as a man in his 30s, was riding near on International Ave near Canoga Ave when he was stabbed by an unknown assailant around 9:30 pm, while riding with a backpack and carrying food.
He collapsed against a car, where he died, despite the efforts of local residents and paramedics.
There was no known motive for the attack, and it’s not clear at this time whether the victim was targeted because he was riding a bicycle, or for some other reason.
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It’s happened again.
A 43-year old Utah man faces a raft of charges for — allegedly — intentionally crashing his truck into a man riding a bicycle in Heber City before driving away.
Security cam video shows Loren Russell failing to stop for the victim, who was riding his bike on the sidewalk. The bike rider responded by slapping Russell’s truck before riding away.
Russell responded by accelerating and turning his truck into the the victim’s bike, leaving the victim with a broken ankle.
After the police found his truck, Russell tried to claim the bike rider hit his truck, which made him feel so threatened that he sped away, unaware he hit anyone.
Fortunately, the cops didn’t buy it, busting Russell on charges including felony aggravated assault resulting in serious bodily injury, failing to remain at the scene of an accident, and failure to yield the right of way.
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The California E-bike Incentive Project offers more details on how to apply for a voucher for the next highly limited round of incentives, as they continue to deliberately throttle overwhelming demand.
Or rather, how to apply for the lottery which will determine whether you even get to apply for one of the roughly 1,000 vouchers.
That’s because they are only releasing $2 million for this 2nd round of incentives, despite sitting on around $29 million in remaining funding, which could fund nearly 15,000 ebike vouchers.
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The San Diego Association of Governments, aka SANDAG, announced the location of planned pit stops for the city’s annual Bike Anywhere Day on Thursday, May 15.
Meanwhile, Los Angeles will mark Bike Week from May 12-18, with Bike Day also on May 15th, as part of their observation of Bike Month throughout May, but there’s no word yet on how they plan to observe it.
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Somehow we missed this one back in December, as someone who prefers to be anonymous forwarded this listing of the ten weirdest bicycles you never knew existed.
And for the most part, they’re right.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
Austin, Texas will spend $80,000 to rip out bike lanes that were installed just six month ago, choosing the convenience and complaints of motorists over the safety of the little kids who used it to bike to school.
No bias here. Streetsblog discovers that New York cops write 15% of red light tickets to people on bicycles, despite bicyclists making up just two percent of street traffic, observing “the NYPD is intent on writing red-light tickets to the lightest, slowest-moving vehicles instead of doubling-down on enforcement against 3,000-pound-plus killing machines.”
Someone is sabotaging Florida bikeways, tossing tire spikes on the bike path that have punctured two tires so far, while posing the risk of far more serious injuries. Which is probably the point.
It’s happened again, again. A road-raging British driver jumped out of his van and punched a man riding a bicycle in the face, for the crime of riding his bicycle in the roadway rather than using a nearby bike path, shocking the victim who struggled to comprehend the bizarre degree of the driver’s hatred for bicyclists.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
Police in Los Angeles are looking for a chainsaw-wielding bike rider who chopped down at least five trees at different locations throughout DTLA for reasons known only to him; no word on whether he got off his bike to chopped them down, or felled the trees as he rode by.
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Local
You could have been the owner of the iconic bicycle from Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure for the low, low price of around $146 grand.
A Claremont writer and ebike rider considers whether ebikes should be allowed in the city’s Wilderness Park.
State
A Santa Barbara website maps out the city’s five most dangerous intersections for bicyclists.
Sad news from Tulare County, where a 58-year old man was killed by a driver while riding a bicycle; the driver stuck around after the crash and cooperated with investigators.
More sad news, this time from Oakland, where a 44-year old man riding a bicycle was killed by a hit-and-run driver; no description was given for the driver or the suspect vehicle.
National
About damn time. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, aka NHTSA, has issued new regulations requiring states to include “strategic core performance measures” to reduce the “number of bicyclist and other cyclist fatalities” in their three-year highway safety plans.
A Christian website considers the burning question of whether Amish people can ride bicycles.
He gets it. A Colorado bike lawyer says it’s time the state got serious about traffic violence. Something that could have been written about any of the 49 other states, too.
A survivalist describes four ways a 39-year old college professor could have disappeared without a trace while mountain biking in Wyoming last July. He went missing in areas I used to know like the back of my hand growing up nearby in Colorado.
A pair of Kalamazoo, Michigan state legislators have reintroduced a bill to increase the penalty for injuring vulnerable road users.
Hats off to the kindhearted folks at one Brooklyn bike shop, who have repaired and given away around $42,000 worth of refurbished bicycles and parts to migrants and low-income people.
A New York man was killed when he reportedly rode his bike into the side of a fire truck on an emergency call and fell under its wheels, despite the truck’s lights and sirens — although it sounds like the driver of the firetruck may have turned across the victim’s path.
Apparently desperate for clicks, the New York Post reposted a viral video of a stuntman riding with a refrigerator balanced on his head, claiming the video surfaced this week despite originally running it nearly two years ago.
Sad news from Savannah, Georgia, where a local man affectionately known as the “Flag Man” for the large American flag he carried on his bicycle was killed by a hit-and-run driver; police have images of the driver’s truck, but apparently haven’t identified a suspect yet.
Three men are behind bars in Miami, Florida because they stole a bike from the wrong woman, who fought to get it back.
A Florida cop had to be hospitalized after she was assaulted and dragged by a handcuffed bike theft suspect.
International
Getty Images offers a slideshow capturing bicycling culture around the world.
Road.cc looks at which brands give you the best bikes for your money.
That’s more like it. City leaders in Bedfordshire, England are demanding more, not fewer, bike lanes, insisting that the city’s bicycle network should connect the town center with new housing developments.
Someone apparently forgot to tell a Lycra-clad roadie from the UK that riding his ebike isn’t cheating.
The boss of iconic British bike brand Brompton suggests the wheels are coming off Trump’s trade war, saying his aggressive attempt to boost production in the US is “naive.”
An Italian writer says she’s frightened by the sun-drenched Amalfi Coast’s terrifying traffic, but escaped it all by traveling by bicycle.
Thousands of people throughout India turned out on Sunday to ride their bikes as part of the nationwide FIT India Sundays on Cycle movement; Bollywood actor Rahul Bose joined over 600 other people working out and biking in New Delhi.
A Vietnamese man treasures his more than one-hundred-year old brass bicycle, which he still rides into the city to see friends; nearly every part is carved from brass, other than the saddle, tires and a headlamp powered by carbide gas.
Competitive Cycling
Twenty-four-year old former European champ Mischa Bredewold made the biggest move of her career, as the Dutch cyclist dropped the other four riders in breakaway with a little under five miles to go to win the women’s Amstel Gold.
Another 24-year old won the men’s Amstel, as Danish rider Mattias Skjelmose won a sprint to the finish, beating Tadej Pogačar by less than half a wheel’s length.
The great Marianne Vos will be tied to the Visma-Lease a Bike WorldTour team for the rest of her career, or maybe the rest of her life, after signing the team’s second lifetime contract following a similar deal with Wout van Aert.
Evidently, the nut doesn’t fall far from the cycling tree, as 16-year old Enzo Hincapie — yes, the son of George — picked up his bike and ran to the finish line when his bicycle broke just over a mile from the finish of the Paris-Roubaix Juniors, his first race as a member of the US team.
Cycling News makes the case for why Eddy Merckx, aka The Cannibal, was the greatest cyclist of all time.
Cycling Weekly examines whether it’s possible to make a living as a part-time professional American domestic road racer.
Sad news from the UK, where British cycling legend Barry Hoban has died at 85 years old; Hoban won eight stages in the Tour De France and once topped The Cannibal at Gent-Wevelgem during his 19 years as a pro cyclist.
Finally…
Tune in, turn on and ride your bike. Now you, too, can have your very own heads-up display, and pretend your bike is an F/A-18 Super Hornet from Top Gun Maverick.
And your next ebike could look like something designed by Elon Musk.
Which ain’t necessarily a good thing.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin.