We can’t be too sad for someone who leaves this world after an exceptionally long, eventful — and record setting — life.
That’s the case with the news that French cyclist Robert Marchand left us at the remarkable age of 109.
The former truck driver, lumberjack and firefighter didn’t take up bicycling until he was 68, never realizing that he would ride for another 40 years. And set a number of age group records along the way.
This comes from his obituary in the Washington Post.
(Marchand) cycled from Paris to Moscow in 1992 and set the 100-kilometer (62.14-mile) record for cyclists past the age of 100.
In January 2017, he set a world record in the 105-plus age category — created especially for him — by riding 22.54 kilometers (14 miles) in one hour on the boards of the Vélodrome National near Paris.
I’m now waiting for a rival,” he said at the time.
Three years earlier, Mr. Marchand had covered 26.92 kilometers (16.73 miles) in one hour to better his own world record in the over-100s category.
After a life like that, we should mourn, not for him, but for those of us who are left behind, and will miss Marchand dearly.
And wish him a safe and speedy ride home.
Photo by Valeriia Miller from Pexels.
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The full Metro Board will vote Thursday on whether to approve running the planned North Hollywood to Pasadena Bus Rapid Transit line along Colorado Blvd through Eagle Rock, which forms the basis of the resident-driven Beautiful Boulevard plan.
Comments for the 10 am meeting can only be submitted over the phone.
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Evidently, it was Drive on the Bike Path Day over the weekend.
Todd Seelie sends a Nextdoor screenshot showing a driver stuck trying to access the LA River bike path.
And here’s one from UC Davis, courtesy of frequent contributor Megan Lynch.
https://twitter.com/may_gun/status/1396550638876565504
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Lynch also forwards this video of Oakland bike riders enjoying a beautiful day.
Right now at Lake Merritt there thousands of bicyclists cruising Lakeshore. pic.twitter.com/o48eE20smc
— Darwin BondGraham (@DarwinBondGraha) May 23, 2021
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Everyone knows bikes and brews naturally go together. Especially now, when tipping one back can help support the LACBC.
Each month @highlandparkbrewery donates the proceeds of a special food item to help support nonprofit organizations, and for the month of May, we are grateful to be featured! Highland Park Brewery focuses on good people, adventure, and fun with a strong community of cyclists! pic.twitter.com/VNrwaI77bX
— BikeLA (@heybikela) May 22, 2021
And it doesn’t hurt that Highland Park Brewery made this short list of the city’s best microbreweries.
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It was a bike giveaway weekend.
The YMCA in Longmont, Colorado gave around 200 bikes to kids in need.
Eighty-eight Michigan kids with special needs got custom adaptive bicycles, after waiting two years for the giveaway when Covid-19 cancelled last year’s event.
Nearly 500 children and adults received donated bikes courtesy of a Toledo, Ohio rescue mission.
And Metro will start working with community-based organizations to give some of the 400 to 500 bicycles abandoned on LA buses and trains every month to needy residents or the homeless.
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Sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
There’s not a pit in hell deep enough for the ebike-riding man who yelled antisemitic slurs outside a Florida synagog, then returned to leave a bag of human shit in front of the entrance.
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Local
CD5 Councilmember Paul Koretz and LADOT presented plans to close the infamous Northvale Gap in the Expo Line bike path, with construction scheduled to be completed by 2025 — 13 years after the Expo Line opened. More evidence that Koretz supports bikes — as long as they don’t inconvenience drivers in any way.
A photo essay from the LA Times looks at the rebirth of the 6th Street Bridge, which will include bike ramps to help riders reach the elevated span.
The Pasadena Complete Streets Coalition makes the case for why Pasadena is the perfect fit for bikes — and what it will take to get there.
State
San Diego driver Jamison Connor faces at least 30 years behind bars after being convicted on seven counts for the 2019 hit-and-run death of Kevin Lentz.
San Diego letter writers call on the city to rethink how people get around, and for drivers to give bike riders and pedestrians some space.
Bakersfield equestrians call on the city to ban ebikes from the city’s dirt trails.
Sad news from Sebastopol, where a 52-year old man died nearly two weeks after he and a 12-year old boy were severely injured by an alleged drunk driver while riding their bikes; no word on the child’s condition.
El Dorado County says if you want to open a Dollar General store, you’ve got to build a bike path, too.
National
Travel website TripSavvy lists America’s 15 best destinations to explore by bicycle; West Coast cities Seattle, Portland and San Francisco made the cut. And needless to say, Los Angeles didn’t.
Over 25,000 people commented on the proposed update to the MUTCD — the bible of traffic engineering. Four hundred of those came from NACTO, including calls to end the deadly 85th percentile law, and make ending traffic deaths a guiding principle of the document.
Bike Snob’s Eben Wiese says electronic shifting works perfectly, but he’d rather go old school and do it himself, anyway.
No, an eight-year old kid probably wasn’t killed riding his bike into the side of a turning truck in Las Vegas; it’s far more likely the driver turned into his path.
Dozens of Denver bike riders held a die-in to protest the city’s unsafe streets after three people on bicycles were killed in the past week.
More proof that you can’t please everyone, as a hundred or so New Yorkers marched down the city’s most successful Open Street, demanding the right to drive on the same street they were able to march on because no one’s allowed to drive on it.
Bike Life is taking off in New York, where young bike riders are swarming drivers and commandeering roadways in a celebration of life on two wheels.
You know a street is too damn dangerous when a woman is killed trying to cross it, just two blocks from where her husband was killed trying to cross the same street four years earlier.
International
A new study from Ford shows listening to music on headphones slows reaction time by an average of four seconds for both drivers and bike riders.
A British Columbia letter writer says bike lanes are for the 99% of people who aren’t “avid” cyclists.
The former leader of Britain’s Labour Party is one of us, despite not learning to ride a bike until he was 50. And he calls for a much-needed two wheeled revolution in the country’s transportation system.
The Irish Times says riding an ebike can speed your commute and reduce sweat while still giving you a workout, and Tech Radar calls them a good value and a great investment.
Life is cheap in Spain, where a 32-year old woman is expected to spend less than four years behind bars after pleading guilty to the drunk driving deaths of three triathletes on a training ride, and critically injuring two others; with time served, she’ll likely be released in just six months — despite a failed drug test and a BAC nearly four times the legal limit.
A New Zealand court denies a driver’s effort to get out of her sentence for the meth and weed-fueled crash that killed a man riding a bike, despite already having her sentence cut from nearly two years behind bars to a cushy 10 months of home detention. And despite the fact that another man is in prison the drunken crash that killed her own son.
Competitive Cycling
Belgian cyclist Victor Campenaerts took his first Grand Tour stage win in Sunday’s 15th stage of the Giro, while Egan Bernal continued to look pretty in pink.
Cycling Weekly offers five talking points from Sunday’s stage, from the rainy crash-filled start to a competitive finish.
Budding Belgian superstar Remco Evenepoel has gone from contending for the pink leader’s jersey to hoping for a top ten finish, conceding his form is not what he had hoped for.
Who had Laurens ten Dam holding off Colin Strickland to win the inaugural 155-mile Gravel Locos on your fantasy gravel racing card?
Bicycling explains everything you need too know about this year’s crit season. As usual, read it on Yahoo if Bicycling blocks you.
Finally…
Lots of women ride their bikes while they’re pregnant. Not many ride to deliver the baby, though.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And wear a mask.
And get vaccinated, already.
