It’s Day 15 of the 9th Annual BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive!
Which means there’s just 16 days left to support SoCal’s best source for bike news and advocacy.
Thanks to Phillip Y, Ed R and Christopher T for their generous donations to help keep this site coming your way every day.
So please, take just a moment to give now!
Pretty please?
And while we’re at it, happy Chanukah to everyone who lit a candle last night.
Chag sameach!
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Days left to launch the California ebike incentive program as promised this fall: 13
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The Orange County Sheriff’s Department will conduct a major bicycle and pedestrian safety enforcement operation in Mission Viejo this weekend, after pedestrian deaths have jumped nearly a third in the county over the past decade.
Which means the usual protocol applies — ride to the letter of the law until you leave the area, so you’re not the one who gets ticketed.
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Shimano is investigating a report from The Telegraph that consumers are buying parts made by virtual slaves in a Malaysian factory.
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The Buddha and the Bee, a book about a 2001 bike ride from Minnesota to California along America’s forgotten highways, has won the 2023 Reader’s Favorite Award for non-fiction.
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‘Tis the Season.
One hundred kids in Victorville, California got new bicycles as part of the 20th annual Doris Davies Memorial Bicycle Giveaway, named for the late civic advocate who founded the program.
Fayetteville, Arkansas’s Bicycle Man Foundation is unexpectedly back in business, a year after the widow of its eponymous founder retired a decade after his death; now the Bicycle Madea, whose own son was a beneficiary of the program, is reviving it and distributing one hundred new bikes to kids in need.
Meanwhile, 60 kids in another Fayetteville, this one in North Carolina, got bikes courtesy of a local insurance company, which gave a new bicycle to every 3rd grader at a Fayetteville elementary school.
And if you’re looking for the perfect holiday gift, you could do a lot worse than an autographed copy of Seattle Bike Blog editor Tom Fucoloro’s new book, Biking Uphill in the Rain: The Story of Seattle from behind the Handlebars.
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Local
Agoura Hills received a half-million dollars in state funding to complete an 11-mile bike lane through the West LA County city, which will eventually be part of a regional bike network.
State
Sad news from Marin County, where officials identified the victim of Saturday’s fatal bicycling crash in San Raphael as a 70-year old randonneur who was well known in the area; he was on a 124-mile club ride across the county when he apparently fell off his bike while riding over a railroad crossing, and was run over by the driver of a pickup towing a trailer.
Bad news from Sacramento, where a 50-year old man was hospitalized with a “substantial” head injury after he was struck by a hit-and-run driver while riding his bike.
National
Fast Company explains why 2023 was the year of the ebike and not the self-driving car.
Colorado Congresswoman and pistol-packing grandma Lauren Boebert is accused of dipping into campaign funds to cheer her boyfriend to a 774th place finish in the prestigious Leadville 100 mountain bike race, a month before they were caught fondling one another during a performance of Beetlejuice in a Denver theater; no word on whether she’s paid back the funds.
Sad news from Buffalo, New York, where friends remember the leader of a local bike club after he was killed in a fire at his home.
The rich get richer, as New York completed yet another Complete Streets project, redesigning dangerous intersections and adding nearly two miles of bike and bus lanes on Third Ave in Manhattan; Streetsblog says the wide bike lane is a good start, but the makeover still devotes too much space to cars.
International
Bike Radar explains why you should buy an endurance bike instead of a race bike. Having owned both over the years, I definitely preferred the ride of the former.
Former Ab Fab star Jane Horrocks is one of us, after breaking her wrist and bruising her ribs falling off her bike when she hit a patch of black ice.
Ford says the warning signals on the doors of their new European passenger van will protect bike riders by alerting passengers to their presence. After all, why build safer doors when you can just put warning signs on the deadly ones?
Competitive Cycling
Bicycling says it’s a good thing the planned merger of the Jumbo-Visma and Soudal-QuickStep cycling teams fell apart earlier this fall, since it could have resulted in a superteam with too much top talent concentrated in a single team. As usual, read it on Yahoo if the magazine blocks you.
Pez Cycling talks with former pro Jordan Cheyne about what comes after a cycling career, after an unplanned retirement following a crash on a training ride that left him fighting for his life.
Cycling Today remembers climbing specialist Jose-Maria Jimenez, once touted as a successor to Miguel Indurain, 20 years after he died in a Madrid detox clinic.
Finally…
Now you, too, can see the bicycle owned by President William McKinley, who was killed by an assassin’s bullet in 1901. That feeling when you make a big impact on your “little” bike.
And a record-setting 80-mile “Look Ma, no hands!”
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin
