Tag Archive for Streets For All

Louisiana city bans walking and biking at night, and ten months and counting for LA city Healthy Streets alternative

July 5, 2023 / / One comment

I sometimes use myself as the poster boy for diabetes, warning about the dangers of diabetes and the need to monitor yourself if you’re at risk. 

Now AARP is offering a list of “sneaky” signs of diabetes, from mood swings to chronic yeast infections, blurred vision and unexplained weight loss.

The latter of which was how I knew I had it before I was diagnosed, when I dropped from a muscular 200 pounds to a scrawny 150 in a matter of months. 

So use the two or three minutes out of your day it will take to read it. 

Because you don’t want this shit. 

Seriously. 

………

Unbelievable.

In an effort to control crime, a Louisiana town has banned biking and walking from 11 pm to 4 am.

That’s right. The city of Kaplan has installed a permanent curfew on anyone using the streets without a motor vehicle for most of the night, while leaving enforcement to the discretion of individual officers.

According to the local police chief, the ban is intended to stop burglary and drug dealing.

Because as everyone knows, no one ever uses a car to commit those crimes.

Hardy told News 10 the curfew is to stop people from walking into others’ yards and stealing. In addition, police want to control the drug activity that occurs at night.

“The chief noticed a big influx of bicycle traffic during the night and people walking around,” Kaplan Mayor Mike Kloesel said. “It’s not usually a good thing when that happens. So in order to prevent any issues and problems, the chief asked the council to institute a curfew. They agreed.”

In other words, when people start walking at night, or gathering together on their bikes, the chief thinks criminal activity is afoot.

But as others have pointed in response to this article, the ban is likely targeted at young people with a little extra melanin content.

Whether it is actually legal is up to debate. The courts have held curfews to be legal throughout American history.

But one targeting just some people who can’t afford a motor vehicle, or choose to use their own legs to get around, seems highly questionable.

And a lot will depend on the actual enforcement.

Photo by Markus Spiske from Pexels.

………

Promises made, promises…broken.

Unfortunately, in one of Elon Musk’s latest boneheaded moves apparently aimed at destroying Twitter, the company is now blocking people from seeing tweets without a Twitter account. 

So I’m going back to using a screenshot of tweets, with a link back to the original. 

………

Los Angeles saw a massive turnout for Friday’s Critical Mass.

Unfortunately, the video isn’t available on another site, so you may be out of luck if you don’t have a Twitter account.

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Don’t forget Saturday’s Ice Cream Social and Family-Friendly Bike Ride sponsored by Sunset For All and BikeLA, nee Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, at Pazzo Gelato on Sunset Blvd.

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Good idea.

The good people at Bike Talk work hard to bring you all the latest LA-area bike news. And they deserve your support.

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Oceanside bike lawyer — and BikinginLA sponsor — Richard Duquette talks ebike instruction, safety and insurance on the Bike Fitness Coaching YouTube channel.

In both English and Español, no less.

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

Nothing to see here. A Portland man organized a small protest against the city’s bike network by parking their cars in a bike lane. And kept an unholstered gun on his center console when a bike rider tried to talk to him about it.

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

Bikes get the blame, even when no one is riding them, as a loose bike was blamed for causing a four-car crash on an Utah highway.

A 64-year old Singaporean bicyclist faces charges from climbing onto a bus and beating the 73-year old driver for passing too close to him. Seriously, we’ve all been tempted, but violence is never the answer.

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Local 

Metro is now capping daily and weekly fares, which could end up saving you money if you have a complicated commute. Or not.

The LAPD is investigating after a 38-year old man was shot by an unknown assailant while riding his bicycle in Sun Valley on Friday.

State Senator and Congressional candidate Anthony Portantino hosted a Glendale bicycle safety event last week in collaboration with Walk ‘n Rollers, the Automobile Club of Southern California and Glendale Community Services & Parks.

 

State

Still no word on when California’s ebike rebate program will launch.

There was good news from Ventura, where an eight-year-old boy was found safe after he disappeared while riding his bike on Sunday; he was returned to his family after being found on the bike path next to the 33 Freeway with another boy, who had also been reported missing.

Sad news from Shasta County, where a 38-year old woman riding a bike was killed in a collision, when an elderly driver rear-ended her after drifting onto the shoulder of the road Monday night; the CHP said neither drugs of alcohol were factors in the collision. Then maybe they can explain why the driver couldn’t keep his car on the road, and why he shouldn’t be charged for that.

 

National

Wheel Tales still has space available for a guided bike tour through Oregon’s Cascade Mountains departing July 16th, including an ascent over McKenzie Pass.

That feeling when you come eyeball-to-eyeball with a bear while mountain biking on a Utah trail.

Heartbreaking story from Utah, where a man killed a bike ride in a hit-and-run, then killed himself as the cops closed in.

Colorado Public Radio offers advice on how to start riding in the state, “even if you’ve felt excluded before.”

The Daily Beast introduces guerrilla bike activists installing their own DIY bike infrastructure on Chicago streets. Let’s hope it stays on the ground longer than similar efforts in Los Angeles, which usually get removed by city officials within days. 

A Minnesota man found himself riding solo around the world at just 17-years old when his riding companion ran out of money and patience after a few months of riding through Europe; now he’s on his way home after two years and 20 countries.

This is who we share the road with. A Kentucky man was charged with aggravated vehicular homicide for the hit-and-run death of a man riding a bicycle on the sidewalk, while allegedly driving with a suspended license, under the influence and with an open container in his pickup.

Vermont’s governor is one of us, as he plans to ride the entire length of a new 93-mile rail-to-trail conversion the first day it opens.

Heartbreaking news from Philadelphia, where a kid’s bike can be seen abandoned on the sidewalk following one of the country’s latest mass shootings, which killed five people and injured two others, although it’s not clear if the bike belonged to any of the victims.

 

International

Your next ebike could be a Beamer.

Mark your calendar for September 21st, when the international Partnership for Active Travel and Health, aka PATH, hosts an online symposium on Walking and Cycling: Effective Actions Essential to Reaching the Climate Goals; they’re also looking for organizations who want to highlight their efforts.

Momentum Magazine recommends 21 ways to keep you motivated to keep riding.

Bike Radar explains everything you need to know about concussions. Which you’ll probably suffer if you keep riding, if you haven’t already. Lord knows I’ve had a few. 

He gets it. A writer for Cyclist says there’s no excuse for badly designed bike kits.

Nothing to see here. A bike lane along the Vancouver seawall was overcrowded with bicyclists over the weekend, after the city ripped out bike lanes through the park that would have provided an alternative to the congested bikeway.

A British woman says she told off the “scumbags” who stole her daughter’s bike, tracking them down herself and grabbing it back after police reportedly refused to help.

French bikemaker Cycles Peugeot, which hasn’t been associated with the carmaker for more than a century, has unveiled a new line of “digital” ebikes ranging from a futuristic urban commuter to a long-tail cargo bike, and a front bucket bike. But as for what makes them digital, I don’t have a clue.

Good idea. French children between six and eleven years old can get a “bicycle passport” showing their proficiency on a bicycle, after completing a course offered by the country’s government.

Bike “activists” are paving the way for a safer, less polluted and more bike-friendly Milan, Italy.

Pink is one of us, as the singer went on a 20-mile family bike ride through Austria’s Wachau Valley.

 

Competitive Cycling

Saturday’s first stage of the Tour de France left fans seeing double, as twins Adam and Simon Yates outsprinted the peloton to take first and second for their respective teams.

Dutch fan favorite Fabio Jakobsen escaped a crash near the finish of Tuesday’s 4th stage of the Tour de France with nothing more than massive road rash, even if his bike suffered a fatal injury; Belgian rider Jasper Philipsen won the stage, while Britain’s Adam Yates held onto the yellow jersey.

CNN reports the riders are approaching the Tour with more caution than usual following the death of Gino Mäder on the fifth stage of the Tour de Suisse.

2015 Tour de France winner Egan Bernal got busted for littering, with a $500 fine and 25-point penalty for tossing “something” away outside of the designated refuse zone.

Cyclist calls for the return of the combination jersey for the best overall rider at the Tour de France.

Forty-year old Dutch great Annemiek van Vleuten continues to hold the pink leader’s jersey in Italy’s Giro Donne, as chief competitor Elisa Longo Borghini flew off the road on a tricky descent Tuesday.

Forty-three-year old Goa, India cyclist Sundaram Narayanan won the self-supported Trans Am Bike Race, completing 4,225 miles across the US in 25 days, 15 hours and 4 minutes.

Great road cycling courses were announced for the Paris Olympics, which will start and end at the Eiffel Tower, while men and women will complete on the same 20-mile time trial course through the streets of the city.

American paracyclist David Berling has sued the International Paralympic Committee, alleging it has failed to act on allegations of widespread unfair classification, in which competitors lie about the extent of their disabilities to improve their chances of winning.

Tragic news from British Columbia, where a mountain biker was killed during a provincial cup race on Sunday.

The National Track Cycling Championships are coming to the Velo Sports Center in Carson this weekend. It’s too late to register online, but you can register in person the day before each event.

 

Finally…

Now you’ll have to watch out for drivers coming from left, right, front and back — and above. Always wear hi-vis and a helmet when you ride the ferry.

And who among us hasn’t ridden a bicycle standing on the seat and handlebars with a flatscreen TV on your head?

@murield107

#Only in New York #Brooklyn #fyp 45′ TV on his head #riding bike #fyp #StrongNeck

♬ original sound – Muriel D

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

Oh, and fuck Putin.

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

Overly entitled LA drivers, LA River bike path going to the dogs, and bike riders are the poster children for head injuries

March 10, 2023 / / Comments Off on Overly entitled LA drivers, LA River bike path going to the dogs, and bike riders are the poster children for head injuries

Trust me, I get it. 

It’s not easy to find residential parking in Hollywood at night.

However, that doesn’t mean drivers can park on the damn sidewalk, just because they can’t find another spot nearby. Let alone blocking access for anyone with limited sight or using a wheelchair or mobility device.

But tell me again about all those entitled bicyclists. 

………

We’ll let Streets For All sound the alarm over an unexpected threat to the LA River bike path through the San Fernando Valley.

City and county officials, as well as countless advocates, have been working for decades to create a continuous 51-mile bike path from the river’s Canoga Park headwaters to its mouth in Long Beach.

For years, the problem was the knot of small cities south of DTLA, each of whom had to give approval for the riverfront bike path.

But now that problem seems to have finally been resolved, only have another problem area arise in the West Valley.

Dogs.

Or more precisely, their owners, who are unwilling to sacrifice a tiny fraction of an existing dog park for the greater good.

We’ll let the transportation and street safety PAC take it from here.

Don’t get us wrong, we’re all for dog parks! But we disagree with those that claim dog parks and bike paths don’t mix. Unfortunately, that’s what is happening right now in the West San Fernando Valley.

LA has been working for 25 years to finish a bike path from Canoga Park to Long Beach, and the West Valley portion is key. The design has been approved by LA County Flood Control and the Army Corps of Engineers, and City Council adopted a mitigated negative declaration and approved the project in May of 2022. In short, this project is shovel ready!

Unfortunately some users of the dog park are up in arms about the space the bike path would take up — a total of 4,204 square feet out of the dog park’s total of 276,752 square feet (1.52%) and are trying to get city council to reconsider the project and go back to the drawing board. If that happened, this portion of the LA River bike path would be delayed for years and cost many millions more to complete.

It’s windshield bias to imagine people getting to a dog park only by car. The path has been thoughtfully designed to not cut down any trees nor be in the way of dog owners using the park. In short, there is no good reason for the city to revisit the plans.

EMAIL YOUR SUPPORT (fill in the bottom!)

As a dog owner, I understand their frustration. Los Angeles doesn’t have anywhere near enough dog parks, and even fewer you’d actually want to take your dog to.

But a continuous pathway along the river is something that would benefit dog owners, by giving them a safe and enjoyable place to walk their dogs.

Not to mention it’s incredibly short sighted to stand in the way of something that would literally benefit the entire city, and several others along the way.

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Evidently, bicyclists are the poster child for head injuries, even though people in motor vehicles are more likely to suffer one.

But oddly, they aren’t encouraged to wear a helmet, let alone required.

https://twitter.com/DrTaraGoddard/status/1634043873100963840

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The war on cares may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on rolling.

Police in Yorkshire, England admit they blew it by blowing off a bike theft in broad daylight, despite a witnesses photo clearly showing the thieves in action.

British bicyclists blast narrow bike lanes that aren’t even as wide as most handlebars, as officials claim there isn’t any room to make them wider “without inconveniencing responsible motorists.” But apparently, inconveniencing the irresponsible ones is okay. 

Sometimes, its the people on two wheels behaving badly.

Bike Portland’s Jonathan Maus offers a polite reminder that cemeteries may offer a safe and peaceful alternative to riding on more dangerous roadways, but bike riders are guests on cemetery grounds and need to show courtesy and respect, for the dead, and their mourners. Unlike one jerk who didn’t.

Police in Houston are looking for a bike rider who fatally shot a pickup driver after an argument in a business parking lot.

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Local 

Less than a week after Oscar Montoya was killed riding his bike in San Pedro, the Port of Los Angeles broke ground on a $10.3 million project to beautify Front Street, including a new bike and pedestrian path along the waterfront connecting San Pedro and Wilmington. Although whether that might have kept Montoya alive, we’ll never know. Thanks to Guy Paddock for the heads-up.

The CHP is accused of bias in the investigation of one of their own officers, who killed a man walking on Del Amo Blvd while traveling 30 mph over the speed limit on his department motorcycle; the officer was charged with misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter instead of a felony, after the CHP took over the investigation over the objections of the Long Beach Police Department.

Culver City-based Walk ‘N Rollers will celebrate 11 years of improving access and safety for kids on bikes with a festival next Saturday.

 

State

Encinitas will explore partnering with local schools to offer ebike safety training for kids. Or maybe just offer bike safety classes, regardless of whether they’re pedal powered, ped-assist or throttle controlled. It doesn’t make sense to try to protect kids on ebikes, while throwing everyone else to the wolves. 

San Luis Obispo gave final for a new bike boulevard, despite a price tag that nearly doubled over previous estimates to $6.1 million

SF Gate offers advice for visitors on how to see and explore San Francisco by bike.

A correspondent for the San Jose Mercury News examines the e-mountain bike revolution, as well as the disagreement over whether they should be allowed on trails.

 

National

The Verge examines Specialized’s efforts to resurrect the defunct Globe brand as a line of ebikes designed for maximum cargo-carrying capabilities.

No surprise here. The Consumer Product Safety Commission says if you tried to save a few bucks by buying your kids a $13 bike helmet from Walmart, you should just throw it away because the Chinese manufacturer has refused to issue a safety recall.

A pair of Illinois neighbors plan to ride across the US to raise funds to buy bikes for kids; they’re aiming for just 100 bikes to start, but hope for more as they move forward.

Streetsblog points the finger for ebike fires at New York consumers who order free food deliveries from restaurants miles away, causing delivery riders to recharge their bikes more often.

A New Orleans woman faces charges for the hit-and-run death of a musical virtuoso, killed as he was riding his bike on his 75th birthday.

 

International

Fast Company makes the case for 15-minute cities, where everything you need for daily life is just 15 minutes away by foot or bike, despite bizarre rightwing conspiracy theories that they somehow will turn cities into a dystopian hellscape.

Road.cc recommends 27 new products, ranging from hoodies and backpacks to a foldie for the equivalent of $466.

No surprise here, either. A survey of over 5,000 people from 50 countries shows that 25% of bike riders have no idea how tubeless tires work. The only real surprise is that the number is so low. 

Instead of shrinking adult bikes down to children’s sizes, Britain’s Islabikes went the other way, basing their new bikes for petite adults on their successful children’s bikes.

Cyclist says the Algarve on Portugal’s southern coast is “the perfect place for sun, sea, sand and surprisingly strenuous cycling.”

Czech carmaker Škoda sings the praises of doing an ebike tour during the Tour de France.

Officials in Cape Town, South Africa, are exploring ways to increase the popularity of bicycling in the city’s oldest township, where bikes provide jobs as well as transportation.

Life is cheap in New Zealand, where a driver walked without a single day behind bars for killing a man riding a bicycle, despite the victim being clearly visible on the driver’s dashcam for three seconds before that crash; he was fined $20,000 in reparations and lost his license for one lousy year.

The Aussie edition of GQ says bicycling became cool again after receiving a major style upgrade. Yeah, that’s the reason.

 

Competitive Cycling

Lotus is continuing their work with British Cycling to design and build the world’s fastest track bike.

Former Aussie world mountain bike champ Jared Graves suffered a shattered kneecap, broken foot and “a whole lot of stitches” when he was struck by a driver while riding his roadie.

Twenty-six-year old Dutch cyclist Loes Adegeest took a circuitous route to the women’s WorldTour, using bicycling to keep in shape for speed skating events.

VeloNews profiles Anna Yamauchi, who they call a rising new talent in American off-road cycling.

 

Finally…

That feeling when you’re an urban Millennial cliche with a nose ring, bicycle and a Radiohead album. Or when your bike ride takes you past the huge new scoreboard for the rat bastards who stole the Dodgers shortstop. On the other hand, they also took Dodgers closer Craig Kimbel, so we can thank them for that.

And when your bike-riding kid joins you for a post race cooldown — even if he doesn’t hold his line.

https://twitter.com/ParisNice/status/1633497412772720640?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1633497412772720640%7Ctwgr%5Ead07bff8f740a9ac3d5872d85b07336e9a8ffa13%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Froad.cc%2Fcontent%2Fnews%2Fcycling-live-blog-9-march-2023-299813

 

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

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

Lower income people bike more than wealthier Americans, and city council committees consider transportation

March 7, 2023 / / Comments Off on Lower income people bike more than wealthier Americans, and city council committees consider transportation

A new US study disproves the widespread belief that only wealthy people ride bicycles, observing that lower income people tend to walk and bike more than wealthier Americans.

After controlling for a number of observed and unobserved factors, we find that individuals in low-income, car-owning households are associated with up to 14% more walking trips and 33% more cycling trips in a week compared to higher-income households, on average.

However, the authors note that higher-income households use active travel significantly more than low-income, car-owning households in urban areas, while the opposite holds for suburban and rural areas.

Their conclusion is that active travel is often driven by necessity and lack of other viable options.

We need to flip that script, and move to where people of all income levels choose active transportation because it’s the most convenient option, not because they don’t a choice.

Photo by cottonbro studios from Pexels. 

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Streets For All calls attention to measures being considered by LA council committees tomorrow.

The Transportation Committee will consider the installation of speed tables to minimize speeding, and reimagining the intersection of Ventura Blvd & Woodman Ave to improve safety at its 2 pm meeting.

Meanwhile, the Public Works Committee will meet at 3:30 pm to address sidewalk repairs while preserving street trees, among other matters.

The group offers a toolkit to help you call into the meetings, and submit public comments.

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About damn time.

Note the bike on the escalator in the background, too.

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This is what it looks like when an Aussie bicyclist gets left-hooked by a driver who just keeps going without slowing down.

https://twitter.com/Ravener85/status/1632833785321644032

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

No bias here. The chair of a Brooklyn community board endorsed speeding in school zones, and blamed bike riders for “almost” killing someone every minute. Sure, let’s pretend the streets are littered with the bodies of people who were “almost” hit by someone on a bicycle. As opposed to the ones who were “almost” missed by drivers, but weren’t. 

No bias here, either. Myrtle Beach, South Carolina says you have to drive to the damn beach, banning bicycles of any kind all summer, from 10 am to 4 pm.

Or here. A British writer, who somehow seems to think it’s her job to enforce bike laws, says the recent conviction of a woman who pushed an elderly rider off her bike and into traffic, where she was killed, gives scofflaw bicyclists permission to illegally ride on sidewalks. And not that pedestrians should be more accepting of people who aren’t willing or able to ride on dangerous streets.

How to write a headline — and news story — through a strictly windshield perspective.

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Local 

Longtime SoCal civic leader Rick Cole writes about how to make Pasadena bike-friendly, instead of the state’s fifth most dangerous city its size for people on bicycles.

 

State

An East Bay Area letter writer argues that ebikes pose a danger to other trail users, while another says blame bad riders, not the bikes.

A newish bike rider celebrates the monthly East Bay Bike Party, which rolls this Friday; last month’s was marred by car occupants who targeted bike riders with intentional doorings.

 

National

Axios dumbs down the Biden administration’s push to reconnect communities divided by freeway construction in the 50s, 60s and 70s, usually low-income and predominately populated by people of color.

Bloomberg says don’t buy into the popular theory that Gen Z is turning against driving, arguing that generational preferences aren’t enough to overcome decades of auto-centric development.

Jalopnik explains why automakers are suddenly obsessed with making ebikes. That’s easy — money.

The newest iteration of Trek’s Verve+ ebike tops out at 28 mph. Which means it can only be ridden by someone over 16 and requires a helmet in California, and many other states that have adopted a version of the Golden State’s ebike regulations, and is banned from Class I and Class IV bike paths and cycle tracks. 

Hundreds of Honolulu bike riders turned out for an annual memorial ride to remember an 18-year old high school student killed by a drunk driver while riding his bike a decade ago.

The Seattle Times says bike helmet use remains high a year after the county repealed its helmet mandate, with 91% of the bike riders they observed donning a skid lid; the law as repealed due to uneven and inequitable enforcement that too often targeted the homeless and people of color.

That’s more like it. A New Mexico bill would require any town with 10,000 or more residents to install protected bike lanes when making other roadway improvements. Yet we can’t even get Los Angeles leaders to commit to installing the painted bike lanes in the already approved mobility plan during planned street work.

Family members say a 65-year old Houston driver who killed a bike rider — and drove home with the victim’s bike still jammed under his car — was partially paralyzed following a recent stroke, and thought he had a flat tire. Although if someone’s health makes them so dysfunctional they don’t even know they hit a grown man on a bicycle, maybe they shouldn’t be driving.

Security footage shows an unattended ebike battery burst into flames, leading to a fire that destroyed a New York grocery store and damaged adjacent buildings, injuring seven people.

The New York death penalty case agains convicted bike path terrorist Sayfullo Saipov is expected to go to the jury after closing arguments today.

 

International

Bike Radar writes about how to recover from a bicycling injury. Based on my own experience, the key to any recovery is patience.

Momentum jumps on the anti-sharrow bandwagon, writing that the painted chevron symbols made sense in theory, but are now useless and possibly dangerous in practice. You know my take on sharrows. They’re an effort by transportation officials to thin the bike herd, and the arrows are just there to help drivers improve their aim.

A confused British Columbia driver somehow ends up in a two-way curb-protected bike lane, and can’t figure out how to escape.

Havana, Cuba held a well-attended weekend bicycle festival to highlight the benefits of pedal power, including a “friendly and inclusive” Critical Mass ride.

Life is cheap in the UK, where a van driver walked without a single day behind bars for killing a bike rider in a dangerously close pass, after the judge suspended the already too light four-month sentence.

Great idea. A German marketplace provides an opportunity to buy and sell refurbished “used approved” ebikes, bringing them within the reach of more buyers.

An Aussie website marks tomorrow’s International Women’s Day by examining three women who all ride bikes, but for different reasons.

 

Competitive Cycling

Former Danish world champ Mads Pedersen donned the leader’s yellow jersey by winning a mad bunch sprint in the second stage of the week-long Paris-Nice stage race.

VeloNews says Tom Pidcock’s breakaway victory in the Strade Bianche was won on the descents, where he never looked back until the very end.

Now you, too, could ride in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, as USA Cycling is holding a series of track cycling tryouts looking for riders with the potential to compete at the highest levels, particularly athletes from diverse and underrepresented backgrounds.

 

Finally…

You can find a lot of things riding a bike — but hopefully not a murder victim. Even Bing’s AI chatbot says it’s time to go carfree.

And nothing like running a horse in a bike race.

https://twitter.com/ttpdcst/status/1632015952916148230?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1632015952916148230%7Ctwgr%5E9a7b79d1e4ed6c05d802ca07dd757693dacacc0d%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdefector.com%2Fwannabe-cyclist-horse-steals-the-show-at-a-spicy-strade-bianche

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

 

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

Arizona toll rises to 19 including two dead, how to protect yourself on two wheels, and Ballona Creek path could be extended

February 28, 2023 / / 2 comments

Make that 19.

The number of victims in Saturday’s bicycling massacre in Phoenix suburb Goodyear, Arizona has risen to two dead and 17 injured.

NPR reports the victims of the crash have been identified as a woman from Goodyear and a man visiting from Michigan, both 61-years old. Eight people remain hospitalized, with one in critical condition.

According to the AZ Central website,

Goodyear Mayor Joe Pizzillo also offered his condolences to those whom the fatal collision had impacted.

“We have a tight-knit cycling community, so this has deeply affected many across the West Valley,” Pizzillo said at a news conference at the city’s police station. “But a tragedy like this affects the entire community of Goodyear.”

Twenty-six-year old driver Pedro Quintana-Lujan reportedly told police his steering had locked before the truck drifted right and ran down the riders, likely one and two at a time. One victim said he wasn’t actually struck by the truck, but by the bodies of victims piled on its grill.

Police report there is currently no indication that the crash was intentional. The results of a blood test to determine if the driver was under the influence are still pending; however, as Arizona Bike Law points out, police would have needed evidence of intoxication in order to get a warrant for the blood test.

According to AZ Central, court documents show Quintana-Lujan told police he had smoked marijuana with his wife the previous evening, roughly 11 hours before the collision.

There’s no report on whether police are looking at distraction as a possible cause, or have examined Quintana-Lujan’s phone.

The victims were participating in a regular weekly ride sponsored by the West Valley Cycle bike club. They were among 20 riders in the second of three groups taking part in the ride when the driver mowed them down, spewing bodies in every direction.

Which means only one person on a bike managed to avoid becoming a victim. Chillingly, no one was likely aware of the driver before he plowed through the entire group.

“No one really saw the truck because he pretty much hit the back of the group and came all the way through the group,” (club founder David) Herzog told NPR.

The driver was in a massive Ford F-250 pickup, designed with a flat front grill that would have acted as a sledge hammer when driven at speed; a trailer being pulled by the truck would have added mass while limiting maneuverability.

Quintana-Lujan faces a raft of charges after prosecutors threw the book at him, including two counts of manslaughter and three counts of aggravated assault; at last report, he was still being held on $250,000 bond.

A crowdfunding campaign for the victims has raised nearly $80,000 of the $120,000 goal.

On a personal note, I’m having a hard time coping with this one, and all the emotions it brings up. Like mass shootings, mass casualty crashes like this just shouldn’t happen. 

Photo from Pexels.

………

BikinginLA sponsor Richard Duquette emailed to say the 65-year old bike shop worker seriously injured in the Goodyear crash that we mentioned yesterday had just helped him with his bike last month.

He also reminds all of us of something we have discussed here before, that one of the best ways to protect yourself is to max out the coverage on your own automotive insurance, which also covers you on your bicycle.

Buy the maximum Auto Uninsured/Under insured motorist ($500k min.) & excess Umbrella ($2M) coverage with a UM/UIM “rider” (not just liability) because YOU then control the amount of coverage, instead of relying on the defendant drivers insurance limit, if any, or if in the “course & scope of employers coverage”.

Mass crashes like this may prove difficult getting full compensation, as there will be multiple victims to apportion damages. So spending the money on strong insurance coverage is a critical family & financial planning investment as a bicyclist.

He explains more in this blog post from 2016.

Frequent contributor and San Diego bike advocate Phillip Young also offered his thoughts on how to avoid being a victim of a motorist.

A brightly colored bicycling kit especially with bio movement (bight color with movement) and a rear view mirror may save a trip to the emergency room (ER) or morgue. Easily seeing cars from behind with a mirror is essential situation awareness.

Wear brightly colored bicycling kit [Yellow Chartreuse (best), White (2nd Best) or Orange (3rd Best)]:

  1. Jersey
  2. Helmet
  3. Reflective vest
  4. Shoes, shoe covers, or socks and pants (bio movement)
  5. Front and back blinky lights. (lights with bio movement are the best on arms and legs)
  6. Spoke reflectors, front and rear reflectors, and other reflectors
  7. Rear view mirror (Third Eye bar end mirror is the best)

I can’t argue with any of his advice, although my personal take is to wear colors that contrast with the environment you’ll be riding in. Dark colors can be effective in bright daylight, while light or hi-viz colors are a must at night; we’ve all seen Ninja cyclists decked out entirely in black.

Or maybe we haven’t, which is exactly the problem.

I also believe in using multiple bright running lights, day or night, with a steady white light and flashing white light in front, and three flashers in back.

That’s based on the advice of bike crash survivor Mark Goodley, who researched the optimal approach to lights following the collision that nearly killed him.

I’ve never felt the need for a mirror, since I could usually sense a car coming up from behind before they got close enough to pose a danger. But now that I’m older, I find I get surprised more often, making a mirror a valuable safety tool.

And Young is absolutely right about wearing something attention-getting on your legs. I wear reflective ankle bands at night, and should probably up my shoe and sock game during the day, to ensure drivers see them pumping up and down.

I’ve been known to strap a light to my ankle, though that’s not always easy or comfortable.

I also advise adding front and rear facing bike cams, which could be the only way to provide your side of the story in a serious crash, because the cops will talk to the driver while you’re being hustled away by paramedics.

………

Today’s must read comes in the form of an op-ed from Streets For All Founder Michael Schneider.

Writing for the Los Angeles Times, Schneider bemoans the days when kids could walk and bike in their own neighborhoods.

Half a century ago, it was very common for kids to disappear into their neighborhood and play with other kids, often arriving by bike. This included the school commute. In 1969, 48% of children 5 to 14 walked or biked themselves to school. By 2009, this was down to 13%.

The result has been an enormous increase in children arriving by car. Anyone with school-age children is likely familiar with long and chaotic car dropoff lines in front of schools all over Los Angeles. The same applies to kids’ playdates, activities, sporting events, etc. — usually, children arrive and depart by car.

A large part of the problem — pun intentional — is the ever increasing size of motor vehicles, crowded into streets and lanes that remain the same size they were decades earlier.

The 1973 Honda Civic was 140 inches long and 59 inches high. Today, a Honda Civic is 168 inches long and 70 inches high. A 2015 Ford Mustang is 63% larger than its 1964 predecessor. A 2018 Mini Cooper is 61% larger than its 1950 counterpart. A 2013 Land Rover is 43% larger than a 1981 model. And a modern-day pickup truck or SUV is larger than a World War II-era Sherman tank.

As cars get larger, they squeeze space in existing roads, leaving even less room for pedestrians and cyclists. Where a kid on a bike might have been able to fit comfortably between parked cars and moving cars before, they are now more likely to be perilously sandwiched between them. Even just crossing the street has become harder because of the awful blind spots for drivers of modern,massive SUVs.

It’s more than worth a few minutes of your day to read the whole thing.

Because there’s no clearer sign that our cities have failed us than the way they’ve failed our children.

………

Speaking of Michael Schneider, it looks like he won a major victory in the effort to extend the popular Ballona Creek Bike Path to near where the creek rises to the surface at its eastern end.

………

An effort is underway at the state legislature to ban bans on sidewalk riding, in the absence of safe bikeways.

As the tweet suggests, allowing people to ride their bikes on the sidewalk when there’s no bike infrastructure present enables them to decide what is safest and most comfortable way to ride in that situation, without fear of getting a ticket for trying to protect your own life

However, it’s important to remember that pedestrians have the right-of-way, and we all have to ride safely and courteously around them.

Another bill sponsored by Streets For All would eliminate jail terms for transit fare evasion.

Now if we could just get someone to introduce a bill to permanently revoke drivers licenses from hit-and-run drivers.

Finally, the transportation and safety PAC is hosting their next virtual happy hour a week from tomorrow, with Culver City Vice Mayor Yasmine-Imani McMorrin.

………

The winds of political reform are finally blowing in Los Angeles County, as Supervisors Lindsey Horvath and Holly Mitchell are proposing an expansion of the five-member Board of Supervisors, traditionally known as the five little kings for the power they’ve enjoyed over the years.

With the two sponsors on board, they just need one more vote to pass the motion.

And yes, that’s a good thing.

https://twitter.com/LindseyPHorvath/status/1630282154113650689

………

Pasadena’s Municipal Services Committee will receive a report at this afternoon’s meeting recommending the city reject a proposed ebike incentive program; ActiveSGV calls for comments calling for rejecting the rejection.

https://twitter.com/ActiveSGV/status/1630311877296427008

………

Has it really been that long?

Culver City-based street safety and bicycle education nonprofit advocacy group Walk ‘N Rollers is celebrating their 11th anniversary next month.

………

Gravel Bike California rode up to the snow that fell over the weekend above the San Fernando Valley.

………

This is what a city does when it’s serious about fighting climate change.

https://twitter.com/Anne_Hidalgo/status/1630460341678112769

That tweet translates to:

Fighting pollution also means supporting Parisians in their transition to other means of transport.

This is what we do by offering numerous financial aids for the purchase of bicycles.

………

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

No bias here. A writer for City Watch with a severe case of windshield bias calls for free transit use while rejecting bicycling out of hand, suggesting that “bike lanes and other traffic-“calming” measures are probably the worst approach since these practices constrict traffic flow creating more congestion, increasing engine idling, and in many areas exacerbating the inability for trucks to make deliveries, moms to drop off kids, or even to back into a parking space if that rara avis should become available.” You can read her full misguided take, if you can navigate the site’s seemingly interminable popups. 

A Kiwi man says local officials laughed at him when he requested separate bike paths and underpasses for bicyclists at a new roundabout that’s under construction, warning that the dangerous design could result in a bike rider being killed in the first year.

………

Local 

Streetsblog offers a wrap-up on Sunday’s successful CicLAvia in the San Fernando Valley, along with a schedule of upcoming CicLAvias; the next one will be Mid City meets Pico-Union the day before April’s Tax Day. Get your taxes done early so you’re not stuck at home with a pile of receipts, when you could be out enjoying the carfree streets.

The long-awaited Mark Bixby Memorial Bicycle and Pedestrian Path on the new $1.5 billion Long Beach International Gateway Bridge is slated to open in May, following the completion of demolition work on the former Gerald Desmond Bridge; the path is named for longtime local bike advocate Mark Bixby, who was killed in a Long Beach plane crash along with four other community leaders.

If you need a cop to come out to a relatively minor crash in Long Beach, better tell the dispatcher you think the driver is drunk or stoned or you won’t see one.

 

State

California is offering $33 million to underserved communities to launch and support new and existing shared mobility projects, including bikeshare.

San Luis Obispo is considering allowing bike riders onto the sidewalk.

 

National

A Honolulu TV station considers bicycling as part of their Multimodal Mondays.

Hiking advocates question proposals in the Montana legislature that would allow ebikes anywhere that bicycles are allowed, including off-road trails. One thing that often gets lost in that debate is that ebikes provide backcountry access to countless people who would not be able to enjoy it otherwise. 

Dallas has combined 39 miles of existing bike trails with 11 miles of newly built bikeways to create a 50-mile loop around the city.

Oops. WWI flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker almost didn’t become one of the most decorated aviators in American history, after cracking his skull attempting to fly his bicycle off a Columbus, Ohio shed in an attempt to imitate the Wright Brothers flight.

The family of a fallen New York bicyclist is suing the city for $100 million, alleging that nothing was done to fix the corridor she was riding on despite five previous deaths in less than two decades. They may have a case, since they can prove the city was aware of the problem, but didn’t correct it. Although the eventual settlement will be far lower than what they’re asking.

A Central Pennsylvania public radio station shares a poem about the intersection of bicycling and Alzheimer’s from Pennsylvania poet Henry Israeli.

Florida’s Highway Patrol is wrapping up their hit-and-run awareness month by telling drivers to stay at the scene after a crash, after Tampa Bay saw over 300 drivers flee this month.

 

International

Bike Radar examines how to prevent hand and wrist pain when you ride. A good padded handlebar tape and padded bike gloves help. So does relaxing your death grip on them in stressful situations.

A South London bike shop owner surprisingly argues that expanding the city’s Ultra Low Emission Zone will just cause chaos. Although the fact that he owns nine cars, and it would cost him the equivalent of nearly $100,000 to make just three of them compliant with the new rules, might have something to do with it.

It only took 18 months, but a London truck driver has finally been charged with killing a pediatrician who was biking to work after taking it up during the pandemic. But whoever designed the city’s Holborn gyratory, where eight bike riders have been killed in the last 15 years, should face charges, too.

A new dockless bikeshare service named Fredo aims to provide last-mile connectivity in suburban France. Although things did not end well for Fredo in The Godfather II. 

Austria gets serious about multimodal commuting by offering a subsidy of up to the equivalent of $636 on the purchase of a folding bike, but only for people with an annual transit pass; the country is also offering a subsidy of half off the price of an ebike, up to a little over $1,000.

Fatal car crashes surged in Germany last year; not surprisingly, bike riders and pedestrians remained among the most vulnerable victims, with death rates rising for both groups.

Spanish newspaper El Pais reports on the new study showing stolen Dutch bicycles usually remain in the city where they were taken, continuing to contribute to the local economy. Even if the original owners are screwed.

Arevo says they’ve fulfilled 96% of the more than 2,800 Indiegogo orders for their new Superstrata custom carbon bikes and ebikes, which are being 3D printed and assembled in Vietnam.

Tragic news from the Philippines, where a 14-year old boy was killed when he failed to round a corner on his bicycle, and rode off a 33-foot cliff; family members blamed the crash on a broken brake.

 

Competitive Cycling

Cycling Weekly says the opening weekend of the bike racing season has seen a shift from Jumbo-Visma to Soudal-Quick Step as the classics team to beat. And no, I didn’t know they have earthquakes in the UK.

Cycling Weekly’s point was driven home by the remarkable feat of Jumbo-Visma rider and Tour de France champ Jonas Vingegaard winning all four stages of the O Gran Camiño.

 

Finally…

Now you, too, can have your picture taken on a giant bicycle with Mexican conchas for wheels. That feeling when selling your bicycle means a more than 13 hour, 43-mile walk home.

And bbenfulton reminds us that reggae legend Peter Tosh was…uh, half of us, too.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

 

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

Bike rider injured in Santa Monica hit-and-run, a call to call it out when passing, and CicLAvia explains new CicLAminis

January 27, 2023 / / Comments Off on Bike rider injured in Santa Monica hit-and-run, a call to call it out when passing, and CicLAvia explains new CicLAminis

The good news is, my head did not explode.

Nor did I have it surgically removed, as tempting as it was. 

Thanks to the miracle of modern pharmaceuticals, my head is finally better, if not great, and I’m ready to get back to work. 

So let’s get to it. 

………

Let’s start with some troubling news from our longtime friend Dr. Michael Cahn, who shares what he saw in Santa Monica yesterday afternoon.

Ocean Park, close to the intersection with Marguerita Ave, I saw a cyclist down on the middle of the roadway today around 3:20 pm.

The cyclist was conscious and able to move his limbs it seems. A bystander tells me later that according to the victim a car was involved that left the victim in the roadway (hit and run). From what I understood both cyclist and car were going South. A bystander tells me that another driver (going North) identified the fugitive driver as a woman.

The position of the prone cyclist in the middle of the road makes it difficult to reconstruct the event. There is a bike lane on Ocean Avenue. I was walking in the park around that time.

Let’s hope the victim is okay, and the heartless coward who left him bleeding in the street is quickly brought to justice.

Then again, let’s just hope the Santa Monica police take it seriously.

………

I want to highlight a comment from Kate Johnson on Wednesday’s post.

Because she’s right.

Long time rider here, used to letting others know that I am coming up behind them (“Coming up behind you, passing on your left.”) and noticing that very few riders are doing that now. I can’t count the number of times I have been surprised by faster moving cyclists who pass without notice — they are trusting that I will stay in my lane, I suppose. Can’t we reintroduce this very simple way to avoid clashes? Please, people, call out “On your left!” before you pass someone, no matter if they are riding or walking!

 

If you’re not familiar with the practice, it’s longtime bike etiquette to announce when you’re passing someone.

I always do it, unless I can give the other persons at least the same three-foot margin I expect from motorists, and too often don’t get.

Her wording is also good. I find “passing on your left” is far more effective than the more common “on your left,” which can confuse people. And informing them you’re coming from behind can’t hurt.

So give it a shot on your next ride.

You might be surprised how much more pleasant it makes it for everyone.

………

CicLAvia explains the new pedestrian-oriented CicLAminis scheduled for Watts and North Hollywood in May and September, respectively.

………

Streets For All is hosting a public debate with five of the seven candidates who have qualified for the April special election to replace former Councilmember Nury Martinez in CD6; an eighth candidate is running a write-in campaign.

………

Walk Bike Long Beach is hosting a ten-mile community bike ride tomorrow, with plans to ride north from downtown through Wrigley to Steelcraft and back.

………

Both Metro Los Angeles and Metrolink are offering free transit on Saturday, February 4th — one week from tomorrow — in honor of Transit Equity Day and the birthday of civil rights icon Rosa Parks. Thanks to Victor Bale for the heads-up. 

………

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

Tell me again about those entitled cyclists. Streetsblog reports that LA’s entitled drivers have dismantled the modest Vision Zero improvements on the connector road between Silver Lake Boulevard and Temple Street in Historic Filipinotown, where missing bollards have created a DIY slip lane, and the crosswalk is completely worn off. Thanks to Keith Johnson for the tip.

No bias here. A New York City councilmember has introduced a bill to ban ebikes and e-scooters until “they are registered, insured, licensed, and safe to operate, charge and store.” Never mind that cars and their operators are registered, insured and licensed, and they’re still a hell of a lot more dangerous than any ebike. 

An Irish judge cut a woman’s nearly $22,000 judgement against the country’s Motor Insurance Bureau for their failure to identify a hit-and-run driver by 20% because she wasn’t wearing a bike helmet. Even though most helmets wouldn’t have prevented the concussion she suffered. As usual, read it on Yahoo if Bicycling blocks you. 

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

A Washington state man was arrested for robbing Home Depot at knifepoint, then leading police on a two hour bicycle chase, which included a bike and wardrobe change in a failed effort to throw them off his trail.

Life is cheap in New Hampshire, where a man was acquitted of killing a pedestrian after allegedly blowing through a red light, and not having a working rear brake; like many drivers, he claimed the victim darted out from between parked cars, and he just didn’t see him in time.

………

Local 

This is who we share the road with. The LAPD has arrested 31-year old Taylor Lee Harris, accusing him of being the speeding driver who fled the scene on foot after the crash that killed a 13-year old boy and his 18-month old brother in South LA earlier this month.

The Los Angeles City Council Public Works Committee voted unanimously to end the bizarre practice of forcing developers to build brief street widenings in front of their buildings, on the off chance the street gets widened some day. And which end up being mistakenly blamed on, you guessed it, us.

BikeLA, the former LACBC, looks back at Saturday’s die-in at City Hall, while making the case for safer streets in the City of Angels; they also introduce their new YouTube channel, which doesn’t seem to have any active videos at the moment.

After graduating from high school, a Los Angeles teenager spent 527 days riding his bike from Alaska to Argentina along the Pan-American Highway; now he plans to ship his bike home and backpack back home from Argentina to LA with his girlfriend.

 

State

Well, that will solve the problem. Carlsbad is asking everyone, but especially young ebike riders, to make a public pledge to do their part to be safe on the streets. Thanks to Phillip Young for the link.

Sad news from eastern San Diego County, where someone riding a bicycle found a 55-year old man fatally injured in a motorcycle crash in the Anza-Borrego desert; the victim died despite efforts to revive him at the scene.

Palm Springs Life offers an insiders guide to the Coachella Valley bicycling scene ahead of the upcoming Tour de Palm Springs.

An Agoura Hills letter writer calls for approval of the city’s bike plan, saying that as a driver, better bike lanes would make her more comfortable sharing the road with bike riders.

The Carpinteria Creek Bike Path will remain closed for now due to debris and structural damage from the recent rains.

A Santa Barbara letter writer calls for approval of a proposed bike path next to Modoc Road, where he was struck by a driver five years ago; the person who hit him played the universal Get Out Of Jail Free card by claiming he just didn’t see him because of the glare on his windshield.

The family of a Fresno university professor who was killed in a head-on collision with an Acura NSX while riding her bike last year is alleging in a lawsuit that the driver was racing, not one, not two, but four other drivers in a pair of Porsche 911s, a Lamborghini and a Ferrari at the time of the crash. There’s no word on whether the driver was charged, but if this is true, all five drivers should be charged with vehicular homicide, at the very least.

San Francisco Streetsblog asks how many broken limbs, life-altering injuries, and deaths is a parking spot worth, as an Alameda NIMBY sues block a Complete Streets project to preserve streetside parking.

 

National

CyclingSavvy discusses what the hell you should do at a stop sign. And no, they say coming to a full stop and putting your foot down usually isn’t it.

Bicycling examines the ongoing debate over bike helmets in the bicycling community. Once again, read it on Yahoo if the magazine blocks you.

Oregon’s proposed ebike rebate bill will get its first committee hearing next week; the current proposal calls for an instant rebate of up to $1,200 for a standard ebikes and $1,700 for a cargo bike.

Popular Seattle ebike brand Rad Power says mistakes were made, but they’re all better now that they have a new CEO.

Surly’s popular Big Dummy longtail cargo bike is getting some upgrades for its final year of production in 2023.

Heartbreaking story from Indiana, where a pet rescue used social media to find a new home for an orphaned Labrador retriever, after her owner was killed in a collision while riding his bike.

Accused terrorist Sayfullo Saipov was convicted of a long list of charges in the 2017 Halloween Day vehicular attack on a Manhattan bike path that killed eight people and seriously injured several others; Saipov will face a second phase to determine whether he will be executed. Although personally, I think life without parole in SuperMax is a far harsher punishment than death, which just seems like the easy way out.

He gets it. A Philadelphia man argues that penalties for hit-and-run won’t be stiff enough until they equal the the minimum sentences for homicide or manslaughter, saying he’ll never be the same after he was a victim himself.

No surprise here, as a DC website says a study shows ebike subsidies are more effective than subsidies for electric cars.

A 74-year old man who used his bike as his only form of transportation was killed in an Annapolis, Maryland hit-and-run, directly next to the site of a planned bike path; the side path was funded three years ago, but hasn’t even gotten out of the planning stage yet; sadly, he paid the price for the city’s slow pace.

A North Carolina man will spend up to 13 years behind bars after he was convicted of using his car as a weapon to kill a man riding a bicycle, after a dispute at a gaming establishment.

Tragic news from Georgia, where a bike rider whose injuries led to five other people getting hurt has died, two weeks after the other people ran out into the road to protect and pray for him when he was struck by a driver, then he was struck again by a second motorist, along with all five people surrounding him.

 

International

The Guardian looks at the rise of the 15 minute city, which is quickly gaining ground in urban planning circles. I live in a one hour city here in Hollywood, where I can walk to get most things I need, but have to spend an hour on the bus just to see the doctor. 

Bike Radar explains how building an electric motor into a cargo bike designed to carry heavy loads increases its usefulness. The magazine also offers advice on how to tell when your chain needs to be replaced, and how to prevent it. Hint: When it keeps dropping every time you shift, no matter how you adjust it, sort of like mine does these days.

Shimano has patented a wireless system to recharge electronic components while you ride.

Jalopnik points out that Amsterdam’s new $65 million underwater bicycle garage isn’t even the biggest in The Netherlands.

Leading Dutch ebike maker VanMoof nearly went belly up when it ran out of money to pay its bills at the end of last year.

Two-time defending champion Emirates Team New Zealand has once again hired a pair of bicyclists to power hydraulics as they prepare to compete in next year’s America’s Cup in Barcelona.

 

Competitive Cycling

Thirty-three-year old cycling savant Peter Sagan says this will be his last year in the road cycling peloton, as he plans to retire at the end of the season to focus on mountain biking at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

In a story that American cycling fans should be able to relate to, Columbian cycling has hit hard times after the glory years of Bernal, Quintana and Lopez. But at least their hard times don’t stem from eight Tour de France titles getting yanked due to doping. 

Merced’s Hincapie Gran Fondo gravel race has postponed until next year because damage from the recent rains mean the course won’t be ready in time for the planned March date.

 

Finally…

As if SUVs are dangerous enough, now they come armored, armed and electrified. And even the Army says put a damn light on your bike, already.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

 

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

Die-in driven from news by mass shooting, LA Vision Zero a “totally unfunny self-parody,” and voters say no to De León

January 23, 2023 / / Comments Off on Die-in driven from news by mass shooting, LA Vision Zero a “totally unfunny self-parody,” and voters say no to De León

Three-hundred-twelve lives needlessly lost to traffic violence.

Most of them bike riders and pedestrians, many lower income, as Los Angeles set a record for the most traffic deaths in at least the last two decades.

Yet almost as heartbreaking as the lives lost to traffic violence in the City of Angels last year was the way Saturday’s die-in at City Hall to protest the deaths was shoved out of the headlines by yet another mass shooting.

The protest, which drew around one hundred participants, appeared to be covered by a number of news outlets.

Yet the only news story that’s been posted online so far came from Fox11.

And even they couldn’t be bothered to identify California Senator Anthony Portantino as the prone bicyclist shown gripping his handlebars in the story’s top photo.

Oops.

When your lead photo shows a state senator participating in a large protest, maybe it would be nice to identify him. Just saying.

 

The brief story attempts to put LA’s unacceptable rate of traffic deaths in perspective.

Yet somehow fails to mention that even one death is one too many.

How does that compare to other cities across the state, or even nationally? LA’s 312 traffic fatalities equate to just over eight deaths per 100,000, nearly twice that of San Francisco (4.5 deaths per 100,000 in 2022), but fewer than San Diego, which saw just less than nine traffic deaths per 100,000 people in 2022. In Cook County, Illinois, home to Chicago, there were roughly 7.8 traffic deaths per 100,000 people in 2022.

It ends with an all-too-brief mention of just what the assembled protestors were demanding.

Protesters organizing Saturday, want the city to do more to help curb traffic deaths in LA. They’re asking Mayor Karen Bass to declare a state of emergency on traffic violence; for more funding for the LA Department of Transportation and initiatives like VisionZero; and the passage of legislation that would allow for automated speed enforcement on dangerous roads.

“Throwing only $50.6 million at road safety issues in a city this big, especially considering how many lives are being lost, is a joke,” SAFE’s report concludes.

All of which was great.

But in addition to failing to identify Portantino, the station also failed to mention that Assembly Transportation Chair Laura Friedman took part, as did CD3 Councilmember Bob Blumenfield.

Not to mention leaders from Streets Are For Everyone, Families For Safe Streets, Streets For All, LA Walks and BikeLA — formerly the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition — among others.

Even then, the story was gone by morning, as LA’s news outlets went with wall-to-wall coverage of the Monterey Park shootings.

Leaving the reaction to the city’s horrendous death toll forgotten on the newsroom floor, just a blip in the weekend news.

I’ll have more tomorrow, after I have a chance to sift through all the many photos I took of the event.

At center is this photo, with the red bandana, is very good boy Max, who joined his owner in playing dead along with everyone else.

The top photo shows Assembly Member Laura Friedman addressing the crowd, flanked by state Sen. Anthony Portantino; behind her are LA Councilmember Bob Blumenfield and Streets For All founder Michael Schneider. 

Correction: Apparently suffering a major brain cramp, I somehow originally misidentified Streets For All’s Michael Schneider in the above caption as Michael MacDonald, evidently mistaking him for a member of the Doobie Brothers. He is, to the best of my knowledge, not a Doobie nor a rock star, but a street safety star instead. My apologies. 

………

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times Letters Editor Paul Thornton introduced responses to LA’s rising toll of traffic violence with a headline calling the city’s Vision Zero failure a “totally unfunny self-parody.”

All along, the city’s primary tool to achieving its Vision Zero goals has been redesigning roads to reduce vehicle speeds and allocate more and safer spaces to cyclists and pedestrians. What we’ve gotten since 2015 are bike lanes removed from street widening projects, quashed “complete street” proposals, a thriving Lincoln Heights street market shut down by the city, and a reopened 6th Street Viaduct used as a drag strip. Something tells me we’ll be much worse off on Vision Zero in 2025 than we were in 2015.

Although naturally, one letter writer felt the need to remind us that streets are for cars, and everyone and everything else doesn’t belong there.

Nope. No bias there.

And while we’re on the subject of letters to the editor of the Los Angeles Times, the expected complaints about ebikes in the paper’s recent article about their supposed invasion of Orange County Beach cities, a Huntington Beach man says what the outrage over ebikes really points out is the lack of safe bike infrastructure.

Well said.

………

No surprise here.

The LA Times is reporting that CD14 voters have turned sharply against incumbent Councilmember Kevin de León in the wake of his comments on a racist and otherwise offensive recording that has already led to the resignation of the former council president and one of LA’s most powerful labor leaders.

The turnaround comes just two years after those same voters overwhelmingly installed De León to replace disgraced Jose Huizar, who pled guilty to racketeering last week.

…By a wide margin, voters said De León puts his own political self-interest ahead of the people he represents. Even reliable supporters who voted for him in the past have lost faith, the poll found.

Only 23% of the voters surveyed approved of the job De León is doing, compared with 48% who disapproved, the poll found. Just over half think he should resign, compared with fewer than a quarter who want him to stay in office and 18% who were undecided; 9% did not answer the question.

If a recall were to qualify for the ballot — an effort to qualify one is currently circulating petitions — 58% would support recalling him from office, compared with 25% who would be opposed and 17% undecided, the survey found.

That comes after De León was heard on the leaked recording comparing the Black adopted son of former Councilmember Mike Bonin to a Luis Vuitton purse, and discussed how Latino councilmembers could mute the influence of their Black peers on the council, as well as their constituents.

Yet De León continues to ignore calls to resign, apparently thinking there is some pathway that will allow him to rehabilitate his image before facing the voters again in 2024.

Or sooner, if the recall petitions currently circling in his district qualify for the ballot.

De León had shown promise when it came to supporting bike and safety improvements in his district, including selecting the resident-designed Beautiful Boulevard option for the NoHo to Pasadena Bus Rapid Transit route through Eagle Rock.

But whatever good he promised came to a quick end the moment he was heard on that infamous recording.

It’s time for De León to read the writing on the wall — and in the pages of the Times — and resign.

CD14 deserves a leader who can more effectively represent all the people, including those of us who travel on two wheels.

………

This area has long been one of the most unforgiving areas for bicycling in all of the Los Angeles areas.

Although the long-delayed Mark Bixby Memorial Bicycle Pedestrian Path over the new Long Beach International Gateway Bridge, better known as the replacement for the Gerald Desmond Bridge, should help.

Once they finally get around to opening it.

Meanwhile, this video of trying to find a safe route around the Port of Los Angeles plays like a one-man Marx Brothers routine.

https://twitter.com/EntitledCycling/status/1616589984206839808

………

Dr. Grace Peng forward news that an anti-bike lane Redondo Beach councilmember is facing possible loss of his license to practice law after allegedly misappropriating over a half million dollars of client funds.

Proving that corruption allegations extend far beyond LA City Hall.

………

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

The Chicago Sun-Times probably didn’t mean it when they placed an ad about the warning signs of dementia in a story about a man riding 60 miles across the frozen wintery city to meet with other similar-minded viking bikers. But still.

This is why people keep dying on our streets. A road raging British driver was found not guilty of punching and choking a man riding a bike after claiming self-defense because the bike rider punched his car after the driver “clipped” him.

This is what “clipped” looks like, as an Australian truck driver sideswipes a bike rider, then keeps going, possibly unaware he’d even hit someone.

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

Seriously, if you’re carrying guns and a large amount or narcotics on your bike, make sure the damn thing is up to the vehicle code.

………

Local 

Streets For All is calling for more support for the heavy rail option to extend the Metro train system through the Sepulveda Pass, including a Metro station on the UCLA campus, at an in-person meeting on Tuesday and a virtual meeting on Thursday. Bel Air residents are demanding an impractical monorail through the center of the 405 because it wouldn’t, you know, inconvenience the rich people.

VeloNews has more on the nonprofit Bahati Foundation, formed by Compton’s own former national crit champ Rahsaan Bahati to change the lives of underprivileged kids through bikes.

Santa Monica-based Bird is selling their consumer ebike for 60% off right now, marking it down from $2,299 to just $899, including free shipping.

 

State

Twenty people got tickets during Goleta’s latest crackdown on traffic violations that endanger bike riders and pedestrians; unfortunately, there’s no breakdown on whether the tickets went to motorists, bike riders or pedestrian.

 

National

Washington’s governor pitched in on the first day of a new program to teach Seattle kindergartners how to ride a bike.

They get it. The Chicago Sun-Times says that it’s worth trying surveillance cameras and automated ticketing to keep drivers out of bus and bike lanes.

Boston Red Sox pitcher Chris Sale is one of us, as he explains what happened when he fell off his bike and broke his wrist, which combined with Tommy John surgery and a broken finger to cost him most of three seasons.

 

International

Rouler explores the relationship between Italian bikemaker Cinelli and artist and former pro cycling wunderkind Taylor Phinney.

A travel site offers tips on exploring Europe’s over 27,000 miles of bikeways. Which would take the better part of two years if you averaged 50 miles a day. Works for me.

An insurance company issued an urgent warning to British bicyclists about the crumbling state of the country’s roads, as 21% of bike riders suffered pothole-related injuries. Although I imagine what they really mean is 21% of bicycling injuries are related to potholes. But what do I know?

Once again, a driver has claimed multiple victims, as a British driver faces charges for the hit-and-run death of two men who were riding their bikes, before abandoning his car and fleeing on foot. Although even more frightening is how the local weekly paper seems to accept the horrific crash, mentioning it almost in passing.

A history website tells the story of Peter Masters, an Austrian Jew who escaped the Nazis, then returned as a bike-riding British commando during the D-Day invasion.

Horrible story from India, where a 70-year old man was killed when he was struck by a hit-and-run driver while riding his bike, then desperately clung to the drivers hood before he was thrown off and run over when the driver finally hit the brakes.

A New Zealand man’s planned three-day bike ride to babysit his granddaughter took a detour when his ride was interrupted by Cyclone Hale.

 

Competitive Cycling

British pro Simon Yates won an uphill battle to claim the final stage of the Tour Down Under, as Aussie Jay Vine took the GC title to win his first WorldTour race.

Bryan Coquard claimed his first WorldTour stage win in Saturday’s stage four of the Tour Down Under, 11 years after he joined the top pro circuit.

Rising Dutch ‘cross star Shirin van Anrooij had to sit one out after thieves stole her race bike from the parking lot while she was doing recon on the course in Costa Blanca, Spain.

Zimbabwean mountain biker Pressmore Musundi is aiming to compete in this year’s African Games, despite being born with no toes on either foot, following first and third place finishes in a pair of South Africa’s top mountain bike races.

 

Finally…

If a cop stops you for driving under the influence, try not to bite his finger off trying to get away. And we may have to deal with aggressive LA drivers, but at least we don’t have to worry about leopard attacks.

Usually, anyway.

………

Happy Lunar New Year, whatever language you celebrate in! And my sympathy and prayers to all the victims of the Monterey Park shooting and their loved ones. May the new year finally bring an end to both traffic and gun violence. 

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

 

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

LA Times fans OC ebike mayhem panic, City Hall die-in this Saturday, and Slate questions efficacy of bike helmets

January 17, 2023 / / One comment

No bias here.

The Los Angeles Times reports on complaints about ebikes in Orange County, where they face bans and draconian speed limits on and near beach trails.

No, just the complaints.

At least until you reach the bottom of the story, by which time most Times readers have already moved on to Marmaduke.

Instead of reporting objectively, the paper settles for reprinting the long list of complaints from Orange County’s anti-ebike crowd, who seem to consider them the worst tech advance since Elon Musk bought Twitter.

Here’s how the paper frames the story, starting with a longtime Newport Beach resident who compares the local boardwalk to the 405 Freeway.

Three decades ago, Levine moved to what some refer to as the city’s “war zone,” a nickname given not because of crime but for the reputation of summertime rowdiness along the boardwalk, which now includes an abundance of electric bicycles. The strip’s 8 mph speed limit means nothing to some of these people, he said.

He’s watched people get mowed down, dogs hit and too many near misses to count, he said. City leaders for years have studied how to manage the proliferation of e-bikes along the route but have stopped short of banning them.

“What we’re witnessing on the boardwalk is mayhem,” Maureen Cotton, president of the Central Newport Beach Community Assn., told the City Council during a meeting urging officials to address e-bikes last year.

So, let me get this straight.

It’s been a war zone for decades. But ebikes have somehow ruined everything.

Sure, that makes sense.

Then the paper moves on to repeating the same tired and previously discredited stats we’ve been hearing for months from PR staffers at the local hospital trying to fan the flames of an anti-ebike pyre.

During the first 10 months of last year, staffers at Providence Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo documented 198 e-bike injuries. Doctors saw 113 injuries in 2021 and just 34 in 2020, according to data provided by the hospital.

Between January and October of last year, 78 of the 198 people who suffered an injury on an e-bike were not wearing helmets and 99 suffered some type of head injury, data show.

“My feeling about the whole situation with e-bikes is that we got a device a little bit too fast, and the culture is not completely set for it,” said Tetsuya Takeuchi, the trauma medical director at Providence Mission Hospital…

Where to begin.

Evidently, some people who got injured riding ebikes weren’t wearing bike helmets. But most were.

And half of the people who were injured riding an ebike suffered a head injury. Which may or may not have been the 40% who weren’t wearing helmets.

It may come as a shock to the kind and caring people at Providence that some people who ride regular bikes don’t wear helmets, either. And some of them get hurt, too, though not always with head injuries.

Which is just one of the great, inexplicable mysteries of bicycling, that some people who don’t wear bike helmets don’t suffer head injuries, and some who do, do.

Then there’s the exponential increase in ebike injuries. Which just happens to coincide with the exponential increase in ebikes.

That doesn’t mean ebikes are dangerous. Just that a lot of people are using them now.

In fact, I’d consider 198 injuries a relatively small amount, given the untold thousands of Orange County residents who’ve adopted them.

Lastly, let’s consider the question of speed, which has apparently gotten “a little bit too fast.”

Under California law, which has been copied in most states, Class 1 and 2 ebikes, whether ped-assist or throttle-driven, are limited to 20 mph.

Which virtually anyone could top with a decent effort on a decent road bike. Never mind today’s lightweight, technological marvels engineered for every higher speeds.

The bikes, I mean, not the riders. Though some of them have been engineered for speed, too.

Yet somehow, those bikes aren’t considered too fast. And no one has banned 27 speed carbon-fiber bikes or their spandex-clad riders from the boardwalk.

And just wait until the good doctors at Providence learn how fast cars can go, and the damage they cause.

In fact, my stats show 12 people were killed by drivers while riding bikes in Orange County last year, a drop from the obscene 17 killed in 2021.

Ebike riders killed somewhere around zero in Orange County over that same time period, to the best of my knowledge.

So which of these is actually dangerous?

Then there’s the way the paper takes about halfway through the story, after fanning the flames of ebike haters, to even mention that there are different categories of ebikes, and dozens of different types.

And even then, fails to mention that the faster Class 3 ebikes are banned from bike trails that aren’t attached to roadways, beachfront or otherwise.

Or that even people on regular bikes struggle to meet those ridiculously low 8 mph speed limits without falling over.

But once again, no one is seriously suggesting that regular should be banned.

The key, as they finally get around to mentioning just before the end of the story, is behavior.

Someone who is a jerk in a car — or on a skateboard, or with a shopping cart — is just as likely to be a jerk on an ebike.

And a kid who has never been taught to ride a bike safely — electric or otherwise — is going to ride a bike or bike like a, well, kid.

Just what they’re riding doesn’t have a damn thing to do with it.

So let’s put away the torches and pitchforks, and learn to live with all those scary ebike monsters. Because really, they’re not bad, just new and different.

And seriously, LA Times, do better.

Ebike photo by Markus Spiske from Pexels.

………

We’ll let Streets For All put things in perspective with their call to participate in the Saturday’s City Hall die-in to protest traffic violence.

If you’re a pedestrian or cyclist in Los Angeles, you’re probably used to hearing about traffic fatalities in our community. But 2022 was a record-breaking year — in the worst way. Last year, there were 309 traffic fatalities in LA, breaking the 300 mark for the first time in more than twenty years. This is a staggering increase of almost 30% from 2020.

These statistics are tragedies in and of themselves, but they’re made even worse by the fact that pedestrians and cyclists are impacted the most by every measure. Cyclist fatalities alone went up 40% between 2020 and 2022.

We can’t keep living like this. Join us on the steps of City Hall on Saturday, January 21st at 9:30am for a die-in protest. It’s time for our electeds to start paying attention.

RSVP for more details

………

A writer for Slate examine the limited efficacy of bike helmets, noting that “When it comes to the dangers threatening cyclists, wearing a helmet is like bringing a knife to a gunfight.”

They make the same argument I’ve been making for years — bike helmets are designed to protect against relatively low speed falls, not high impact crashes with motor vehicles.

Which is not to say you shouldn’t wear one.

The overwhelming majority of bicycling injuries result from falls, not crashes. Which is exactly what they’re made for.

I still credit my helmet with saving my grey matter, and possibly my life, during the Infamous Beachfront Bee Incident, and never ride without one.

But they should always be considered the last line of defense when everything else fails.

You’re a lot better off not getting hit by a car and its driver in the first place, rather than count on your helmet to save your life if you do.

………

In a related story, the Manhattan Beach Police Department tells teenage bike riders not to be melon heads, as they gleefully smash watermelons as a metaphor for helmet-less bike riders.

Even though watermelons smash much easier that teenage skulls, and most heads aren’t filled with seeds.

And yes, I said most.

………

Ted Faber finds a pothole that could be the gaping maw of the gates of Hell.

………

This is who we share the road with.

An alleged drunk driver in LA’s Silver Lake neighborhood backs through a crowd of people trying to stop him from getting behind the wheel, then takes off, leaving injured bystanders strewn in his wake.

Thanks to How the West Was Woke for the heads-up. 

………

This is who we share the road with, part two.

An South LA man apparently angry about his pending divorce decided to take it out on his wife’s house, and all the cars in the neighborhood.

But sure, tell us again about those OC ebikes.

………

San Francisco Bay Area cyclist Nehemiah Brown is asking other people of color to join him in accepting the gift of gravel.

………

More proof of our auto centric world, as Irish Tic Tok’ers are shocked to see a man transporting a new flatscreen TV on his bike.

Even if he’s just using it as a cart.

@all_about_rosalilla

Who thinks this TV is making it home in one piece? #fyp #onlyinireland #tiktokireland #irelandtiktok #fypage #nanocelltv #whatsontelly #foryoupage

♬ Crash – The Primitives

………

And this video pretty well sums things up, I think.

………

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

No bias here. Plans for a Manhattan bike lane are being held up by judges who don’t want to give up their cushy curbside parking next to the courthouse, with one court official comparing their efforts to the French attempting to hold back Nazi Germany prior to WWII.

A road raging British driver is on trial for allegedly punching and choking a man riding a bike, after clipping the arm of the victim during a close pass; he blocked the victim’s path and got out of his car when the bike ride slapped it and called him an idiot.

Another road raging British driver gets a lesson in setting the handbrake before going off on a bike rider, who didn’t appear to be doing anything wrong.

 

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

A British runner justifiably blasts schmucks who park on the sidewalk to go mountain biking.

………

Local 

Longtime KPCC and LAist reporter Frank Stolze introduces the seven candidates who have qualified so far to run in the race to replace ex-councilmember Nury Martinez in LA’s CD6.

Speaking of Streets For All, Streetsblog reports on their call to transform current-day Mid City car sewer San Vicente Blvd into a linear park.

 

State

Orange County will install a new traffic signal at Oso Parkway and Coto de Caza Drive, just outside Coto de Caza, where eight-year old Bradley Rofer was killed by a pickup driver in September. As usual, the long-needed traffic fix only comes several months after Rofer was killed.

Former NBA great Bill Walton reacts to being harassed by homeless people while riding his bike through Balboa Park by suggesting all the city’s unhoused residents should get rounded up and sent to a camp on a military base — voluntarily, of course. Because that worked so well last time, apparently.

The CHP is looking for the hit-and-run driver who ran down a 22-year old Santa Barbara man riding his bike on PCH (scroll down) north of Ventura early Friday morning; there’s no description on the driver or vehicle, and no word on the condition of the victim.

 

National

Calvin, of “and Hobbes” fame, faces up to his greatest tormenters, including his bicycle.

Scott is recalling their 2022 Speedster road and gravel bikes due to a defective fork that could break during use.

Nonprofit group Black Girls Do Bike celebrates ten years of changing what the cycling world looks like by “providing welcoming, safe and fun opportunities for women of color to ride bikes.”

The Washington Post examines where cars outnumber drivers, let alone people. Surprisingly, California ain’t one of them.

In a report that should surprise absolutely no one, the Rhodium Group concludes that transportation is the leading source for climate damaging emissions for the sixth year in a row. To which bicycles contributed just this side of zero.

Apparently, not even Congresspeople are safe from traffic violence, as Oregon Representative Suzanne Bonamici and her husband were struck by a driver as they were crossing a Portland street Friday evening. Although CNN somehow manages to get through the entire story without mentioning that there was someone behind the wheel. 

A kindhearted Boise, Idaho group donated over 50 bikes to Ukrainian refugee children in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

This is who we share the country with. Wyoming, the state where even Liz Cheney wasn’t considered conservative enough, continued its race to the bottom when state legislators proposed banning electric vehicles in a childish tantrum to protect the gas and oil industries.

The fight continues over a $12 million Houston road diet and bike lane project, as a county commissioner pushes it forward while a city councilmember works to halt it.

A pair of kindhearted Texas cops surprised a young boy with a new bike, after they fixed the chain on his old beat up bike so he could make it home from school.

Boston readers freak out over a single still photo of a woman on what looks like a bikeshare bike trying to merge onto a local highway, with her shopping bag dangling from her handlebars.

The New Yorker talks with the daredevil behind the city’s infamous bikeshare-riding stunt crew, the Citi Bike Boyz.

A DC proposal would give ebike buyers a $400 tax rebate, with an extra $500 for e-cargo bikes; low-income buyers could get up to $1,200 plus the e-cargo bike bonus.

At least 80 bike riders turned out to honor a pair of Baton Rouge, Louisiana high school cheerleaders who were killed in a collision with a cop at the end of a high speed chase; the cop was arrested and could face charges.

Young Miami bike riders conducted their annual MLK Day Wheels Up Guns Down ride. But somehow, all the local press could focus on was the usual heavy-handed police response, and the 58 felony and 11 misdemeanor arrests — not the hundreds, if not thousands, of peaceful riders and their message of hope. 

 

International

Havana, Cuba is installing their first public bikeshare dock, part of what promises to be a 300 bike fleet.

The former boyfriend of a Welsh woman killed while watching a mountain bike race in 2014 calls for more protection for bike race fans; she had come to see him compete.

Young “demon” ebike riders are accused of turning Amsterdam’s once angelic streets into a living hell, as they ride their souped-up ebikes at the unholdy speed of…24 mph. Which would make them relatively tame by Orange County standards.

India’s bike industry threatens a series of hunger strikes over a new requirement to install reflectors on bicycles; industry officials say the problem isn’t the mandate, but the penalties that would be imposed for failing to comply.

An Indian man was tied to a pole and viciously beaten and stomped after he was accused of stealing a bicycle. Look, I dislike bike thieves as much as anyone, but that’s going too damn far.

The bike boom continues, as Taiwan’s exports of bicycles and bike parts rose 23.11 percent annually to $6.15 billion. Or it could just means that more production is shifting to Taiwan from mainland China.

Gizmodo Australia misses the mark, insisting safety bikes came into widespread use about the same time cars did, and that bikes only enjoyed a few months as king of the roads before they were shoved aside by motor vehicles. Meanwhile, Adventure Journal marvels that bicycles were invented after the much more complex locomotives were. But as Carlton Reid makes clear in Roads Weren’t Built For Cars, bicycles were widely adopted around the world long before cars ruled the earth. And if you haven’t read it yet, what the hell are you waiting for?

 

Competitive Cycling

Australia’s Grace Brown kicked off the women’s cycling season by out-sprinting Amanda Spratt to win the Santos Tour Down Under, after Alex Manly led following the first two stages.

Sad news from the Netherlands, where 40-year old retired Dutch pro Lieuwe Westra was found dead, after suffering from depression for several years; nicknamed The Beast, Westra won stages at Paris-Nice, the Tour of California and Critérium du Dauphiné, as well as winning the Tour of Denmark and Driedaagse De Panne.

UCI is telling team cars to back off, instead of giving their riders an extra boost during time trials by changing the airflow behind the rider.

Former Team Sky and British Cycling doctor Richard Freeman has formally lost his medical license as a result of his involvement in a doping scandal, when he was caught ordering testosterone gel for an unnamed male cyclist.

 

Finally…

That feeling when you try a 30-foot jump on an ebike — and nail it. Maybe it’s time to put this “slightly used” VanMoof out of its misery.

And if you’re going to ride a kid’s Barbie bike across an entire country, always choose a small one.

Country, that is.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

 

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

Bad year for SoCal bike deaths, urban roads get deadlier, and Transportation Comm’s new vice chair is one of us

January 5, 2023 / / 2 comments

Last year was another terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year for SoCal bike riders.

But at least it was better than the year before.

Maybe.

According to our latest count, at least 82* people lost their lives while riding a bicycle in the seven county Southern California region last year, just two less than the previous year.

Although that figure is likely an undercount; I’ve heard of a half dozen or more deaths this year that I wasn’t able to officially confirm, but which undoubtedly happened.

It’s also the same number of SoCal bicycling deaths reported to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for 2019, the last year before the pandemic, when 81 SoCal riders also lost their lives.

The total for last year reflects the 26 bike riders I counted killed in Los Angeles County last year, which again is likely a dramatic undercount.

A total of 35 bike riders lost their lives in LA County in 2021, which was over twice the total of 17 that I had counted; I also counted 15 in 2020, compared to 27 reported by the NHTSA.

Which suggests that the local media is failing to report a number of bicycling deaths in the Los Angeles area, for whatever reason.

I also counted 14 bicycling deaths in the City of Los Angeles last year, which is in line with verified totals of 18 and 15 in 2021 and 2020.

Further afield, San Diego County suffered 12 deaths last year, which was a significant improvement over 17 in the previous year, though much higher than the 7 and 8 people killed riding bikes in the county in 2020 and 2019, respectively.

Meanwhile, Orange County appeared to have their worst year in recent memory, with 17 people killed* riding bikes last year, compared to just 7 in 2021, 15 in 2020, and 13 in 2019.

Although it is important to note that only the totals for 2020 and 2019 have been verified by the NHTSA; 2021 data isn’t currently available through their website.

Riverside and San Bernardino Counties also showed increases last year, with 11 bicycling deaths in Riverside County, and 10 in San Bernardino County. Ventura County suffered 4 deaths — half the previous year’s total — while Imperial County recorded none for the third year in a row.

Here’s a quick recap of bicycling deaths for each of the seven counties.

Los Angeles County

  • 2022 – 26
  • 2021 – 35
  • 2020 – 27
  • 2019 – 38

Orange County

  • 2022 – 17
  • 2021 – 7
  • 2020 – 14
  • 2019 – 13

San Diego County

  • 2022 – 12
  • 2021 – 17
  • 2020 – 7
  • 2019 – 8

Riverside County

  • 2022 – 11
  • 2021 – 9
  • 2020 – 8
  • 2019 – 5

San Bernardino County

  • 2022 – 10
  • 2021 – 7
  • 2020 – 6
  • 2019 – 7

Imperial County

  • 2022 – 0
  • 2021 – 0
  • 2020 – 0
  • 2019 – 6

Ventura County

  • 2022 – 4
  • 2021 – 8
  • 2020 – 4
  • 2019 – 4

Source: 2021-2022 BikinginLA, except 2021 LA County data from Los Angeles Times; 2019-2020 NHTSA FARS data

While compiling records of this sort is necessary to bring about desperately needed changes to our streets, it also reduces human tragedy and loss to a statistic.

So if you want to see the people behind these numbers who we’ve so needlessly lost, start here and just keep scrolling.

Photo by Ted McDonald from Pixabay.

Correction: A comment from Dawn made it clear that I had miscategorized a story about her father’s August death in Irvine. 

*After correcting the error and adding it back into the totals for OC, that made 17 people killed riding their bikes in the county last year, and 82 in Southern California, instead of 16 and 81, respectively, as I had originally written.

My apologies for the mistake. 

………

On a related subject, rural areas are becoming safer, while urban environments are growing ever deadlier.

And the photo at the bottom of this thread goes a long way towards explaining why.

https://twitter.com/WarrenJWells/status/1610779366476353538

https://twitter.com/WarrenJWells/status/1610843949924777984

………

Promising news about the new LA City Council Transportation Committee members we mentioned yesterday, at least two of whom have taken bike tours with the new BikeLA (formerly the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, or LACBC).

Meanwhile, new CD11 Councilmember and Committee Vice Chair Traci Park is one of us, as well.

Now if she just votes that way, we should be in good shape.

………

Transportation PAC Streets For All is hosting their next virtual happy hour next Wednesday, featuring my councilmember, CD4’s Nithya Raman.

………

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

A former contestant on the UK’s version of The Apprentice criticizes plans for traffic filters on Oxford streets, saying you won’t be able to drive more than 15 minutes in any direction — and somehow manages to get the whole thing wrong.

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

A British Columbia man faces charges for stealing a truck and using it to smash through a gate, then hoping on a bicycle to make his escape after the truck was disabled in the crash. Which raises a lot of questions, like whether the fact that he wasn’t charged with stealing the bike means he just happened to have it with him in case he needed to pedal away from the crime scene.

There’s a special place in hell for the Kiwi ebike rider who faces charges for repeatedly kicking a wheelchair-bound handcyclist in the head for no apparent reason, unless he was upset that she could go faster than he could on his ebike. Which is a ridiculous reason to do something so horrific.

………

Local 

Protected bike lanes are usually intended to improve safety, but Burbank residents wanted the new quarter-mile protected bike lane on Leland Way in order to halt graffiti and drag racing.

A travel magazine recommends touring West Hollywood by ebike, but apparently can’t distinguish between WeHo and nearby Beverly Hills.

 

State

No news is good news, right?

 

National

Even an automotive website questions whether the newest generation of electric SUVs are too big, too heavy and too fast. Depends on whether the goal is to get from here to there, or to send as many people as possible to the promised land.

Forbes looks at five trends this year that could impact the future of transportation. Although the modest state and local tax rebates for ebikes pale in comparison to the massive federal benefits for electric car buyers.

A writer for Adventure Journal geeks out over an 1880s ad for a Penny Farthing from Boston’s Columbia Bicycle Company. Then again, he’s not the only one geeking out, since I have a version of that ad on a t-shirt.

House Beautiful recommends the best bike storage racks for your home or apartment.

Singletracks considers the ethics of editing trails to preserve them or remove hazards.

Digital Journal addresses one of the burning questions of our time — how to take your dog with you when you ride your bike.

My friends at West Seattle Blog managed to scoop the local news media about hit-and-run and vehicular homicide charges against an alleged killer driver who fled the scene after running down a 63-year old man riding his ebike home from work.

An Arizona man has made a remarkable recovery following the crash in a Show Low, Arizona master’s race that killed one man and seriously injured several riders; 37-year old Shawn Michael Chock was quietly sentenced to 26-1/2 years behind bars for second-degree murder and felony aggravated assault.

Denver announced the return of the city’s highly popular ebike rebate program at the end of this month, although at a reduced level, with $300 vouchers for buyers or regular ebikes, and $500 for e-cargo bikes.

North Carolina’s Department of Transportation is giving away bike helmets to organizations to give away to people who need them.

St. Petersburg, Florida, is remaking a dangerous residential boulevard with barriers at four intersections, forcing motorists to turn while allowing pedestrians and bike riders to pass through, and effectively turning it into a bicycle boulevard, even if they don’t use the term.

A kindhearted Florida man spends his days refurbishing and assembling bicycles so children in need can get to school, and adults can ride to work.

 

International

Calgary bicycle advocates are calling for safer bike infrastructure, after reports of snow and ice clogging bikeways and creating a hazard for riders. Here in SoCal, our snow and ice comes in liquid form, but still creates hazards on days like this. So be careful out there. 

Bike Portland goes riding in London. Which I deeply regret I didn’t get a chance to do when my wife and I visited earlier this century.

British foldie maker Brompton will begin sourcing more parts from other countries, over fears that tensions between China and Taiwan could result in supply chain disruptions.

If you’re already wanted on an outstanding warrant for failure to appear, maybe illegally riding your bike on a pair of UK highways isn’t the best idea.

The newly crowned world darts champ credits a broken hip suffered in a bicycle crash when he was 15 year old with setting him on the path to pointed greatness.

The Guardian follows along as an Australian woman attempts to set a new record by riding 2,500 miles in 13 days.

No surprise here, as a new Aussie study shows the biggest barrier to biking is a fear of cars. Personally, I’m not afraid of cars. But the people driving them scare the shit out of me.

 

Competitive Cycling

Four time Tour de France champ Chris Froome will finally get a chance to go for five after his Israel Premier Tech team got one of two wildcard invitations to the race, with the other going to Norway’s Uno-X.

A ‘cross fan captures the chaos after Ryan Cortjens crashed at the Superprestige Diegem, and apparently forgot to get the hell out of the way.

 

Finally…

Now you, too, can build your very own DIY 6-passenger, throttle-controlled ebike. That feeling when no one wants to steal you bike, even if you want them to.

And who says you need two wheels to mountain bike?

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

 

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

LA city officials back off “aspirational” mobility plan, CD13’s Hugo Soto-Martinez talks bikes, and still more bike giveaways

December 16, 2022 / / Comments Off on LA city officials back off “aspirational” mobility plan, CD13’s Hugo Soto-Martinez talks bikes, and still more bike giveaways

Just nine days left in the 8th Annual BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive!

We’re on the cusp of the last full weekend of the fund drive, just slightly ahead of last year’s record pace. But we need your help to push it over the top, and best last year’s total for the 8th consecutive year!

So thanks to Matthew L and Tom C for their generous donations to keep all the latest bike news and advocacy coming your way every day.

Now it’s your turn, so donate today via PayPal or Zelle! 

Every contribution, no matter how large or small, is truly and deeply appreciated, and gets us that much closer to our goal.

………

Before we get started, thanks to Paul Jamason for this tweet that took me by surprise yesterday. 

https://twitter.com/sdurban/status/1603544746118373376

But that’s what I do, all day and every day, confronting misinformation and disinformation about bikes and the people who ride them. And working to shine a light on the problems we face just trying to get from here to there in one piece. 

So if you value that work, and have a few extra bucks to spare, ask yourself what it’s worth to you, and donate now to help keep this vital work going.

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Today’s must read comes from Streetsblog’s Joe Linton, who calls out Los Angeles city officials for their mealymouthed support of the city’s Mobility Plan 2035, which we are once again told is merely “aspirational,” despite its overwhelming approval by the city council.

But what has been disturbing has been the city’s wholesale backing off of the Mobility Plan as a plan. Instead city staff – from the Planning Department, Chief Legislative Analyst, Department of Transportation, and others – are casting doubt on the city’s approved plan. This occurred repeatedly in an October 6 CLA memo and a November 30 City Council Public Works Committee meeting [audio] discussing the city council’s alternative version of HSLA.

CLA staff repeatedly characterized MP2035 as just “a policy foundation,” “a working guide,” “not an implementation tool with specific projects,” and “street segments indicated on the network concept maps represent potential opportunities.” (emphasis added).

He goes on to add this.

At the committee meeting, (Department of City Planning) Planner Emily Gable stated that MP2035 is “guidance” for a “general vision.” MP2035 network maps are “guides for decision-makers.” She called the plan “aspirational” and emphasized its “flexibility.”

It’s instructive to note the pernicious double standard of how the city is treating other aspects of the Mobility Plan.

Bus lanes? Guidance.

Bike lanes? Policy foundation.

Safe walking? Aspirational.

Car capacity? Build it exactly as the plan specifies.

Then again, that’s nothing new.

Just weeks after the 2010 Bike Plan was approved, which was later subsumed into the mobility plan, we were told by an LADOT official that it was merely, yes, aspirational.

But here’s the thing.

While the city may consider the mobility plan aspirational, people who ride bikes just aspire to do so without fear.

We aspire to have safe routes allowing us to ride across the city, and through our own neighborhoods.

We aspire to be treated as equals on the road.

We aspire to have secure places to park our bikes when we get to our destination.

And we aspire to have city officials who actually give a damn whether we live or die.

It’s a good piece. So take a few minutes to give it a read.

Then get mad as hell.

Because your safety and right to ride should never be just aspirational.

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If, like me, you missed Streets For All’s virtual happy hour with newly installed CD13 Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez on Wednesday, the transportation PAC has posted a recording online so we can all catch up.

This is how they describe it.

In this month’s happy hour we give an update on Venice Bl and our state efforts, talk about upcoming neighborhood council elections, and go over some wins and fails. Our special guest is Hugo Soto-Martinez, newly elected Councilmember for District 13, City of Los Angeles. We discussed many possible bike, bus, and pedestrian projects, including Fountain Ave, Santa Monica Bl, Hollywood Bl, Vermont, and capping the 101 freeway.

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Speaking of Streets For All, the group wants you to request a ballot for the Democratic Party’s ADEM representatives to help elect pro-transit delegates.

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‘Tis the season.

A religious group will donate a total of 500 bicycles to kids in need in Madera and Fresno, California this weekend.

A Bozeman, Montana bike shop is conducting their ninth annual children’s bike giveaway, hoping to donate at least 110 bikes to break last year’s record.

Kids in Sioux Falls, South Dakota will build a sense of pride and generosity by building 120 bicycles tomorrow, which will be given to less fortunate children as Christmas gifts.

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

There’s not a pit deep enough for the middle-aged British dog walker who chased down and attacked a teenage girl as she rode her bike, after shouting threats at her. Nothing justifies violence, whatever the reason for his anger.

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Local 

New CD1 Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez filed a motion instructing city officials to report back on the condition of the streets in her district, which had been neglected under former Councilmember “Roadkill” Gil Cedillo, while directing that construction of bicycle infrastructure simultaneously coordinated with street repairs.

New LA County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath has been seated on the Metro board, giving it a fresh voice with a track record of supporting bikes, walking and transit.

The Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, better known as the LACBC, announced their official name change to BikeLA.

 

State

San Francisco Streetsblog says the removal of traditional parking meters in the city means fewer places to park your bike. LADOT was supposed to conduct a study a few years ago about whether bikes could be safely locked up to parking meters here in Los Angeles, but as far as I know, the practice remains technically illegal, though seldom enforced. 

A Napa Valley paper examines the work of the Napa County Bicycle Coalition.

Sad news from Sacramento, where a woman was killed in a collision while riding her bike Thursday evening.

A Rancho Cordova man will be charged with murder after ambushing a 60-year old ebike rider with a machete, for no apparent reason.

 

National

Equitable Cities is conducting a survey of bicycling in the Black and Hispanic communities; you could be entered to win one of ten $200 gift cards for completing the survey.

The Bike League wants you to contact your Congress members to push for a return of the Bicycle Commuter Benefit in any year-end tax or spending legislation. Maybe they could also push for the ebike rebate the feds teased us with earlier this year.

Bicycling recommends eight “hilarious” Insta reel creators they say you have to follow. Even though you don’t. As usual, read it on Yahoo if the magazine blocks you. 

Gear Junkie explains the myriad joys of the derailleur.

Red Bull considers whether you really want a BMX or a mountain bike.

There’s a special place in hell — and hopefully behind bars — for whoever sexually assaulted a 12-year old Virginia girl before stealing her bicycle.

A newly completed Complete Street in Sarasota, Florida, complete with a lane reduction and sort-of protected bike lanes, is part of the planned 336-mile Florida Gulf Coast Trail. But as usual, local business owners are complaining.

 

International

Cycling Weekly considers what to eat and drink before, during and after a long bike ride, which they define as lasting longer than three and a half hours.

Frightening story from Wales, where a 14-year old boy’s heart suddenly stopped while on a group ride with his stepdad, even though he was an experienced mountain biker; he survived, despite four days in a coma, because one member of the group performed CPR while others raced for a defibrillator.

Belgian ebike brand Cowboy is dealing with the problem of recycling ebike batteries by recycling the entire bike instead, refurbishing and reselling them at a reduced price.

The most popular electric vehicle in Deutschland isn’t a car, as Germans are 2.5 times more likely to ride an ebike than drive an EV.

 

Competitive Cycling

The nascent National Cycling League announced $7.5 million in startup funding from a diverse group of investors, including NBA All-Star Bradley Beal; the league will consist of teams made up of eight men and eight women, who will compete for a slice of the $1 million purse in closed course crits in cities across the US. Although it’s kind of sad that a relatively paltry $7.5 million reflects the largest ever investment in US bike racing, when it’s just a rounding error on Beal’s annual salary. 

Track cycling fans should head down to the Velo Sports Center in Carson for a full weekend of racing, starting tonight.

 

Finally…

Your bike can be an electric generator contributing to the power grid. And now you, too, can own newly Independent Senator Kyrsten Sinema’s used $7,900 tri bike.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

 

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

Fallen Redlands bicyclist identified as teen visiting from Mexico, and some Streets For All PAC donations now deductible

December 13, 2022 / / One comment

Just 12 days left in the 8th Annual BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive!

You know how fast time flies this time of year. Turn around, and it will be Boxing Day already, and it will all be over for another year.

Okay, who just applauded?

Let’s all take a moment to thank Terese E for a generous donation to keep all the best bike news and advocacy coming your way every day. 

And yes, she was the only one who donated yesterday.

So don’t wait. Donate today via PayPal or Zelle. Then relax and enjoy the holidays, knowing you’ve done your part to help keep this site up and running, and free for all.

And help keep a hungry spokesdog and chief fundraiser in kibble. 

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Tragic news from Redlands, where the victim of Thursday’s fatal bicycling collision was identified as a 16-year old boy from Mexico who was just vacationing in the city.

A crowdfunding campaign to send Juan Pablo Carrillo-Salazar’s body back to his family Zacatecas for burial has raised just $135 of the modest $6,000 goal so far.

If money’s tight this year, go ahead and skip the fund drive this year, and donate to this worthy cause, instead.

We’ll be back again next year for the 9th edition of our fund drive.

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You can now make a tax deductible donation to LA transportation PAC Streets For All for use on nonpolitical activities, thanks to the requirements of nonprofit tax law.

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Apparently, an abandoned bike helmet is pretty exciting stuff when you’re a toddler.

https://www.tiktok.com/@thearmfarklife/video/7165660871459491118?_r=1&_t=8XNUB3jeXiF&is_from_webapp=v1&item_id=7165660871459491118

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Why ride when you can fly?

https://twitter.com/jamshed_mohamed/status/1601661754911510529?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1601661754911510529%7Ctwgr%5E1923e3778c05579f6e02b5604a6eb0566bc4f5aa%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fd-37917973493830349893.ampproject.net%2F2211250451000%2Fframe.html

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Take a two and a half minute downhill break with Kiwi freestyle pro Vero Sandler. And her dog.

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‘Tis the season.

In a comment from yesterday, Center Line Rules author Michael Wagner reminds us about a couple of local bike builds he too part in recently, to ensure that 80 Fontana area kids will have new bikes under the tree this year,  as well as building more bikes with the Claremont Senior Bike Group, the Claremont Rotary Club, students from El Roble Middle School, Claremont High School and the Webb Schools.

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

Once again, a UK pedestrian has been killed by a bike rider, after an elderly woman walking on a pathway died two weeks after she was knocked down by a speeding hybrid bike — which apparently didn’t have a rider, judging by the story.

A South African cyclist learns the hard way that you can get banned from real racing for cheating at the virtual kind.

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Local 

A letter writer takes now-former Mayor Eric Garcetti — and implicitly, the Los Angeles Times — to task for the rising rate of traffic deaths in the city, and failure of his Vision Zero plan. And concludes that Garcetti’s pledge wqs indicative of his “’promise now, do nothing later’ approach to any difficult choice he had to make. That toothless, spineless approach will forever be his legacy.” Harsh, but sadly accurate.

Green Car Congress specifies the six Los Angeles active transportation projects funded by the California Transportation Commission, as part of nearly $1 billion in active transportation funding throughout the state.

A Long Beach man was the victim of a bike-by shooting; the same bike rider may have carjacked a woman a few minutes later, and crashed her SUV a few minutes after that.

 

State 

Encinitas will shut down the Coast Highway next month, opening it up to pedestrians and bike riders on January 8th.

 

National

Electrek suggest stocking stuffers for the ebike rider or regular bicyclist in your life, while Road.cc helps you avoid a festive faux pas by suggesting what not to get.

Road Bike Rider considers the difference between a touring bike and a roadie.

Christian singing star Amy Grant now says the bike crash that knocked her unconscious and put her latest tour on hold was a blessing that forced her to refocus on what she loved about performing to begin with.

Unbelievable. An Iowa man walked out of prison a free man this week, despite being sentenced to ten years for the drunken death of a 69-year old woman riding a bike, after the judge somehow decided the original sentence was too harsh and resentenced him to probation. Just in case you were wondering why people keep dying on our streets, or anything. 

An Arkansas man will serve a well-deserved ten years behind bars for the hit-and-run death of a bike-riding man who had just gotten married two months earlier.

Rail service was shut down in Pittsburgh on Sunday after a mountain biker fell 25-feet off a cliff, landing on the railroad tracks.

He gets it. A 75-year old Baltimore man says forget the myth that Baby Boomers have no use for bike lanes.

Sad news from Maryland, where a longtime bike shop owner was killed when an early morning fire broke out in the shop, where he was living with his dog, who was also overcome with smoke.

Once again, authorities somehow managed to keep a dangerous driver on the streets until it’s too late, as a North Carolina man faced charges for crashing into a bike rider while high on weed and heroin, a week after appearing in court for causing a freeway crash; he was still on the road despite 40 previous convictions and multiple DUIs.

The worldwide epidemic of bike shop closures continues, with the closure of a 62-year old Florida bike shop.

This is the cost of traffic violence. The owner of a Michigan bike shop was killed in a Florida traffic collision while delivering free bikes for kids displaced by Hurricane Ian.

 

International

Bicycling offers an overview of what year-end Strava data tells us, including that bike commuting is nearly back up to pre-pandemic levels, and you’re more likely to ride further with a friend when it’s cold out. Of course, it also only tells you about people who use Strava. As usual, read it on Yahoo if the magazine blocks you. 

Bike Radar recommends their picks for the best ebikes for every type of rider. And adds an explanation of motor position, and why it matters. Meanwhile, Bloomberg offers their ebike picks, too.

 

Competitive Cycling

Bicycling takes a detailed look at the tragic life of Moriah “Mo” Wilson, whose star burned brightly over the world of ‘cross for a few short years, before she was allegedly murdered by the jealous girlfriend of pro cyclist Colin Strickland. Read it on AOL this time if the magazine blocks you. 

Belgian world champion Remco Evenepoel announced plans to compete in next year’s Giro.

 

Finally…

Your next ebike could be a naked Mercedes-Benz. Now you, too, can pedal a bike to power Rome’s Christmas tree.

And this pretty well sums up the whole sad situation.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

 

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