Welcome back!
And thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who donated to the 11th Annual BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive!
I can’t begin to tell you how grateful I am to all those who gave this year to support this humble site.
So thanks to John, Norwood, Mary, Robert, Jim and Glenn for their generous donations in the final days of the fund drive to help keep all the best bike news and advocacy coming your way every day.
In the end, more than 60 people opened their hearts and wallets to donate this year, falling just just a few hundred short of breaking that elusive $5,000 barrier for the first time — far more than I expected after what was such a difficult year for so many of us.
Now the holidays are finally over, and I’m tanned, rested — or maybe rusted after all this rain — and ready to get back to work.
And hey, happy new year! Let’s hope it’s a better one for all of us.
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Let’s start with a recent email exchange with someone who seemed to think I write too much about ebikes, suggesting I should change the name of the site to e-BikinginLA.
He warned that things would look a lot different to if I was a parent riding a “real bicycle” with child passenger, and then someone zoomed by in the curb lane or on the sidewalk at 28 mph.
This was my response, which I’m sharing to clarify where I stand on the great ebike debate.
I write about ebikes because that’s what’s in the news these days, just like I’ve written about any number of things that have been in the news over the years.
I’m not a fan of high-speed, throttle-controlled ebikes, which I believe should be recategorized as motorbikes and require a license to operate. I do like ped-assist ebikes with a max speed of 20 mph, simply because they expand the potential for bicycling from the proverbial “young and healthy” we always hear about, to virtually everyone. And provide the potential to trade a car for a bicycle for countless people who might not otherwise even consider it.
I also believe every bicycle should be ridden within the limits of the law whenever practical, which would generally prohibit passing on the inside or riding on the sidewalk at an excessive speed. Everyone should ride in a safe and sane manner, regardless of how their bike may be powered. And no one should ever have a sense of entitlement on the streets, whether walking, biking or driving.
Personally, I’d like to have an e-cargo bike just so I can bike to Costco or the hardware store, and take my service dog with me wherever I go, which doesn’t exactly work on my 18-speed racing bike. However, I’ve never actually ridden one yet, after being a lifelong roadie, and don’t know if I’d really like it or not.
Meanwhile, on a related subject, The New York Daily News says the city could end its “vicious cycle” with high-speed ebikes by requiring them to be licensed and insured as mo-peds, like they do in the Netherlands.
But apparently, they don’t want you to read it, because the editorial is locked behind a paywall for subscribers only.
And a Bay Area woman says she’s all for ebikes, and the problems everyone seems to be complaining about are caused by people on electric motorbikes, not Class 2 ebikes like hers.
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It didn’t take long for New York’s new mayor to demonstrate his transportation bona fides.
Just days after Mayor Zohran Mamdani took the oath of office, he announced a Complete Streets makeover of McGuinness Boulevard, including parking-protected bike lanes the full length of the corridor, considered a key bicycling route connecting Brooklyn and Queens.
The project was killed by the previous administration following a corruption scandal, when a top aide to former Mayor Eric Adams accepted “a relatively small sum of money” and the promise of a speaking role on a TV series to kill the project.
Thanks to Megan for the heads-up.
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Oceanside bike lawyer and BikinginLA sponsor Richard Duquette is sponsoring the Giro di San Diego Gran Fondo this June, complete with cash prizes and KOM kits.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
A Cathedral City man can be grateful a local driver is a bad shot, after a Palm Springs man is accused of deliberately hitting a man on a bicycle with his car following an argument between the two men, then making a U-turn to fire off a gunshot at the 40-year old victim before fleeing; 47-year old John Nicholas Duran was arrested later in Cathedral City, and faces charges of attempted homicide and assault with a deadly weapon.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
A Florida man was knocked off his bicycle by the cops while carrying a sackful of stolen mail, after a year of posing as a mail carrier to break into people’s mailboxes. Although riding his route on a bicycle should have been a dead giveaway wasn’t a real mail carrier.
Bicyclists in London will now have the option of paying a fine equivalent to $67 if they’re caught running a red light, or watching video of a red-light running bike rider who was in a coma after he was hit by a bus driver. Personally, I’d rather just pay the fine.
Police in the UK are looking for a 20-something road-raging ebike rider accused of threatening and racially abusing a van driver, after being told he was riding too close to the van with no lights on his bike.
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Local
Streetsblog’s Joe Linton offers his predictions for the coming year, including a 50% drop in new bike lanes in Los Angeles, as the city puts on the brakes to avoid complying with Measure HLA and ADA-compliant curb cuts.
Burbank has closed a section of the Channel Bike Path between Verdugo and Providencia avenues for an undetermined period to conduct repairs.
San Pedro’s Bike Palace is now boarded up after more than 50 years as a local mainstay, while the owners deal with the aftermath of a devastating pre-Christmas fire; a crowdfunding page has raised more than $62,000 to help the rebuilding efforts. Unfortunately, the Daily Breeze story in the first link may be hidden behind a paywall, so you’re on your own if they block you.
I want to be like him when I grow up. A 79-year old Long Beach man rode his bike every day for more than 18 years, through an appendectomy and the death of his wife, going so far as to pay a man 20 bucks to borrow a kid’s bike after attending the Kentucky Derby.
State
Sad news from Fremont, where someone riding a bicycle was killed when a semi driver turned into a driveway in front of the victim. Although someone should tell NBC Bay Area that they might want to at least mention the driver, because the damn truck didn’t do it on its own.
The bikelash is real. San Francisco’s transportation pendulum appears to be swinging back in favor of motorists, as the people on four wheels claw back their political power.
National
A Las Vegas writer says the city could be safer for biking and walking if it just invested the same effort into building paved trails as it does for stadiums.
An 18-year old Utah man rode his bicycle 14,000 miles from Morocco to Singapore in five months. At that age, I was happy just to drive across the state line to buy booze.
Colorado’s state ebike tax credit will be cut in half this year, dropping from $450 to just $225, as bike shop owners understandably question whether that will result in a drop in sales.
For the second time in just two weeks, a Texas driver ran down two people riding their bikes, this time in Houston, killing one person and critically injuring the other. But at least the driver stuck around this time.
A 73-year old man was charged with aggravated vehicular homicide for killing a 44-year old Toledo, Ohio man as he was waiting on his bicycle at a red light, running him down from behind before fleeing the scene. The next time someone asks you why so many bike riders run red lights, remind them about cases like this.
Tennessee drivers will now be expected to know bicycle hand signals as part of the driver’s test. Although they probably already understand the most common one.
New York’s street safety efforts seem to be paying off, after 2024 was the safest year on city streets since they began keeping stats 116 years ago.
A 40-year old man from El Cajon, California has been charged in the hit-and-run death of a 49-year old man riding an ebike in Mount Laurel, New Jersey, after spending three days on the run.
New Orleans is the latest city to offer a rebate up to $1,200 to buy a new ebike. Which compares favorably to the $0 offered by Los Angeles.
A 20-year old hit-and-run driver in Louisiana also faces a vehicular homicide count, among other charges, after the 64-year old bike-riding man he ran down while allegedly driving drunk died in the hospital a day later.
Once again, an advocate for safer streets was killed while riding his bike, this time when a Macon, Georgia man was run down from behind by a 73-year old woman, who claims she didn’t see him before the crash — yet police still blamed the victim for simply riding in the roadway, instead of on the shoulder, and not yielding to traffic.
Sad news from Florida, where Joe Montgomery died of apparent heart trouble, 55-year after he founded Cannondale above a Connecticut pickle factory, naming the bikemaker after a nearby train station; he was 86.
International
Momentum offers their resolutions for a “very bicycle new year,” including embarking on more aimless, social bike rides, and always make bicycling the first choice.
British Columbia bike riders say winter weather doesn’t stop them, but “snow-packed bike lanes and impatient drivers” can.
Bicycling has hit an all-time high in Flanders, with an increase of 40,000 bicycle trips per day since 2022 in the Dutch-speaking region of northern Belgium.
Take a bicycle tour of Transylvania. But maybe wear a garlic necklace just to be safe.
Over 1,000 people turned out in Vadodara, India on Sunday for the 55th annual Fit India Sundays on Cycle, just one of the 5,000 bike events held across the country yesterday.
A Zambian woman says the gift of a Buffalo bike from World Bicycle Relief has allowed her to double the profits from her small shop, and help her children dream of a better future.
Bicycling has become a hugely popular form of recreation in China, accounting for a whopping $42.9 billion in bike sales in 2024.
Next time you find yourself in Osaka, Japan, make plans to visit the Shimano Bicycle Museum, where you’ll find a century of exclusive bicycling history from the earliest Safety Bikes, to a rain-proof electric trike and a five-seat racing bike.
Competitive Cycling
British Olympic cyclist Sir Chris Hoy made his first appearance just weeks after suffering a severe leg injury in a mountain biking crash, hobbling out on crutches to present a trophy to the winner of the World Darts Championship.
Double Olympic medalist Wout van Aert had surgery to repair a fracture and a sprained ankle after crashing on a snowy ‘cross course.
A Rwandan website considers the role a mother played in the rise of her daughter in junior cycling.
Finally…
Who needs an ebike when you’ve got an exoskeleton? Or a camper van when you’ve got a postal ebike?
And doing the Stranger Things bike thing, without that whole downer Upside Down thing.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin.
