Bicycling

In the past several weeks, I've noticed a trend.  Cyclists from some of the cities surrounding Los Angeles have been emailing me asking why I never report on the great things going on in their back yards.  As a result, I'm going to write about what's going on around the county every Friday until I run out of topics.

Dave Burdick yesterday offered up his choices for the Top 5 videos featuring a bicycle on the Huffington Post. While it's nice to see the mainstream blogosphere types showing some love for two-wheelers, c'mon man! Robin Thicke bouncing around NYC on a crappy bike to "Disco Beethoven" is the world's number one bike video?! I think not.

Wisconsin's Jeff Frings is an avid bike rider. He's also a photographer for Milwaukee's Fox 6, which may be why this report is among the most fair and balanced we've seen on cyclists' right to the road.

A new organization calling themselves "West LA for Change" debuted itself to thousands of drivers on the 405 by unrolling a 100 foot sign calling for a speeded up time table for the Subway to the Sea and Phase II of the Expo Line.  The group doesn't seem to limit itself to transportation advocacy, as their website promotes the group as:

Last March, there was a flurry of "bus versus bicycle" stories that captured the attention of bike blogs and Metro itself.  On it's worst day, two stories, one by Enci Box and one by Eric Richardson were posted within hours of each other.  Metro responded by putting together a task force for cyclists and operators to talk it out and hopefully come up with some solutions.

Robert Sullivan, author of a recent biking etiquette piece in the New York Times that sparked some heated discussion in the comments section of New York Streetsblog, presents this video introducing the concept of "schluffing." He says the word is meant to evoke "a kind of sleepy riding" not to be confused with schlepping, which this technique helps to minimize. (The origin of the term, I'm told, has something to do with the Yiddish word shlofn.) Etymology aside, the video makes it pretty clear what he's getting at:

(editor's note: I'm told to expect more of these videos from the Bike Summit and as they are finnished, I'll post them here at Streetsblog.)

BikePortland‘s Jonathan Maus is down in D.C. today for the National Bike Summit, where Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood gave the opening address this morning. From Maus’s recap: Photo: Jonathan Maus At the outset of his remarks, he said, “I want all of you to know you have a full partner at the US DOT in … Continued

Yesterday, regular reader and MetroRider Calwatch sent me a story from the Daily Bulletin that quoted a member of the California Highway Patrol that bike riding two abreast is always illegal.  The worst part of the article was that the CHP initially said that two abreast riding is legal in certain circumstances but then the agency went to great pains to backtrack and make sure to get out the wrong information.