Magnus White’s not-accidental car killing and the language of car "accidents," with No More Ghost Rides and Trash Panda Cycling’s LA bike calendar organizer Raphael Hernandez. (2:31) Fight Back: Talking Back To Bikelash with CalBike’s Kevin Claxton. www.calbike.org/talking-back-to-bikelash/ (13:20) RAGBRAI: The Great Iowa Fall Ride with “Shift” documentarians/Des Moines Register journalists Courtney Crowder and Kelsey Kremer, and RAGBRAIder Shem Bitterman, with Taylor. ragbrai.com/documentary/ (...
Jul 06, 2025•58 min
At the virtual Bicycle Film Festival, Taylor sees a woman set a new record of riding a bike at 183 mph (0:22). Nick visits Los Angeles, runs into a Hollywood ride out, and meets bike dancer Denis (4:42). Taylor will use any pretext for a bike errand, reveals his wife Marga (7:05). Money for protected bike lanes in Denver was about to be spent on removing them, until the Mayor's Bike Advisory Council caught on. With Loren Hansen, Chair of the Denver MBAC (8:49). NYC Mayor Eric Adams' war on bikes...
Jun 27, 2025•58 min
Taylor bikes to a No Kings protest, and meets a friend of the show (3:30). Our lawyer, James Pocrass, on what to do if the authorities take your bike at a protest-and how to avoid it (6:04). Original cohost and bike mechanic Jim Cadenhead on the plusses and minuses of tubeless tires (12:30). Sammy's Law was meant to allow New York City to reduce car speeds to 20mph. NYC Mayor Adams cynically used the law to justify limiting the speed not of cars, but ebikes. This outraged many, but none more tha...
Jun 19, 2025•58 min
LA Bike Advocate and Altadena Town Councilmember Dorothy Wong on rebuilding her home and her town after the LA fires destroyed both (2:17). The "Born To Be Wild" bikepackers of Northampton High School reflect on their annual 4-day tour of Western Massachusetts (13:29). New York City is dragging cyclists to criminal court for minor and sometimes made up traffic infractions under a new anti-bike policy. Kevin Duggan, StreetsblogNYC journalist, has been doing in-depth reporting, and shares his insi...
Jun 13, 2025•58 min
Listener email: the difference between bike packing and bike touring, and what handlebar bags and panniers to get (1:11). New York City has begun a policy of criminalizing minor traffic violations for cyclists. We talk to Carl Mahaney of Streetopia Upper West side and Open Plans, and Josh Wood of the New York City Bicycle Messenger Association (7:08). The legality of criminalizing cyclists, with James Pocrass (28:09). In other news, a NYC Critical Mass to protest overpolicing cyclists, a study s...
Jun 05, 2025•58 min
Janice Walrafen loves Bike Talk on WGDR in Vermont - a listener email (1:09). Summer bikepacking! Nick's Berkshires tour and Taylor's cross country plans (3:05). Are Waymo robotaxis safer than humans? And when AVs hit cyclists or pedestrians, who's liable? Our lawyer, Jim Pocrass, advises (6:49). The Consumer Protection Safety Commission regulates bikes and bike parts, and was working to standardize e-bike battery standards - until the Trump administration began trying to take away its status as...
May 30, 2025•58 min
Nick's daughter Penny learned to ride on two wheels using the towel technique (1:50). Bike To Work Week with Mayor Chelsea Lee Byers in West Hollywood, Ca (7:33). Bike To Work Week in Northampton, Ma with Mayor Gina Louise Sciarra, Representative Lindsay Sabadosa, and All Bodies on Bikes organizer Jacob Sheppard-Saidel (11:44). The debate over Autonomous Vehicles' safety record versus cyclists and pedestrians continues, with data showing AVs "generally demonstrate better safety in most scenarios...
May 23, 2025•58 min
Ontario Premier Doug Ford tried to remove Toronto's bike lanes, but Toronto bike advocacy organization Cycle Toronto and allies won a court injunction pausing the removal. Executive Director Michael Longfield discusses what it means (2:42). The City of Oakland denied liability for a cyclist's serious injuries due to bad pavement, arguing that the liability waiver the cyclist had signed with AIDS Lifecycle applied to the City. Last week, in Whitehead v. the City of Oakland, the California Supreme...
May 16, 2025•57 min
News: It's Bike Month! Also- an Ontario, Canada court may save Toronto bike lanes, Waymo says its AVs are 25x safer than human drivers for cyclists and pedestrians on the road, Trump's tariffs will devastate the bike industry, and Americans are losing interest in buying cars (1:47). The QUIMBY movement = Quality In My Back Yard, and it means high quality codes/laws/permitting/planning high quality buildings, streets, bike lanes and buses, say Norm Van Eeden Petersman, Strong Towns' Director of M...
May 09, 2025•58 min
Our Lawyer, Jim Pocrass, assesses the lawsuit brought by Streetsblog Los Angeles editor Joe Linton. LA Metro has argued that because it's not the city, it doesn't have to make bike infrastructure when repaving city streets, as called for in ballot measure HLA. The agency claims it would have to destroy homes and buildings to both preserve parking and make space for bikes (3:40). The standoff between New York and the Federal government over congestion pricing, as told by Streetsblog NYC Editor Ge...
May 01, 2025•58 min
Amy, gravel rider (1:05). News: Street safety advocates call for protected bike lanes on California’s deadly Pacific Coast Highway. https://mailchi.mp/streetsforall/pch-master-plan-042025?e=efb877b7f5 The City of Sacramento will be the first in the Nation to use cameras on buses that detect cars parked in bike lanes. https://fox40.com/news/local-news/sacramento/automated-bike-lane-enforcement-launches-in-sacramento-first-in-the-nation/ Austin, TX is going to spend $80,000 to remove a two way bik...
Apr 25, 2025•58 min
News: Healthy Streets LA, the ballot measure which requires Los Angeles to implement bike infrastructure every time city streets are repaved, is being ignored by the county's transportation agency, LA Metro. Taylor talks with the founder of Streets For All, Michael Schneider, who led the HLA campaign, and the Editor of Streetsblog LA, Joe Linton, who's now suing the city (1:33). It’s been 100 years since the Los Angeles city council passed the ordinance which said that if you’re walking you have...
Apr 18, 2025•58 min
April is National Distracted Driving Awareness Month, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's "Put the Phone Away or Pay" campaign emphasizes education and enforcement but not engineering. Our Lawyer, Jim Pocrass, shares his practice of suing distracted drivers as a deterrent (0:26). A driver was found guilty of Reckless Vehicular Homicide in the killing of 17 year old rising US cycling star Magnus White. She was asleep at the wheel (8:51). What to do now that USDOT intends to k...
Apr 11, 2025•58 min
Listener Email: John Gibilisco on the Sisyphean undertaking of Omaha bike advocacy (1:40). #Teslatakedown (2:45). The MAGAS are cutting all federal funding for bike infrastructure but also reneging on grants to projects like Reconnecting Communities, which would address the harms of highways. With Yonah Freemark, a principal research associate in the Housing and Communities Division at the Urban Institute (4:05). Boston's bike friendly Mayor Wu is ripping out protected bike lanes to appease the ...
Apr 02, 2025•58 min
Tesla’s polluting plants, Musk’s racist genealogy and the #Teslatakedown (1:53). Our new regime is anti-active transportation, so we check in with Strong Towns founder Charles Marohn for what we can do locally to make towns more bikeable and livable (7:17). Rochester University Campus Times writers Teddy Almond and Maya Brosnick debate NYC's congestion pricing (30:28). Robert Zaichkowski’s Bike Thought (54:17).
Mar 26, 2025•58 min
Ontario's reactionary re-elected Premier, Doug Ford, aims to rip out Toronto's bike lanes despite his own experts' testimony that they work. Our correspondent Madeleine Bonsma-Fisher on the view from Toronto (2:31). The US DOT halts all active transportation funding that might reduce emissions or improve accessibility. James Pocrass, Los Angeles Bike Lawyer, gives his view (9:31). News: "Congestion Pricing is Dead...Long Live the King," declared trump's X post, referring to himself... But conges...
Mar 19, 2025•59 min
Taylor's day of service fixing bikes and teaching kids how to ride safely with Brett Atencio-Thomas, Active Costa Mesa, California's Transportation Coordinator. Brett tells about the Three Pronged approach to making a 21st century city (0:38). On February 25th, a group of cyclists in Boyle Heights were handing out "Know Your Rights" cards with information on what to do if approached by ICE. They were struck by a hit-and-run driver in a Kia sedan with the license plate 8GAN606, and the driver is ...
Mar 12, 2025•54 min
LA Locals Taylor & Don saw the city like tourists on an Ebike Tour of Hollywood (0:22). Bike Director Kevin Wong on Chinatown's March 8-9 Firecracker Ride, the largest Lunar New Year Run, Walk, Cycling, and Dog Walk event in the US (4:59). Bike Indianapolis Advocacy Committee Chair Jakob Morales on the recent vigil and ghost bike placement for Dillan Lee Rogers (10:41). Jacquie Phelan, veteran mountain bike racer and way paver for women racers, on the early days of the sport. Jacquie also ta...
Mar 04, 2025•1 hr 21 min
Taylor’s science-backed brush with car-induced unhappiness (0:22) New York City congestion pricing will resist Trump’s attempts to kill it, predicts NYC Transportation Alternatives Communications Director, Alexa Sledge (3:25). Maybe the NYC toll program would fare better if we labelled them “Congestion tariffs,” suggests Listener Rick Bosacker (10:35). Congestion Pricing, climate change, and the dire situation in federal funding, a bike advocacy roundtable with Cynthia Rose, President of Santa M...
Feb 27, 2025•58 min
On vacation in Fraser, CO, "the ice box of America," self-proclaimed "single track capital of the world," Taylor talks track with Ben Quinn, owner of Ice Box Mountain Sports (2:08). Our friend, Los Angeles bike advocate, cyclocross racer, and survivor of the Eaton fire, Dorothy Wong, on rebuilding Los Angeles (5:23). A California court's ruling that recreational cyclists can't sue the city when injured on city streets makes no sense, according to bike lawyer James Pocrass, and be careful when yo...
Feb 21, 2025•1 hr 4 min
Donald Shoup, author of "The High Cost of Free Parking," has died. Tony Jordan, President of the Parking Reform Network, talks about Shoup's decades of teaching, writing, and speaking on reversing subsidized free car storage (1:16). Find our interviews with the Professor of Parking by searching "Shoup" at biketalk.org. CalBike Joins Amicus Brief in Safe Streets Accountability Case after lower courts categorized bike riders as “recreational” street users who venture onto public streets at their o...
Feb 12, 2025•1 hr 1 min
Taylor almost gets killed, and Stacey does get hit (1:14). Taylor fixes up bikes for fire victims in Los Angeles with Jim Shanman and Walk n Rollers (5:10). News, powered by Ted Rogers' Bikinginla.com (9:41): Waymo reports AVs are safer than human drivers. Bike theft increased 15% last year The League of American Bicyclists is out with their latest list of the country’s most Bicycle Friendly Communities A new report says California is the most car dependent state A new study shows bicycling has ...
Feb 05, 2025•1 hr
Bike Lawyer James Pocrass on what it's like to bike in Los Angeles with the fires still burning, avoiding scams, and wearing masks (0:47). With fewer cars and fewer injuries, the congestion pricing zone in NYC is like Sunday all week, according to StreetsblogNYC Editor Gersh Kuntzman (6:39). News: bike crashes are reduced at intersections with Stop-as-yield laws, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration finds (14:27). Listener Rick Bosacker writes & asks for a Bike Talk on how “cyc...
Jan 30, 2025•58 min
Cohosts Taylor, Nick, Lindsay and Stacey ponder possible effects of the new administration on bikes, cars, and infrastructure (0:57). Listener Email: Reese Bastion writes about motonormativity, the acceptance of public hazards from cars where similar hazards like smoking wouldn't be tolerated. This sparks a discussion about how the framework that led to smoking in public being banned could apply to oversized SUVs (4:52). Listener bike tours: Rick Bosacker, M.D., of New Zealand calls from a cruis...
Jan 23, 2025•58 min
Altadena Town Councilmember, Bike Educator/activist, cyclocross champion and race organizer Dorothy Wong lost her house in the fires, along with all her bikes. She reflects with Culver City Councilmember Bubba Fish-also a bike activist (1:39). The Bike Oven of Highland Park, long a community hub for DIY bike repair, has become an emergency aid distribution center. Volunteer Joe Borfo talks to us about their operation (40:57). News: Entitled driver rages against kids on bikes. Then, the kids rage...
Jan 14, 2025•1 hr
In honor of the New Year, Nick shares his mission statement for Bike Talk, and compares his acting career with Taylor's (0:35). Taylor interviews a Costa Rican mountain biker on his recent trip to Costa Rica (4:15)... and shares his mission statement for Bike Talk (8:30). News: On Day 1 of Congestion Pricing in NYC, Transportation Alternatives Communications Director Alexa Sledge shares her observations (9:38). A new California law defines "e-bike" (17:26). Studies: Listener "Big E" emails Bike ...
Jan 09, 2025•1 hr
Midnight Rida/Bike Oven volunteer Joe Borfo lends Bike Talk his tandem for a new logo(0:26). News: Bill 212 passes, allowing Ontario Premier Doug Ford to proceed with removing Toronto's popular bike lanes despite data that shows they're successful. Congestion pricing starts in NYC (4:57). A Winnipeg rider, Patty Wiens, responds to Taylor’s LA-centric comments about winter riding “on a trainer in the basement” back east (6:39). Why Are American Drivers so Deadly? NY Times writer Matthew Shaer unp...
Jan 02, 2025•59 min
National Bike News: car related crime, TAP funding, and the EXPLORE act passage. Studies: E-bikes and scooters displace 4x as much demand for oil as all of the EVs in the world, and vehicles with higher, more vertical front ends pose greater risk to pedestrians (6:23). What to do in a bike crash, with LA Personal Injury Attorney Jim Pocrass (9:32). Livable Communities: bikes, transit, and housing. Liveable Communities Initiative founder Lindsay Sturman and Taylor Nichols (15:48). “Hating Bike La...
Dec 25, 2024•58 min
An email from avid listener Rick Bosacker, who gets the joke about "avid cyclists." He's on a 13 month world tour with his family, who are differently avid. Taylor gets route help from Canadian cyclists Dan and Lynette Markham in bike-unfriendly Laguna Beach, California (2:12) Bike Friendly States' ranking highlights by the League of American Bicyclists' Policy Director Ken Macleod (5:19) Intro 606 bill would require the licensing of ebikes in NYC, and make every person on a bike a target- espec...
Dec 18, 2024•1 hr
The Ebike Getaway of Luigi Mangioni (1:28) An overview of the Washington Area Bicycle Coalition, WABA, by Elizabeth Kiker, Executive Director (5:29) The Evanston, IL Bike Lane Debate as told by Streetsblog Chicago Editor John Greenfield (7:46) People who bike were betrayed by the Denver Department of Transportation and Infrastructure’s watering down of a protected bike lane, say Denver Bike Lobbyists Alejandra Castañeda and Rob Toftness (14:10) The video game Loser Lane is impossibly dangerous, ...
Dec 11, 2024•54 min
