The Internet Never Forgets - Revisiting a Forgotten Resource Archive
Modern Bicycling Advocacy has reverted into a Dark Age, Part II of ?
Below is a long list of bicycling related websites I put together in either late 2017 or 2018 which is ancient history in Internet time. Items in italics are dead links on today’s internet. Each of those links have been replaced with a copy available on the Internet Archive. Other than that, the descriptions match the original 2017 copy.
Cycling Advocacy, Safety, and Education
American Bicycling Education Association (ABEA) – creators of Cycling Savvy and Iamtraffic.
Bicycledriving.org – Paul Schimek’s website and blog with a great page for educating motorists along with great commentary about bicycling advocacy and safety
Bicycling Life – Website full of good bicycling articles mainly geared toward utility, touring, and commuting cycling. It features good advocacy and safety articles by many of the people who write for the other websites listed here are also found on Bicycling Life.
Bicycling Matters – Library of papers by Wayne Pein. These papers should be mandatory reading for anybody involved in the transportation engineering.
Bicyclesafe.com Michael Bluejay, an Austin-based cyclist wrote this informative site called, “How to not get hit by cars.”
Bike Walk NC – a North Carolina-based advocacy group with excellent articles on bicycling and walking.
CABO (Calif. Assoc. of Bicycling Organizations) – California’s top organization for cycling safety and advocacy.
Close Call Database – Website where bicyclists who are victims of crimes can report close calls from motorists. Many of the reports are capture on video. Whenever a crime against a cyclist is committed in your area, an email is blasted to members in the vicinity to be on the look out. Unfortunately requires a Strava account to post or view.
Cycling in the South Bay – a blog by Seth Davidson, an LA-area bicycle injury lawyer, defender of bicyclist’s rights and avid underwear-peddling bicyclist. Seth also has a great sense of humor and writes almost every day.
Cyclist Video Evidence – Similar to Close Call Database but is mostly California based. In recent years there have been a few high profile crimes committed against cyclists captured on video but CA law enforcement and CA district attorneys have cold feet about actually doing anything about it.
Cycling Savvy- is a two part cycling education and safety course from American Bicycling Education Association (ABEA). They offer both an online video-based course as well as in-person courses all over the US which include classroom sessions and riding sessions.
Humantransport.org North Carolina-based cyclist Steven Goodridge which offers level-headed criticism of the many forms of unsafe bicycling specific infrastructure
Iamtraffic.org Another website from ABEA which hasn’t been updated in some time but includes an excellent page of scaled infographics, videos, and articles. The website also includes a page that compares the bike laws in all 50 US states and section called Understanding Bicycling Transportation.
John Forester – Yes that John Forester. Love him or hate him he’s right about the fundamentals of bicyclists needing to operate as drivers. A lot of people can’t get over shooting the messenger. His book Effective Cycling is also really good.
LAB Reform (domain expired but archived) Website critical of the internal politics and focus shift of the League of American Bicyclists (LAB)
advocacy group who stands up for cyclist’s rightslobbying group. Note that while LAB as an organization no longer truly defends bicyclists rights there are still plenty of LAB-certified instructors who can provide courses similar to Cycling Savvy. Many of these instructors are also becoming certified to teach Cycling Savvy.Responsible Cycling Coalition Ottawa-based website which also promotes bicycle driving.
Street Smarts John Allen, a well known bicycling advocate, wrote this free “cyclist’s ed” booklet which has been adopted by several state DMVs, translated into several languages, and adapted for use in other countries. John Allen also runs his own personal website, a blog, and a Vimeo channel. (2022 Note: ABEA/Cycling Savvy folks worked with John Allen to produce an updated version that is available in print and in e-book format for Kindle apps and devices)
Think Bicycling Advocacy and safety blog run by Martin Pion, a well respected cyclist in the St. Louis Area. He also has a Youtube Channel.
Vehicular Cyclist also based in Ottawa.
Facebook Groups: (2022 Note: I no longer maintain a FB account and they’ve made it excessively difficult for non-users to access items without accounts)
Supporters of Full Lane a Rights for Cyclists – private group – must request an invite. Copy and paste the title into the FB search bar.
Google Groups:
Bicycle Driving – not very active anymore but has a good deal of worthy discussions.
CABO –
YouTube/Vimeo Channels:
Bicycle Driver Bicycle commuter based in Ohio in an area without any special bicycle specific infrastructure.
Bikeblogger Bike Blogger talks often short of breath when he rides. In terms of safe cycling, he does a good job of explaining what he’s doing and why.
Bill Davidson A San Diego area cyclist and staunch cycling advocate. Bill often went into the bowels of internet comments at the bottom of articles to defend cyclists and put anti-cycling bigots in their place. Unfortunately he passed away last year.
Cherokee Schill is infamous for being persecuted by law enforcement and the courts in KY for rightfully riding her bicycle in the travel lane to and from her job. Her story and the facts are here.
Cyclist Lorax these videos, shot around nine years ago mostly in the LA area (ancient history in Internet time) are the predecessors to today’s dual camera videos such as the ones used for Cycling Savvy. These show that yes, it’s possible to safely and confidently control the lane even around Southern California’s nasty arterials.
Doug Reynolds I’m not sure where Doug rides but his videos are usually pretty good.
Gary Cziko is a Cycling Savvy instructor based in Los Angeles and runs a Vimeo channel. He’s also seen here presenting on how he brought Cycling Savvy to several road cycling clubs in Southern California.
John Allen of Street Smarts fame hosts both educational and videos critical of dangerous bicycling infrastructure on Vimeo.
Martin Pion of Bicycling Matters
Patrick Smith Memphis based transportation cyclist whose route follows mainly two lane (and shoulderless) roads. He also wrote a piece for Cycling Savvy.
Pedal Traffic Another bicycle commuter based in rural Utah who rides similar roads as Patrick Smith.
General Cycling Sites:
Bikeindex – free to use bike registration website. Use of the site is free. Users can report when their bike is stolen and others in the area receive optional emails whenever another user’s bike is reported stolen.
BikinginLA – Ted Rogers, an LA-area bicyclist and advocate puts together almost daily a news feed of local, regional, national, and international news related to bicycling. He seems to be more of a fan for cycling facilities than I am but he also has no problem defending cyclists using standard roadways.
Jim Langley Bicycle Aficionado – focuses more on bicycle repair specifically
Jobst Brandt archives – The late Jobst Brandy, engineer and author of The Bicycle Wheel quite literally got into the nuts and bolts of bicycling.
Ken Kifer’s Bike Pages (archived) Ken Kifer, a lifetime touring and commuting bicyclist wrote excellent bicycling articles which are still relevant today and archived for the world to see. In 2003 while riding his bicycle he was killed by a criminal operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated.
National Bike Registry (now rebranded as 529 Garage) another free to use bike registry.
Off the Beaten Path Jan Heine’s personal bicycling blog. The Cycling Safety category has many home runs but the rest of the blog is also great
Retrogrouch fan of the old stuff and critic of the current “most make a buck” motives of the bicycle industry .
RJ The Bike Guy RJ posts videos of bicycle repair and restoration. His videos are well made and his explanations are easy to follow.
Sheldon Brown – The website of the late Sheldon Brown is probably the internet’s greatest source for bicycle information. It’s still maintained and updated by others including John Allen.