Atip's Latest Ghost Bike Removed; Dangerous Intersection Now More Deadly

Atip's latest Ghost Bike has been removed. Apparentely, the Ghost Bike was removed on Tuesday, July 21, less than 48 hours after the bike was locked up.

When I rode up to the corner of the University Ave & Park Blvd intersection on Saturday, July 25 to take-in and appreciate the awareness that the Ghost Bikes have brought to that deadly, car-centric intersection, I was saddened to ride up to what turned out to be a bike-less, naked, grey corner. It's disappointing to see that people's well-intentioned methods of physically memorializing a killed human being, can simply be scooped up, curbed, and tossed into the back of a City-owned truck like an abandoned shopping-cart.

City governments should be focused on protecting the well-being of it's citizens. Spending our tax dollars and wasting money to remove a safety-awareness-raising work of public art is backwards. Thank you City of San Diego Street Divisions for spending money to make a dangerous intersection more deadly---all so you can hide the weaknesses of your auto-centric, car-first, pedestrians/cyclists-last philosophy.

It's clear; Street Divisions, a City of SD department directed by an automobile-traffic-engineer, is determined to remove anything from the corner that is mildly associated w/ Atip and/or bike-safety (Source on Deputy Director's automobile-traffic-engineer background: Personal phone conversation before the original Ghost Bike Memorial was removed, 2008).

Fortunately, a permanent memorial is in the works. An awesome and super-fun fundraiser-event is being planned! Details very soon.

(The Ghost Bike that was removed appears above. Photo by Matt Lingo ( MattLingo.com ))

Oh, and if you happen to be in SINGAPORE!

Go to this:

San Diego gets up, global-stylez.

That kind of reminds of this Gogol Bordello shirt I saw a kid wearing last Friday that said, 'Think Locally. Fuck Globally.'

SD is gettin' mad global. Kareem's DEATH PEDAL and all the world tour mania that has come w/ this awesome film is helping to put SD even more up on the map.

If you haven't seen the film or picked up the DVD yet, do so promptly. It's fast-paced fun, like your favorite punk-rock album.

Available here: http://www.death-pedal.com/

D.P., directed by SD's Kareem Shehab, features San Diego's most gnarly fixed-gear riders and world-class riders from Germany, Singapore, Seattle, and Phoenix. D.P. was filmed in Singapore, Peru, SD, Seattle, PHX, and Beijing. To learn more about the Beijing element of the filming and how I was fortunate enough to get involved w/ the filming and the fun, check out my Beijing Dispatches blog at http://www.prereq.blogspot.com/

Beijing Dispatches hosts some photos from the trip to Beijing that Kareem and I took last summer which involved plenty of mashing, raging shows, and getting into Olympic Games! And, yes, we did plenty of nerding out on ping pong matches and bike events, particularly the Lasoshan Velodrome Track race where we saw a world-record got BROKED and also the first BMX Olympics appearance ever!

65 cents for a cup of Tsingtao beer at the Olympic games? Yes, and amazing.

And by the way, speaking of China, Beijing, and blogs, I just learned a few days ago from my friend who resides in China that my Prereq BJ Dispatches blog is now CENSORED in China!

That's the SECOND BLOG of mine that's been CENSORED by the Chinese government. My first blog I couldn't access because of what I believe is due to the political-orientation of my URL headline. My 2nd Prereq blog was accessible during my whole trip. But apparently, someone at the China Censoring Department, or whatever bureaucratic name they've chosen to use, perhaps noticed my intentional misspellings of words like 'cnsrshp' and 'dmcrcy.' Or maybe it was due to a picture I took of an interesting monitoring system that films intersections and displays the live happenings of intersection traffic on a giant screen. Check it out (on the blog) to see the pic.

It's kind of sad that my blog got censored since now my friends in China can't read it anymore but it's also pretty interesting that the Chinese government doesn't want their citizens reading about sociological subjects that interest me.

This whole ordeal actually increases my fascination w/ modern Chinese society, culture, and arts even more...

Community Gathers to Recognize One-year Passing of Atip; Ghost Bike Memorial Returns

Friends of Atip gathered on the afternoon of Sunday, July 19, to commemorate the life and death of our fallen friend.
It was clear, judged by the turnout, that positive and loving memories of Atip remain omnipresent in the minds of his friends, community, co-workers, and fellow cyclists fortunate enough to have known such a positive-thinking and influential individual.
A Ghost Bike memorial returned to the corner of the deadly Park Blvd. & University Ave intersection; the site of the high-speed collision which took the life of our friend on July 19, 2008.
Above photos taken by Matt Lingo.
Following photos taken by Skyy:




Atip will never be forgotten.
We miss you, dawg.

One-Year Anniversary Memorial for Atip Ouypron

Come join us on Sunday July 19th, 5p.m. a the corner of the Park Ave. & University Ave. intersection to remember our dear friend Atip Ouypron.

2nd Annual Chain Gang Waterpark Ride Tomorrow, Saturday, July 18

Chain Gang Annual Waterpark Ride is THIS Saturday July 18!

Meet at the fountain at 11am for wet & wild mayhem. We ride thru S.E. SD, National City, and CV, at a moderate friendly communal pace w/ essential pit stops along the way. Our destination?: The MOTHERFCKN WATERPARK in Chula Vista! (CV)

So don't miss out cuz this is it!

This ride is Kareem Shehab's Going Away Ride! Kareem (Chain Gang, Death Pedal) is moving to Atlanta to get a Masters in Engineering at grad school (Big ups, big K!). While in ATL Kareem will be living w/ Outcast and filming sections of Death Pedal 2 with Ludacris! yeah, the boy is seriously connected.

Coincidentally,.... it is also his birthday this weekend! So come out and give up sum luv for our homie4lyf.

In addition, this ride will also be celebrating the belated birthday of Eddie Kon!

we dont have time to make a flier cuz were too busy shaving our speedo lines. but you can find pics from last year's ride (taken by the great Marcus Sundance Price) below:




















well be taking the trolley back up afterwards.
Wet & wild!
FUN!

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