KATU, Portland’s ABC affiliate, ran a special “On Your Side” report last night on the fixed-gear bicycle brake issue.
The story was given the headline of “Are brakeless bikes safe to ride?”. Of course “brakeless” bikes are not safe. But are fixed-geared bikes technically brakeless? That depends on your definition of brake […]

Senator Ginny Burdick accepted an Alice Award in March.(File photo)

In a conference committee in Salem today, Senator Ginny Burdick decided that Senate Bill 729 — which sought to update Oregon’s law regarding bicycle brake requirements — will move forward without a key phrase that would have allowed fixed-gear bicycles to not be required to have […]

There’s been a surprising turn of events in the fixed-gear brake saga.
Last week I reported that the effort to clarify the bicycle brake requirement so that fixed-gear bicycles don’t need to have an additional brake was on its way to becoming Oregon law.
The bill (S.B. 729) has passed the Senate and the House […]

The case that started it all.Mark Ginsberg defends Ayla Holland in July ‘06.(File photo)

The Oregonian has the word from Salem on the fixed gear bill.
Senate Bill 729 — which seeks to clarify the existing bicycle brake requirement so that fixed-gear bicycles don’t need an additional brake (as long as they meet the performance standard) — […]

Senate Bill 729, which seeks to clarify the existing bicycle brake requirement so that fixed-gear bicycles don’t need an additional brake (as long as they meet the performance standard), got its first hearing on the House side of the capitol in Salem this morning.

The House Judiciary Committee unanimously passed the bill and now it […]

BTA lobbyist Scott Bricker reports that Senate Bill 729, which seeks to amend the brake requirement for bicycles, passed through the Senate in Salem today by a landslide margin of 22-6.

A no hand-brake fixiespotted downtown last week.File photo: 3/30/07

The bill, which passed through committee just one week ago, would create a performance standard for […]

Mark Ginsberg and Hazel Gross arrive at the State Capitol to testifyin support of the fixie bill.

Senate Bill 729, which intends to clean up Oregon law regarding the brake requirement for bicycles and add an exception for fixed gear bicycles, took a step toward becoming law today.
The bill received a hearing in front of the […]

This coming Tuesday, Salem lawmakers are holding a public hearing on Senate Bill 729. SB 729 is the “fixie bill” that is being proposed to clarify the legal language and shore up confusion around how the bicycle equipment requirement (ORS 815.280) should pertain to fixed-gear bicycles.
Since Ayla Holland’s seminal case last July there has […]

A reader recently sent me a a German news story about police and fixed-gear bicycles. Judging by the photos accompanying the story (below), he suspected (hoped) it was about how some German cops were riding fixed-gear bicycles on their bike patrols. This would be in direct contrast to Portland cops who issue citations […]

Dabby, (a veteran Portland messenger and regular commenter) just sent me an interesting bit of news.
The Washington Area Bicyclists Association, an advocacy group in DC, has worked with the Washington DC Department of Transportation to amend their law to explicitly allow fixed gear bicycles to be used without separate hand brakes.

Here is the […]

As I write this, bike lawyer Mark Ginsberg is doing battle in the Multnomah County Courthouse in downtown Portland.
He is fighting the questionable tickets of ten cyclists.
BikePortland.org correspondent Elly Blue was there this morning and said that unfortunately the judge of the day is Gregg Lowe, the same guy who upheld the fixed-gear ticket against […]

[Officer Brett Barnum taking the oath at the Ayla Holland trial.]

Officer Brett Barnum of the Portland Police Bureau Traffic Division has been at the center of the fixed gear enforcement issue. He was the officer who convinced a traffic court judge to uphold his citation of Ayla Holland back on July 28th (the case […]

This morning Portland cyclist John Boyd successfully defended himself in a Multnomah County traffic court trial for a ticket he received for riding a fixed-gear bicycle without a hand brake.
Boyd, a 40 year-old architect and resident of Northeast Portland, was given the ticket by Officer Barnum of the Portland Police Bureau’s Traffic Division. Barnum […]

[via the Portland Mercury Blog]

[Notice of appeal]

Portland lawyer Mark Ginsberg has filed an appeal in the Ayla Holland fixed-gear case.
Ginsberg waited to make his decision until after he and his staff could closely scrutinize the transcript from the initial trial.
Ayla Holland told me in a recent phone conversation that she feels strongly about […]

The Portland Mercury Blog is reporting that Multnomah County Judge Dale Koch has denied lawyer Mark Ginsberg’s request to have his stack of fixed-gear tickets heard in a real courtroom, instead of in lowly traffic court.
Since the Ayla Holland case, Ginsberg has collected seven more cases of bicyclists being ticketed for not having a […]

[Click for full PDF, 2.1MB]

Mark Ginsberg, lawyer in the Ayla Holland case, has just sent me the official transcript (PDF, 2.1MB) from her traffic court trial. It’s an interesting read.
If you don’t get around to downloading the file, here’s the excerpt from the judge’s final decision:
Judge Lowe:
“The testimony here is that there […]

[Jason Atkinson, Oregon State Senator.]

Republican Oregon State Senator Jason Atkinson read about Ayla Holland’s court case on CyclingNews.com and was furious. Atkinson—who was elected to the Oregon State Senate at the ripe age of 30—is an avid cyclist and traveled through Oregon on a fixed-gear bike during his campaign for Governor in ‘05. […]