This video edited by Dan Gutierrez is very important.

It’s crucial for cyclists to stay out of the door zone — not just watch for opening car doors — because you won’t have time to take evasive action. The video shows that a rider hit by an opening car door is invariably thrown onto his or her back in the adjacent lane, helpless to avoid being run over by traffic.

Watch the video and consider seriously what your riding position should be in relation to car doors.

The Alliance for Biking and Walking and the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition have joined forces to host a bootcamp in Los Angeles for cycling advocates from Friday, October 14, 2011, through Sunday, October 16, 2011. It’s called Winning Campaigns Training.

The Alliance’s Winning Campaigns Training is a three-day boot camp for bicycle and pedestrian advocacy organizations. This action-oriented workshop gives novice and veteran advocates the tools to create and manage powerful campaigns to increase biking and walking in their communities. Our proven curriculum is led by longtime advocates and national experts with firsthand experience conducting — and winning — bicycle and pedestrian campaigns.

At Winning Campaigns Trainings, you’ll learn how to:

• Choose the right issue
• Set realistic but visionary goals
• Choose the best strategies, tactics and timelines
• Map out the power structure in the community; support and leverage allies; neutralize and convert enemies
• Communicate effectively, reaching the right audience with the right message through the right media
• Raise money for the campaign
• Strengthen your organization for the next, bigger victory!

I’m signed up to attend, but it would be great if others from the Antelope Valley cycling community register to go as well. Sign up here.

They’ve already sent some “homework” to do, which begins with brainstorming with others in our organization — AV High Desert Cyclists — to come up with 3 potential campaign ideas.

I’ll be posting this information to the High Desert Cyclists’ Google group and the AV Bicycle Coalition page on Facebook, asking for help with this “homework,” so that we gain as much as possible from this training.

They are having another Painted Turtle Ride this weekend on Saturday, September 10, 2011. I did it last year with Beverly and it was a lot of fun. My most vivid memory of the ride is when we ran over a rattlesnake. Fortunately, it was already dead.

This year, like last year, are 18-mile, 36-mile, and Metric Century routes.

Details are here.

California Senate Bill 910, the bill that would require drivers to pass at a distance of least 3 feet from cyclists, passed in the California State Assembly yesterday. The vote was 41-20.

That is, according to Streetsblog LA and the California Bicycle Coalition. The vote count on the Official California Legislative Information page was 44-25. The bill’s status as of September 6, 2011, is “Read third time. Passed. Ordered to the Senate.”

According to Streetsblog, the bill now goes back to the California State Senate for re-approval because of some technical changes made in the Assembly before going to Governor Jerry Brown for his signature. California Bicycle Coalition says, however, that the bill “now goes to Gov. Jerry Brown for his signature.”

I know many of you wrote to our local Assemblyman Steve Knight and urged him to vote for SB 910. Unfortunately, Assemblyman Knight’s vote on the measure was NO.

When the Senate voted on SB 910, our Senator Sharon Runner’s vote was reported as “no vote recorded.”

Now that the measure returns to the Senate, let’s tell Senator Runner how important it is to vote YES.