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One local biker recently uploaded a video of his commute down Santa Monica Boulevard through West Hollywood into Beverly Hills. YouTube user Wes+Bikes said this part of his commute clocks in at 3.1 miles and 15 minutes.
But what's most impressive is how many cars he passes. He said that he passed 631 cars on this section of the commute altogether. We haven't verified the number, but it's pretty obvious that he's going way faster than everyone except for a motorcycle weaving in traffic. It's not even close.
Wes rides in the bike lane or sometimes takes up a whole lane himself, but he often splits the lanes. The idea of lane-splitting makes us a little queasy, but he writes on a Reddit Los Angeles thread that he often feels safer riding between lanes of traffic than on the right-hand side:
Its much slower and calmer at actual speed, that is sped up 8x. Those cars more mostly all stopped or moving less than 5mph. Lane splitting is actually most likely safer in this situation because there are a lot of people that turn right into side streets without looking or signaling. Where people are used to motorcycles cutting lanes and are are much for likely to expect someone there.
Props, dude.
