This blows me away.
Menlo Park paper
"Cyclist in bottle-throwing incident to be arraigned on misdemeanor
A trial may be ahead for the Menlo Park cyclist who threw a water bottle that bounced off a car and struck and injured a 62-year-old Portola Valley pedestrian last November.
When the water bottle hit.... on Portola Road on the morning of November 16, the blow knocked her down and she hit her head on the path, she said. Her injuries included a black-and-blue area on her face, a chipped tooth and a loose tooth, she said."
This is bad for all cyclists! No wonder they brush us off the road when driving or get pissed when following a large group of cyclists.
Oh yhea, then there is the littering thing. Last night Sabine caught a litter bug at the local Coyote ride that is put on by the San Jose Cycling Club( very fun way to spend a Tues night) and called him out on it. BRAVO! I really like that girls style. Next time I see her, she gets a jug of vino for being a do gooder.
Will it change him? Will it stop him when he is alone? I can only hope....sigh.
I hate litterbugs, hate them, hate them. Usually its fast food containers on the shoulder of the road, but every now and again I see a gu wrapper, deflated tube, water bottle or a CO2. Last I knew this stuff isn't bio friendly, maybe I'm getting green. I've been thinking of going solar for the house-kitchen first.
You know any other do gooderz? Let me know and I'd be happy to consider them for the weekly post as "do gooder of the week" the winner gets a bottle of Vino.
Small price for some good news.
17 comments:
yeah, mike ma is getting an earfull from us this morning.
sabine got rewards for that bit of excellence.
go get 'em at Fitchy, hootch!
Thank you O Vander hoo! See you on the track in a couple of weeks, kick some ass until then.
you've done alot of great things for the sport, bloggin and all of us.
After the BHRR I rode part of the course again & was totally disgusted by the number of gu/bar wrappers & bottles just chucked out on the side of the road, wherever anyone felt like it (if it's empty, why not wait for the feedzone where someone can pick it up?!?). Makes me batty.
"You mean our adoring fans are not waiting at the side of the road to scoop up any of our used wrapers and bottles as memorabilia?"
wine for do-gooders?
i'll need to work on that, i suppose...
as for the offending empty gel packet tosser...
I agree 110%, I HATE the idea of littering. That said, racers toss those damn things ALL the time in crits. I do too...but I always ALWAYS go back and pick em up (or I toss em to my dear sweetie on the sidlines).
Unfortunately, someone might see me toss one, but not see me pick it up later. That is just bad PR. The more I think about it, the more I believe that this is probably unaccepatable.
I'll try not to toss em anymore. And I know MM will be trying as well.
All good. I'll pick some up too.
racing's no excuse
If you can pack em in, you can pack em out.
I've never won or lost a race because I carried a empty gu wrapper...
I usually stuff my empty Gu wrapper on the inside of the side of my cycling shorts....don't even notice it's there. Inside of the side? Man, that sounds dorky.
I stuff the chocolate gu wrappers down the back of my shorts and the vanilla ones down the front. When the rest of the gu leaks, It keeps the competition at arms length!
Get a Hammer Gel flask. You can use whatever gels you normally do, just empty them into the flask before the race/ride and dispose of the empty wrappers in the comfort of your abode. The flask also facilitates sucking down 2 or 3 gels at the same time if you find yourself 2 hours into a race and realize you haven't eaten anything. ;)Best of all, it eliminates the chance that you miss an empty wrapper post-ride and it ends up glued to your non-cycling significant other's undergarments in the dryer, causing domestic friction of the unpleasant variety.
Whoever they are talking about in that article is a frickin' idiot and made whatever situation with the car worse; even if the bottle did not hit anyone.
Littering is a huge pet peeve for me. Madera had to be the worst I've seen - guys chucking crap left and right in the Sr. 3s. I'm surprised we don't hear more about it from promoters.
As far as a gu(or other fuel) during a crit - if you read the studies on pubmed - they are only 120 calories or so and are not going to help within 20 minutes of the end of your race anyway, so eat it at the start of the race. And for the bagboy called out, he wears a skinsuit so the gel flask won't work unless you use a handlebar mount and that ain't safe in a crit IMO.
I once stopped a guy riding by himself who just dropped a gu wrapper intentionally. Usually I take the high road (like in races when littering happens a lot), however this was in front of houses near a race venue and I was in a grumpy mood. The dude refused to pick it up. After some heated words, he finally picked it up ....
Remember that when we ride, we are ambassadors of the sport and sponsors on the jersey.
OK rant over....
Found ya.
Nice write ups. Beats working
Bruce in RI
Ah, shame works. A local rider tossed out a gel wrapper during a ride, and we all pounced. To boot, he is a real estate agent. I drew attention to the fact that he makes a living off of the high property values in SLO due to the area's beauty, thus he was devaluing the property by littering. He's cured.
Yesterday I was riding between Walnut Creek and Danville on "The Blvd". It has a huge bike lane and I was smack in the middle of it. In other words I was not even close to impeding traffic.
Anyway, three dip shits in a car drive bike, throw some stuff at me, some of which actually hits me and yell the standard "get off the road!".
That's why people on bikes throw water bottles at cars. Especially if they had the kind of day at work that I did yesterday...
But in my case all I threw at them was my finger...
On a side note, why is it that there seems to be more abuse when you aren't anywhere close to being in anybody's way than when you're say riding through a city???
shit i've been hit by:
- coke can (full)
- 7/11 40thousand ounce cup (half full of slurpee)
- 2x4
- big mac
- water balloon
- BBs (twice)
- coins
Times been yelled at by drivers for no other reason they are assholes:
345333222344
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there is no winning move in any of the above situations.
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