Does anyone pick up the water bottles riders throw out on the side of the road?
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Does anyone pick up the water bottles riders throw out on the side of the road?
Was watching and the Tour of CA, and sure enough, just like in the Tour de France, riders throw out their bottles when they're empty.
I consider this littering, and i think it's pretty ridiculous how these guys get away with turning the roads they race on into their personal garbage bin. Yesterday's stage was 130 miles, do team personnel actually go back and analyze both sides of the road for 130 miles and pick up water bottles ??
There were long section without any fans on the sides to pick them up...
I consider this littering, and i think it's pretty ridiculous how these guys get away with turning the roads they race on into their personal garbage bin. Yesterday's stage was 130 miles, do team personnel actually go back and analyze both sides of the road for 130 miles and pick up water bottles ??
There were long section without any fans on the sides to pick them up...
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Originally Posted by kubla khan
Was watching and the Tour of CA, and sure enough, just like in the Tour de France, riders throw out their bottles when they're empty.
Originally Posted by kubla khan
I consider this littering, and i think it's pretty ridiculous how these guys get away with turning the roads they race on into their personal garbage bin. Yesterday's stage was 130 miles, do team personnel actually go back and analyze both sides of the road for 130 miles and pick up water bottles ??
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Originally Posted by kubla khan
I consider this littering, and i think it's pretty ridiculous how these guys get away with turning the roads they race on into their personal garbage bin.
There's plenty of OCD types who are as obsessed with free bike schwag as you are with the enviornment.
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Everyone tries to get those water bottles. I have some for pro races. Discovery does not toss their bottles, they don't want anyone to analyze the contents.
Are you really trying to say that bike racing has a negative environmental impact? Should people drive pickups around looking for bottles?
Are you really trying to say that bike racing has a negative environmental impact? Should people drive pickups around looking for bottles?
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Originally Posted by kubla khan
Was watching and the Tour of CA, and sure enough, just like in the Tour de France, riders throw out their bottles when they're empty.
I consider this littering, and i think it's pretty ridiculous how these guys get away with turning the roads they race on into their personal garbage bin. Yesterday's stage was 130 miles, do team personnel actually go back and analyze both sides of the road for 130 miles and pick up water bottles ??
There were long section without any fans on the sides to pick them up...
I consider this littering, and i think it's pretty ridiculous how these guys get away with turning the roads they race on into their personal garbage bin. Yesterday's stage was 130 miles, do team personnel actually go back and analyze both sides of the road for 130 miles and pick up water bottles ??
There were long section without any fans on the sides to pick them up...
Oh, no. I may have opened a whole other can of worms, now...
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caltrans will pick 'em up. or the race organisers. or fans. or the team.
they won't be left on the side of the road for long. you just don't get to see that part on TV. it'd be pretty boring.
if you're so inclined, call the tour and complain in addition to ranting here. that'd be pretty responsible of you. they'll give you a straight answer that none of us here can answer.
they won't be left on the side of the road for long. you just don't get to see that part on TV. it'd be pretty boring.
if you're so inclined, call the tour and complain in addition to ranting here. that'd be pretty responsible of you. they'll give you a straight answer that none of us here can answer.
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Are you kidding? Pass up a free water bottle? They charge 2 bucks for those things at the LBS. For every 45 free bottles I pick up, I save enough to buy the CF bottle cage to hold it on my bike.
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Those discarded water bottles are like foul balls at a baseball game. Even fat, middle-aged old guys race little kids to retrieve them. I have a Tour de Georgia water bottle that Mario Cippolini discarded on Brasstown Bald a couple of years ago. I had to trip a kid that was about to beat me to it.
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you just don't get to see that part on TV. it'd be pretty boring.
Funny!
Funny!
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Actually, at the 03 World Championships, some guy was in the crowd telling his buddies some stupid theory about carbon fiber when a tossed bottle bonked him right upside the head.
If only Bike Forums was like that.
If only Bike Forums was like that.
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Originally Posted by kubla khan
Was watching and the Tour of CA, and sure enough, just like in the Tour de France, riders throw out their bottles when they're empty.
I consider this littering, and i think it's pretty ridiculous how these guys get away with turning the roads they race on into their personal garbage bin. Yesterday's stage was 130 miles, do team personnel actually go back and analyze both sides of the road for 130 miles and pick up water bottles ??
There were long section without any fans on the sides to pick them up...
I consider this littering, and i think it's pretty ridiculous how these guys get away with turning the roads they race on into their personal garbage bin. Yesterday's stage was 130 miles, do team personnel actually go back and analyze both sides of the road for 130 miles and pick up water bottles ??
There were long section without any fans on the sides to pick them up...
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Race organisers do a quick sweep behind the caravan to pick up stuff, but other than it's free game for everyone. And who cares if it's littering! It'll be picked up eventually.
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Well there are some pretty odd answers here like, "And who cares if it's littering! It'll be picked up eventually." I wonder if you have ever volunteered to go out and pick em up? As a race organizer and newly trained official, this is one of the headaches of trying to put on a Road Race. People complain when they see racers in local races tossing bottles onto the side of the road. And I'll guarantee you there are not a bunch of people fighting over a bottle discarded by a cat 4 or 5 racer. In order to try to minimize the impact, we do ask our volunteers to pick them up. But our RR is 85 miles long and it would take a WHOLE bunch of volunteers to check the entire route. So the American Cycling Association has this rule, "18.1.5: Riders are not permitted to discard water bottles, food wrappers or other litter except in designated feed zones or designated bottle discard zones. All such zones will be clearly marked by the promoter." If the racers do that then the zone volunteers can easily pick them up, the navtives are happy and the racers will help the organizers to keep the races going.
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Originally Posted by DocRay
Are you really trying to say that bike racing has a negative environmental impact? Should people drive pickups around looking for bottles?
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Originally Posted by kubla khan
Was watching and the Tour of CA, and sure enough, just like in the Tour de France, riders throw out their bottles when they're empty.
I consider this littering, and i think it's pretty ridiculous how these guys get away with turning the roads they race on into their personal garbage bin. Yesterday's stage was 130 miles, do team personnel actually go back and analyze both sides of the road for 130 miles and pick up water bottles ??
There were long section without any fans on the sides to pick them up...
I consider this littering, and i think it's pretty ridiculous how these guys get away with turning the roads they race on into their personal garbage bin. Yesterday's stage was 130 miles, do team personnel actually go back and analyze both sides of the road for 130 miles and pick up water bottles ??
There were long section without any fans on the sides to pick them up...
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Originally Posted by DocRay
Discovery does not toss their bottles, they don't want anyone to analyze the contents.
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They just sit on the side of the road and eventually, in a couple million years or so, they rot away and become part of the earth again.
Don't worry your pretty little head about it.
Don't worry your pretty little head about it.
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Originally Posted by DocRay
Are you really trying to say that bike racing has a negative environmental impact? Should people drive pickups around looking for bottles?
Originally Posted by Olebiker
Those discarded water bottles are like foul balls at a baseball game. Even fat, middle-aged old guys race little kids to retrieve them. I have a Tour de Georgia water bottle that Mario Cippolini discarded on Brasstown Bald a couple of years ago. I had to trip a kid that was about to beat me to it.
Originally Posted by RockyMtnMerlin
Well there are some pretty odd answers here like, "And who cares if it's littering! It'll be picked up eventually." I wonder if you have ever volunteered to go out and pick em up? As a race organizer and newly trained official, this is one of the headaches of trying to put on a Road Race. People complain when they see racers in local races tossing bottles onto the side of the road. And I'll guarantee you there are not a bunch of people fighting over a bottle discarded by a cat 4 or 5 racer. In order to try to minimize the impact, we do ask our volunteers to pick them up. But our RR is 85 miles long and it would take a WHOLE bunch of volunteers to check the entire route. So the American Cycling Association has this rule, "18.1.5: Riders are not permitted to discard water bottles, food wrappers or other litter except in designated feed zones or designated bottle discard zones. All such zones will be clearly marked by the promoter." If the racers do that then the zone volunteers can easily pick them up, the navtives are happy and the racers will help the organizers to keep the races going.
Originally Posted by Talewinds
Is this a joke???
It seems to me that the whole cycling establishment could be more efficient about this. Why do the riders carry such tiny bottles in the first place? No wonder they are always throwing them out, you finish a bottle like that in no time. If they carried larger bottles they might last longer, long enough for them to hand them to a team car or to the domestique handing them the bottles he got from the team car...
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Larger bottle = more weight?
I was just thinking about this on my ride to school this morning. About how cool it'd be to have a waterbottle of some pro racer sitting in my room. I even thought of selling this waterbottle on Ebay but its one of those things that you can't prove. I just thought it'd be kinda cool. Glad I'm not alone.
I was just thinking about this on my ride to school this morning. About how cool it'd be to have a waterbottle of some pro racer sitting in my room. I even thought of selling this waterbottle on Ebay but its one of those things that you can't prove. I just thought it'd be kinda cool. Glad I'm not alone.
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Originally Posted by kubla khan
but the surrounding organization is causing a good amount of polution.
the organizers are trying to offset the pollution by purchasing renewable resource credits so that the race will have a zero impact on the environment. if you saw the clif bar "green" green jersey spots it'd make you laugh how funny the it was. but they're trying. they know the impact they're creating. this might very well be the "cleanest" pro tour ever.
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What, exactly, is a "renewable resource credit"? I've seen the commercials, but being a mid-western, hillbilly, eco-terrorist, I have no idea what that means.
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Oh yes, and we shouldn't forget that bike races help the environment because we are, well, riding bikes. This always attracts other people into bikes and away from gas guzzling vehicles. I think road races are perfect for fighting pollution.
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Originally Posted by kubla khan
Well, actually, after spectating at the Tour of CA and seeing the sheer amount of support vehicles/cop cars/cop motorcycles hauling ass uphill, downhill or pretty much anywhere they could haul ass I realized that the athletes might be cycling, but the surrounding organization is causing a good amount of polution.
give me a break-just keeping traffic off the roads for the day more than offsets this.
I wish more environmentalists would knee-jerk less and think more.