Why do some people think it's ok
 

to toss their punctured tubes on the side of the road?

OK, so this isn't really a C & V topic, but I started road riding in the 70s when "ecology" was as much of a buzz word as "green" is today. I always though of bicycling as a clean activity, but nowadays it's almost impossible to go on a rural ride without seeing tubes, CO2 cartridges, foil gel wrappers, etc littering the shoulder of the road. I picked up 2 tubes on a 40 mile ride yesterday, and in the last few years I'd bet I've picked up at least 50 & either carried them to the next trash can or home to patch & use on project bikes.

I agree; littering is criminal.

This might begin to tie in with the "what's the strangest thing you've seen discarded by the side of the road while you were riding your bike?" thread. I've never seen bike paraphernalia as you describe, only the usual roadside refuse. But then, I've never ridden a bike off-road.

I'm seeing this on road rides. Sometimes I see tubes tossed right in someone's driveway. Just another reason for people to be intolerant of bicycles.

I guess these type of people would be, jerks.

Can't say I've ever seen any bike related stuff on the roads where I live, but I see plenty of litter. And it's common to see big dumps like TV's and appliances on some of the lightly traveled mountain roads. Wadda you goin' do the world's full of dummy's that do stuff like that.

As for discarded road tubes, pick them up and repair them. That's like finding five bucks!

The only place where I've seen this was on the Hotter-n-Hell 100, where about 11,999 riders were in front of me. I probably spotted a dozen tubes by the side of the road.

Why to do this- probably the biggest factor is it's hard to put tubes back where an empty one came from. You carry that dinky little seat-bag and can't fit a half-deflated tube back in it. That doesn't excuse it, but I can understand it.

When I was attending UBI (United Bicycle Institute) in Ashland, Oregon in 1984, I borrowed UBI's best bike (they loaned you a bike if you didn't trust the airlines to take care of it) and struck out for California. The roads in Oregon were clean and I saw very little litter of any description.

When I crossed into California - it changed dramatically. There was discarded everything along the roads. TV sets, dryers, cases of beer (empty) cans...just yuck! I wheeled the Univega I'd absconded with and headed back to Ashland. I wished I'd taken a camera.

The prevalence in one place, but not another, can be attributed to the social mindset of the people who live there. Apparently people in Oregon actually care for their environment and don't want to be the first one to screw it up. California seems to tell it's citizens that they live in a black-topped garbage can. Where I live now I see the same thing. In Vermont there is very little roadside trash. We don't allow billboards advertising ANYTHING by the side of our roads and highways. But go south into Massachusetts - open-air trash can. They had a saying in Oregon:

Don't Californicate Oregon.

There's jerks who ride bikes.. there's jerks who live in oregon. Maybe not as many per capita as non-bikers and californians.. but still come on. Never seen tubes here in socal or I'd probably pick em up and patch em like was said! :)

Well I'm from Massachusetts. I know the mindset living there engenders. I mean - one night around 11:00pm a station wagon came up my long driveway. The gate fell open. And a dead dishwasher was shoved out. While these geniuses looked right at me. I took down their license-plate and called the cops. They were infected, too. The cop refused to take a report. Told me to go throw it someplace else!

Some areas have different rules - unwritten. My experience with the border area of CA & OR served as a stark reminder. That was when I started to wonder the same thing as the OP poised. Why? And the above is my condensed version of an answer.

It's great you might pick up trash. I hope that extends beyond "slightly-used" bicycle parts.

Happy Trails! <Riiiiip! SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS______>

One morning on my way to work on the bike at the end of our street I saw a cardboard box with a door cutout, pet water bottle, and lettuce inside. I rode by thinking it was trash. As the day went on I kept thinking about it and finally decided someone had abandoned their pet ?? beside the road. On my way home I surveyed the area and found a small black bunny in the bushes. He wasn't too afraid of me but I couldn't catch him. I went home and got a blanket and was able to get him captured. He was mighty thirsty and hungry but otherwise ok. Since we had cats at the time he went to a friend who raised rabbits.

Yep - typical. Some dunce dropped/threw a box of puppies out of their car and onto a friend's lawn. And sped away. We found the little woofies good homes - wishing we'd run into the morons who did this.

Ahh - a location where vigilante justice is encouraged, eh? For a moment, I thought I was in A&S.

-Kurt

Weight weenies!...do you know how many fractions of a gram a foil wrapper weighs?!?!?

Same people that leave their childrens diapers in a parking lot,throw litter out of their four wheel transportation.

It's called training for the pro peloton. How ya gonna win the Tour de France if you don't know how to huck **** off to the side of the road? ;)

Puncture a tube, wrap it around you old school style (over one shoulder, under the other arm) and deal with it. Foil from gels/bars, put it in your pocket. Not that hard. I hate people who litter!

When they die, I'm sure their relatives will be of like mind. And dispose of the corpse on the roadside somewhere...<THUD!> Vrooooooooooooooooooooom!

One of my pet peeves is cigarette butts. It seems as though the whole world is going to be covered with cigarette butts, those and little plastic air soft pellets! I have seen cops, mailmen, even firemen toss their lit butts out of the window.

I do know someone who got a $150 ticket for throwing a cigarette butt out their window.Not me I dont smoke.

Never experienced this in any aspect. Road waste and litter belongs to the motorized population, but it seems extremely ignorant if one cant bring the old tube back home...how can one not!?

Can't say I've generally seen that in Colorado. I did once pass one of those half shoe cover things for cool weather and thought maybe I'd pick it up but I didn't. Then I got several miles down the road and there was the other damn shoe cover. I could've had the danged set! :)

Santeria around here. Dead chickens, rotting bananas, etc.

-Kurt

Similar thing happened to me on a rather brutal ride. I'm almost home, and see a nice full fingered cycling glove by the road at the top of a hill. I am wiped out, so I am not going to stop for one glove. Get to the bottom of the hill, and see the other one. I'm too wiped out to go back and get the other one, so I left that one too.

+1 thats a huge pet peeve of mine. My wife is a smoker and she flicks them out the window too. I grumble at her and remind her that the car has an ash tray, then she reminds me that she keeps change in it :mad:

:innocent: I hope some of our MASS C&Vers don't spot this little zing. ;)

They might stop heading north and depositing their vacation dollars in our Gardens of Eden. If we Northern New Englanders did not have our kind and generous Southern New Englanders, dropping their dollars and their occasional litter, we might have to petition Quebec for annexation! :innocent: