Ive found tools, f'rexample a 6mm Allen wrench (like I need yet another one) and a nice ratcheting 12mm/13mm ratcheting closed-end wrench. I've found a lot of potholes and pavement cracks. I've found a lot of enjoyment.

I found myself. Which is to say I found myself looking around at the world as well as at the pavement. I found a stone tower built in a bygone day the purpose of which I have no idea. I found a local farm established before 1700.

I've lost more than I've found.

Other than humility.

If I picked up all the car wheel weights I've seen over the years I'd have enough to open a foundry.

I see they can be recycled.

I see dozens of those, and wondered if they were worth anything.
I used to know a dive shop owner who melted them down and used molds to make diving weights.

last year while riding I found a portable Garmin trekking GPS that I couldn't locate the owner & then just recently a Samsung galaxy smartphone that I was able to return to the rightful owner!

Besides the below, I have found two i-phones (one run-over and one not). One I returned to the owner, who contacted me via gps, and the other I turned in to the verizon store. Also found two credit cards.

Deer carcass. Also saw some bear **** in the woods. I had the good taste not to take a picture.

https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8628/...8cbd877c_h.jpgNamekagon 002 by iabisdb, on Flickr

Ha! I was right next to you. It seems to me we found something else on that ride, like a decent few hand tools or something.

The first time I ever rode with [MENTION=73614]rhm[/MENTION], we picked up two box end wrenches. Since then, I've learned: some pliers, files, screwdrivers, water bottles, flip flops, etc. I found a nice pair of work gloves that were too small ... gave them to [MENTION=73614]rhm[/MENTION].

One day, I spotted two bathroom rugs in two different spots along the same bike path. I thought it was pretty strange but funny observation and posted about it on facebook. No one commented. They matched the decor pretty good in the downstairs bathroom, other than the tire marks.

Best thing I ever found on a ride was my future wife, happily married over 25 years now.

One of the saddest things I've seen, on tour last August, was the remains of an animal... just some fur, bone fragments, a collar and a leash. No tags that I could see, but I didn't poke at it.

i found i am a lot older than i used to be and cannot ride as far or fast as i used to... :(

A couple years ago I saw sunlight reflecting of a piece of metal. I stopped, picked up a nice chain tool, it looked like one I had on my Trek multitool. I took mine out of my seatbag opened the holster and the chain tool part was missing!
I had never stopped at that location the multitool was still in its holster. How it got out and on the road I'll never know.

Found a full Campy Strawberry on the side of the rode while driving between races. Of course I knew who it belonged to, probably the only Strawberry being raced in the tri state area at the time.

But it was fun mentally dissecting the bike and figuring out how I would use the components.

Then about 5 miles down the rode I encountered the owner driving backwards on the shoulder.

In the mean time, I've thought of something else.

In 1972 I was riding down Cambridge St in Allston and saw a car on fire. I whipped into the old Coke plant, located at the intersection of Cambridge and Storrow Dr, yelling at the top of my lungs, "Car fire, call the fire dept, have a fire extinguisher?" (Or something like that.) braking hard I discovered that the concrete floor was a) very, very smooth, and b) rather wet. You know how that turned out. I'm lying there, upside down, like a dead cockroach, and somebody comes over wondering what I'm yelling about.

Fast forward about 8 years, I'm madly in love, still in the 'discovery' phase, and I learned that her Father was a fairly big General Contractor in the Boston area and, among the 'landmark' buildings he'd built, was the aforementioned Coke plant. She'd swept me off my feet before I even knew her.

Peace and Tranquility, indeed.

A good quality, 15/16" combination wrench.

Well, Joe "Metal Cowboy" Kurmaskie, author of several popular bicycle books describes bonking from dehydration as "doing the cockroach complete with kicking leg muscle spasms on your back." This line was made famous by Lance Armstrong who used the slang in an interview. I guess you did a different kind of cockroach.

I unfortunately found my way home and my ride ended. Actually, that happens every time I go out on a ride. Perhaps someday I will not find my way home and will get to just keep riding until I can ride no further and just check into a nice mom and pop motel that has a camp fire to sit by and watch the stars come out as the moon rises above the placid lake behind the motel and the loons call out and sing me to sleep so that I can awake refreshed early in the morning to try and find my way back home....if I so choose! I find peace, clarity, refreshment, joy, satisfaction, etc. every time I go on a ride. Oh what a great gift a bicycle is to mankind!!
:cheers:

^^ bikeasm ^^

OK, after reading these, I can hardly relate to items found while rolling.
I have had the slight thrill of riding the winding descents of Dairyland Dare,
road speckled with sunlight and shadows of the birch trees lining the roadway,
to see a spread-eagled squirrel, face up with a look of surprise, as his sentient days on the planet came to a halt.

I wondered if any rider would hit the poor thing, but found out later that iab also recognized, identified, and avoided the hazard.

As for years of running, well, you find all kinds of things:
a group of people sitting in a circle waiting for the rapture,
a wandering deer, a Bible, scattered change, and tons of fast food bags tossed without a care.

There was one day, however, when I found an item that changed the day:

I was on my normal 10-miler, as routine as brushing my teeth.
I'd passed the college apartments, the dogs on the roof of the house on the corner, the post office,
the halfway house where I always waved to the guy with the tracheotomy on the porch.
Then the bakery, the antique stores, the rough neighborhood, and the fire station.

I turned a corner and was almost hit by a Courier Express truck, one of those little Ford Rangers,
white with the shell on the back. Not sure how he got so out of control, a 4-cyl Ranger is hard to abuse.

Anyway, he almost hits me, and while I'm giving him the finger, I see something rolling off the road.
I figured it was his hubcap, and decided it would be nice to go over and stephttp://cdncache-a.akamaihd.net/items...rrow-10x10.png on it. Not so.
It was a red Igloo drink cooler, one of those 2-quart jobs with the white spin-off top,
and the flap over the hole that no person in their right mind should drink from, but everyone does.
It was wrapped with clear packing tape around the lid, probably to prevent leaks. I shake it, hear nothing but ice.

Cool, I thought, that driver can go buy another, and I'll take this home, maybe use it for roadside stashes set along my long training runs.
I take it in the house, put it on the counter, and go to take a shower, wait for the missus to come home and figure out dinner.
I'm toweling off and I hear a scream from the kitchen. Not just a "it's a mouse!" scream,
but a blood-curdler, like "someone is in here with a knife!" or "he's taking the coffee-maker!" scream.
I grab boxers and head to the kitchen.

The sink is full of soapy water. My wife is just standing there, staring.
The bottom of the red cooler is on the counter, tape pulled off. The lid is in the soapy water.
Wrapped in plastic wrap and a ziploc bag, on the counter sits a human big toe, neatly severed, fairly white, with dirt under the nail
(not sure why I remember that so clearly).

My wife is bawling. I look in the cooler, it's full of ice.
Now, I realize why the Courier Express had a need for speed. The cooler had fallen out about 2 miles from the hospital.

I stuck everything back in the cooler, and went to the phonehttp://cdncache-a.akamaihd.net/items...rrow-10x10.png. My wife was still standing there, stunned.

I called a tow truck and we went to dinner.

You win. I'm pretty sure you didn't want to, either. I'll just be creeped out for a bit.

Yup. Robbie wins. Game over. Relax. Sigh.


Okay, I'm ready to play again.

Winner!

I gotta get out more. Only thing I've ever found was some guy's ear, on a trail through a field. They made a show out of it. Maybe you've seen it …..

I don't even know how to respond. That's stuff you just can't make up.

I never find anything of value. A few rusty old tools and knives. But I wonder why I see so many articles of clothing. How do they come to be there? Who is throwing clothes out their car windows?