What have you found on the road lately?
 

Pocket Knife for me! Riding up a busy street seeing a gleam in the morning sun. Found a CRKT 3" lock blade. But the tip was busted off like some one use it to pry on something that won. Took it to work reshaped the point sharpened the new blade and ta da 2" blade now!
V

iPhone and kitchen knife within 20 feet of each other last Friday

2014 BMW 325i. doors were unlocked. what luck!

I found a newish green bandana last week. I'm sure I can find a use for it.

Two ran over snakes and a crow flattened with couch cushions on the side of the road.

All my years of running, and now cycling I've never found anything on the road. Maybe I'm just not looking hard enough.

cash. a couple of 1's here and there, and two 20's.

Here in Tokyo I find a lot of bikes. People often buy nice bikes which they seldom ride, and when they move to a new place they don't want to pay to ship the bike, so they simply park it on the sidewalk next to the road. I have found three folders, two Dahons and a Peugeot, and a mid-level GT mountain bike. And these were in my neighbourhood alone. Throughout the 23 wards were there are millions of people, and, literally, millions of bikes, you can find just about anything.

Tools, mostly. I have found a ball-peen hammer, a 1/2" combination wrench, two pairs of channel lock pliers, two pairs of lineman's pliers, a pair of needle nosed pliers with a (obviously malfunctioning) belt hook, and a kitchen knife. I also once found a rubber battery tie-down strap that was a perfect fit for the Kawasaki 750 twin I was restoring. I usually pick them up just to get them out of the road.


Oh, this is over probably twenty or so years of riding. ;)

I work in Tokyo, but I haven't really looked into the bikes on the street...I mean, how can you be sure the bikes have been abandoned? The owners may just have left them there with the intent to come back later. Now at my apartment complex there are a couple of cheap bikes that have been abandoned but I know for sure because they have been left that way for months on end.

The bikes along the streets are often there for months too, until the tires go flat, and the chains rust tight. The city doesn't often impound obviously abandoned bikes, they usually target bikes which they know are used, so they can collect the 3000 to 5000 yen impound fee, rather than having to pay a disposal fee.

$21 cash.

Oh I see. Darn I wish I could find an abandoned Dahon. I could use a folder.

Haven't found anything cool, wish id find a winning lottery ticket

Still waiting to find 1,000,000 yen. Nothing but trash, gloves, and a huge dead ferret so far.

I found someone's license and a dealer's plate. The license I put in an envelope and mailed it back to the address on it. The dealer's plate I am going to bring to the department of motor vehicles. Two bungee cords, the first one I picked up the second one left there as I did not want another one.

So far this year, just a nice Pearl Izumi white windbreaker.

The big find last year was a pair of new Bose Quietcomfort 15 headphones, they're $300 new. Worked fine. I didn't like them and gave them away. I've found a lot of tools, several hats, a sweatshirt, a few T shirts.

I have found a bunch of stuff, but I never pick anything up. My commute is few miles on country roads and few miles on city roads. the most stuff I find on the country roads, lots of bungee cords, some wrenches, and screw drivers, and even a machete in its casing which I didn't pick up because I don't want to ride into the city carrying a machete in my bikes. I often ride by lots of cop cars. Beside I was afraid that machete had been use for something bad and just throwed out there, I just didn't want to find out.
I do keep my eyes open for $100 bills, I would pick these up in a heart beat. Other stuff I am not too excited about it.

I found a Citizen Titanium Eco Drive watch. Though, I put an ad on Craigslist in the lost and found and plastered the area with posters to try to find the owner but it didn't work. I also found $180 blowing down the road, no owner to be found. I also found $100 in a bank envelope but I saw someone further up on the road looking on the ground, so I knew they lost something. We had a chat and I returned it to them. Also found a cell phone and had it returned to the owner in twenty minutes. Found a purse once, and returned it to her. Found a wallet with a ton a cash and credit cards, tracked down the owners wife and returned within an hour. I have found vise grips and a framing hammer. Found a pair of cycling gloves full fingered, and a Sugoi skull cap.

Anything I found I try to find the owner because I know one fact and that is, it isn't mine. Second I have never taken a reward for returning something, that is just plane wrong. You shouldn't have to pay for honesty.

I found a phillips head screw driver yesterday. I know, not really impressive.

I found a wallet last month; put it in a ziploc bag and dropped it in a mailbox. I was on a brevet and didn't have the time to deal with it better. The last time I found a wallet before that I was out on a century, in no particular hurry. I recognized the guy's address, was able to drop it off at his house with only a five mile detour.

I couldn't list all the stuff I've found over the years... cash, sunglasses, an ipod (still playing when I picked it up), tools, and just totally bizarre stuff. My wife found a squid once, but didn't pick it up.

I've found wallets twice. Certainly if there's any hope of identifying the owner, I'd do it, but it's just not worth it for screwdrivers and wrenches, and probably not for those headphones either.

The wallets I just dropped by the police station on my way by.

Nothing worth stopping for lately :(

The last thing I found a few months ago was a cell phone. Luckily no lock on it, was able to track the owner down, she took a few days to get back to me but I was able to return it. Apparently her and her boyfriend were robbed of their wallets and phones at gun point, so she might have been apprehensive when I first contacted her.

There has got to be an interesting back story to that one.

As for me, I haven't come across anything for which it was worth stopping. I was on the other end last year when I needed to bring in a new bar of soap. It was in an open pocket of my trunk bag (so as not to impart its fragrance onto my lunch), and must have bounced out (probably when I went over the bridge - kind of bumpy there). If that wasn't bad enough, I had it wrapped in a Head Sweats "do rag". Hopefully someone found it and got good use out of it.

I know, right?

I don't have the backstory, but I can elaborate on the anecdote a little bit.

This was in West Philadelphia about 20 years ago. She was riding an old Rudge three speed home from work one Friday afternoon and saw the squid on the side of the road. She knows enough about sea creatures to know a squid when she sees one.

We were having a couple people over for dinner that evening, and one of them, who lived near us, mentioned seeing the same squid. Or at least we assumed it was the same one; no way to be sure. We all laughed about that.

my kid and i found some mussels and starfish riding along the waterfront on a few trips, and we stopped to put them back in the water.

i once found $10.

for some reason, i regularly find tennis balls and warm hats. the hats go in the freezer for 2 weeks, then they get washed and my kid uses them... this works out well, since his hats tend to migrate to his mom's house and then get lost.

misc clothes, which i often grab and then donate to an op-shop.

lots of other stuff, but nothing exciting.

last weekend i went for a walk and found a bus-pass with about $10 credit.

when i'm walking, i also make a habit of picking up cans and bottles, and bringing them home to the recycle bin. i usually carry plastic shopping bags for that purpose.