Conference noted::bicycle

    
    
               Yes, you're a DILLO!
    
       B.    8^)
    
    
    
    
    

    Ah, I've found a technical way of replying to a scummy worthless
    non-technical note because....
    
    
    I found a pair of pliers in the road a few months ago!
    
    Got to agree about dead dogs etcetera, that pair of pliers is about it
    as far as usefulness or worth goes. However, my girlfriend found a pair
    of Nike lycra tights in the road, and very useful they have been.
    
    
    Rod

I picked up an 8" adjustable wrench on Route 30 in Southborough (MA) last
year while riding to work.  I figure it must have bounced out of the
bed of a pickup truck.  I read an article in the Wall Street Journal
last year about a litter researcher (no joke!) who concluded that
a third of Texas road litter came from the beds of pickups.  Of course,
most of the vehicles in Texas are pickups.  Your state may vary.

Still scrounging,
David Buffo

I've found:

	- A Seiko quartz watch
	- Handful of change (here and there)
	- Dog lease (Chevy Chase's?)
	- Broken glass, I don't even have to stop to pick it up ;-)

Tom    

    	For me its:
    
    	- A pair of vise-grips
    	- A locking blade knife
    
    Barry

    yep, me too, I've found:
    
    countless bungie (shock) cords, a pair of expensive french sunglasses,
    small change, $17 cash (across the street from a self serve gas station
    on a very windy day), many screwdrivers, a pocket knife, cheap jewelry,
    a bandana or two, a visegrip, a small channellock pliers.
    
    among the items i did not pick up (or even slow down for):
    
    contraceptive devices, smashed sunglasses, ladies underwear, a smashed
    watch or two, mens underwear, sweatpants, blown out sewup tires.
    
    many of the above items can be classified as trash. some of the trash
    i've seen by the roadside is too disgusting to mention here.
    
    I subtopic might be odd items which have caused flats, such as: a rose
    thorn, a piece of sand (the tread was worn through), a roofing nail, a
    piece of wood, etc.
    
    roger
    

    I've got to keep my eyes on the road from now on.  I could do with some
    new screwdrivers in assorted sizes.
    
    I saw my first ever (from a bike that is, I've seen many from cars) dead
    wombat on Sunday and, thanks be, managed to miss it.
    
    Richard.

A little silver-plated copper bracelet this weekend that my wife liked.

For those of you in the used equipment department, go to the Hotter'n Hell 
Hundred in Wichita Falls, TX. With over 12,000 riders in a mass start, the road
quickly gets littered with pumps, sunglasses, and waterbottles. You could make a
fortune selling it all!

Steve

    
    RE: Bike-accessory deposit zones (Wichita Falls).
    
    Same thing on the first steep bridge north of Spartanburg the
    morning of the Assault on Mt. Mitchell.  Pumps, waterbottles,
    spare wheels... :-)
    
    I came back by that way and it really looked like somebody had
    had a big bike party ... what must the local farmers, etc., think?
    
    -john

    I've found a good number of tools.... about 30 of the items in
    my tool box are "found" items from biking around the city of
    Worcester (Mass.) and roads near it.  Pliers, wrenches of
    several varieties, screwdrivers, vise-grips, etc....
    
    My car has about a dozen bungee cords, of various descriptions,
    found at the roadside.  The useless (broken) ones I've picked up,
    trashed the rubber part, and used the S hooks for other things..
    
    Over the last 15 years, I have also picked up a LARGE number
    of lead wheel-balancing weights.  Usually I'm already stopped,
    or about to, in city riding, when I spot them and pick them up.
    I have a metal box they get tossed into when I arive home...
    every year or so I melt them down into something useful.  My
    SCUBA equipment collection contains about 50 pounds of lead
    weights, in various sizes, that I have cast from my collection.
    This doesn't count a few fishing weights, etc. other people
    have scrounged off me ("while you're melting lead....") at
    various times.  
    
    Not much for cash.... $0.25 or larger is worth stopping for.  
    Lesser amounts ain't.  Twice I've gotten dollar bills, but
    nothing larger.  Just enough to provide something refreshing
    at the next long stop....
    
    Oh, yes.... the local police were somewhat acquainted with me
    up to about 6 years ago (when my riding decreased sharply).
    Seems every weekend I was picking up 2 or 3 license plates
    (Mass. was making flimsy aluminum ones that cracked and fell
    off easily...) and turning them in Monday "on my way by" the
    police station.  Do these count as valuable?
    
    				- Ed B. -

     When pumpin' through the woods on my ATB I really run into some
    wild stuff like refrigerators, stoves, pick-up caps, people's
    garbage, wrecked automobiles, washing machines, car tires, a
    fortune in deposits on beers cans/bottles, etc... This really
    kills me. I think I'll mount an M60 on the handle bars just in
    case I happen to catch one of these total a$$holes redhanded
    and do a little littering of my own... Just thinking...
    
     Chip

re: "When pumpin' through the woods on my ATB I really run into some
    wild stuff like refrigerators, stoves, pick-up caps, people's
    garbage, wrecked automobiles, washing machines, car tires, "
    
    hmmmm, nedd some new glasses, Chip?
    
    :-)
    
    ed

    Once while biking to the grocery store, I saw two peices
    of green paper blowing down the road.  It was a 10 and a 20.

    I've found a few wrenches while biking, but most of the bungees that
    I find are kind of worthless.  They are either all stretched out,
    or missing one end.


    While we're on this topic, has anyone else read the book
    "Flattened Fauna"?  It's a guide book for identifying road kills.

    The preface points out that "most guide books would be suitable
    for identifying the 'merely dead', since many guide book drawings
    are made from stuffed dead animals.  This book endeavors to help
    identify those animals which, like the wicked witch of the east,
    are 'most sincerely dead'...  These are animals that in addition
    to loosing their lives, have lost much of their third dimension
    as well."

    The record number of sightings for a single day is 473 on a 60
    mile stretch of road in Idaho.  The author proposes setting up
    a national center to report sightings, similar to those that
    already exist among birdwatchers.

    -Jeff Bell

    The last time I stopped to pick up a tool on the climbing side of
    temple mountain, it wasn't metric, I threw it back.  On the descent
    side I might not have noticed it anyway.  :=)
    
    ed

    Tools and bungie cords sure are popular. Once I found a very very large
    pile of porno mags, guess someones wife told 'em to "get those *&@!#$%^
    things outa this house now!". Yesterday I found a full roll of masking
    tape - who says being an amateur cyclist don't pay. Anyways back to the
    mags; I looked them over and took a few home to my girlfriend - I
    would'nt be caught dead reading that stuff.
    
                                               Velonews and Winning forever
                                                         Wayne V
    
    P.S. Love the topic
     

     Re; "needing new glasses"... Glasses don't help. I've taken the front
    wheel off so I can feel may way as I go :-).
    
     Graduate of the "Helen Keller School Of Bicycling"

Tools are what I keep an eye peeled for.


My finds:

10" adjustable wrench (high quality)
Master Mechanic tin snips
18" gonzo K-mart screwdriver (designed to be hammered on)


These are some of my most-used tools.  Good thing I took up biking.


Steve

P.S. - I need one of those mountain-bike-mounted cannons, too, for the scum
	that dispose of stoves, refrigerators, etc. in the woods.

    Is it me or what?
                
    1. I was weezing up a really long gradual hill the other day and
    as always I had the eye peeled for some roadside nugget that I could
    brag about. (Where I live is the end of the city and beginning of
    farm country.) I like using this one road because its got really
    wide shoulders, I noticed that the road was bumpy and realized that
    I was riding in tractor tire imprints, no problem I thought as I
    weezed along, I moved to the left a bit. The I noticed what that
    tractor was pulling A MANURE SPEADER! Hmmmmmmm that's what that
    aroma is!   
    	a. manure speader's aren't hermetically sealed.
    	b. they like using roads with wide shoulders also.
                
    2. I wonder if when I'm riding my bike if all the kernel of my brain
    computing stuuf is swapped out. I was pedeling along recently and
    I saw a small brilliantly colored box labeled "SEX TOYS #3". Noting
    that the box was obviously empty I thought as I pedaled, Hmmmm what
    kind of sex toy comes in a box like that? I thought of all the toys
    that I could think of no luck. Oh well, I thought, must be some city
    thing that this old farmer wouldn't have thought of and continued
    pedaling. A couple miles later I thought again what kind of a toy
    has a verson number. (must be some software DEC doesn't make :-))
    A torturous hill later I finally put all the information together.
   	a. this was an empty video box.
    	b. SEX TOYS was its name and not its product discription.
    	c. #3 meant this was a sequel of an original. (not a further
   	enhancement of the the base version that had some of the original
    	bug fixes and added features with improved library's and a 
    	better group of logicals for easier references for the users.
    	d. It was a brilliant yellow because all porno things are in
    	brilliant colors.
    Now if I had stopped and taken a brief look at it, I would have
    immediately realized that this was a porno video box! So that proves
    it biking makes me stupid!
                      
    3. My best treasure yet was a quarter that I found. I was comparing
    notes with my son about that find. We remembered when I had spotted
    the thing I stopped like dead in my tracks (the old New Englander
    in me). It was like 100 yeards away! Its amazing how far we can
    go when going like 15 mph. 
                
    Fred Mudgett
                      

    
    
      screwdriver
      pocket calculator
      doggie carrier sans dog
      nylon sweat suit
      measuring tape
      carpenters level
      
    
      How about giving CPR to a dead note? What did you find lately??
      

    On the NW coast of Oregon, a Banana Slug.  I left it there.  :-)
    
    Actually what happened was that I rolled past it and said to myself,
    "Self, that must be a Banana Slug! I want to take another look" So I
    turned around, reclimbed the hill till I saw it on the other side.
    Before I could turn around an Oldsmobile came along and made it a mmot
    point.  :-)
    
    ed

...a 25' Stanley Powerlock and a saw.