Litter

[bingo296]

It is a pet peeve of mine that cyclist litter the roads with their Gu and energy bar wrappers. I ride mostly in the mountains and the only ones using those products up there are cyclists. How arrogant to toss your 100 calorie waste of money in a National Forest.
While watching the TDF today a few riders crested a climb and were handed food. An Astana rider battling with Volker for KOM points was handed a gel pac and while on camera he squeezed it down. These guys don’t use the 100 calorie pacs but use the larger 600 calorie ones so it took him a couple of moments. When finished , still on camera, he folded it up and put it in his jersey pocket. I was surprised and pleasantly so. Right on. If a guy fighting for a coveted jersey in the TDF can care enough about our planet to not litter then I think we a cyclist should be able to do so as well. Come on people, lets be responsible.
FYI, I carry a gel flask filled with honey. Ounce for ounce the same caloric content, pure glucose that goes straight into the blood stream by-passing the liver, and 0 litter.

Topic

[Tim Kelley]

It may be unintentional.

On long self-supported rides when just one or two flasks aren’t enough, I find myself packing a lot of GUs, waffles, blocks, etc. to get enough calories. I end up with pockets full of wrappers and I’ve realized (often too late) that when trying to dig through full pockets the empties can fly out as I pull out other stuff.

And when running, I’ve also had issues with certain nutrition falling out of my pockets as well. The last time this I happened I turned around and backtracked for several miles and found the unopened shotblok packet. Unfortunately this was in the middle of a busy intersection on Lee Highway and they had all been run over by car tires. Oh well.

[thucydides]

I guess I’m not the only one who watches replays of past TdFs. I’ve dropped empty packets by accident on a occasion, but unfortunately I too see a lot of folks do it on purpose. Accidents happen, but dropping them on purpose, even in a race, is just flat wrong.

[Tim Kelley]

@thucydides 32591 wrote:

Accidents happen, but dropping them on purpose, even in a race, is just flat wrong.

At least throw them on the ground near an aid station!

[thucydides]

A Belgian environmental group is trying to get a bunch of riders in this weekend’s L-B-L thrown out for littering in last year’s race. In a race like this things like water bottles get snatched up for souvenirs but it’ll be interesting if races and racers eventually get forced to deal with gel packets and other similar refuse differently.

[vvill]

I’ve tried different things to keep tabs on my wrappers. In the cooler months I’ve started tucking them into my arm warmers – not super comfortable but you’re more likely to remember to dispose of them at your first opportunity. I guess you could also stuff them into your shorts (from the knees!) similar to how some people store food they’re going to eat soon.

[txgoonie]

No excuse for that. No question.

Part of the reason I was a big fan of Clif shots was that the packet was designed to keep the top attached to the wrapper when you opened it. When I open other types of gels, despite my best efforts, I have had the top fly out of my hands.

Now that’s just talking about the top. Doesn’t prevents people from dumping the whole thing somewhere, but I appreciated to attention to packaging lifecycle.

I try to put my used wrappers in a different pocket than my nutrition to avoid inadvertently having the wrappers fly out when I reach for something else, like Tim described. Or into my shorts.

I can’t remember which race it was (SM 100 maybe?), but I volunteered at a mtb race where they provided a gel flask for racers to encourage people to not bring individually packaged gels. Lately, I’ve been doing that.

At half a dozen races I have found a handful of gel packets dumped into the bed of my pickup truck. Better than the ground, but, c’mon people. My car is not a trashcan.

[Author]

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