I try to not let irritating things stick in my craw and drive me nuts. Really, I do. But sometimes, jackassery haunts me.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve found myself in several conversations about riders in this year’s Soggy Bottom 100 who tossed their energy-gel wrappers on the trail. Not on a closed course with a cleanup crew, but in a freakin’ national forest.
There’s never a good reason for throwing your trash on the ground while passing over a trail on public land. Only a dick would do such a thing. So if the offending rider or riders—I’m really hoping it wasn’t more than one or two—happens to be reading this blog, yeah dude, I’m callin’ you a dick. Very specifically you. You make mountain bikers look bad.
Some riders take themselves way too seriously. I mean really, what did you think, you were in some sort of major event with a staff of people who would come along behind you and pick up your shit?
It ain’t the Tour de France. It’s a grassroots event on beautiful public land, against other local riders. I don’t care what kind of bike you ride, what kind of kit you wear, how elite you think you are, or whether you pay some coach to make you a few seconds faster so that you can occasionally beat the same friends you race every stinking week. Tossing your wrappers on the trail is a shitty and childish thing to do.
In the future, try to follow The Golden Rule: Don’t be a dick.
9 comments:
Agreed.
IMHO, anyone who does that should be deleted from the results and banned from future events.
That was a pretty much perfect and to-the-point rant. Despite my name, I'm not very good at ranting... well done!
Are you like me in that writing it down helps "clear your craw"? I hope so. Anyway, +1. Dick. For sure.
I saw those wrappers. At first I thought one fell out of someones pocket. But then they were spaced out about every 8 miles or so. That was not an accident.
People like that are going to be the reason this race doesn't happen in the future.
I say, catch the offender and make 'em eat the wrapper. That oughtta take care of it.
It's bad enough when I see that stuff in the city, the streets tend to be kind of trashy as it is. It is unforgivable when they do it in the mountains. Let 'em have it.
Hope it helps - but in my unofficial "sweep" from Hope to Bean Creek, well behind the racers, I stopped and picked up as many Gu and Cliff Blok wrappers as I saw. Guess I'll have to ride both ways next year.
Julie is right, these were not accidental. Yep, good rant.
Yeap, those same riders are must be riding in my neck of the woods too. It pizzz's me off. I see it all the time, would be nice to go shit in their front yards.
Keep rant'n
Amen! More mountain bikers need to ride LNT conscious everywhere they ride, and especially in the national forest!
Post a Comment