Bikes, beer bottles, and the little bastards who smash them - An Open Letter

The BBQ Pit
1

Background:

This weekend, I blew out the front tire of my bike while in mid-descent down a reasonably steep trail. After doing my splendid impersonation of Superman in flight, I inspected the damage, and discovered that my front tire had been compromised by shards of brown, beer-bottle glass.

It had cut through the tread, worked its way into the tire, and punctured the tube. Tire blows, Donnie takes flight, Donnie spends a quality fifteen minutes extracting gravel from his elbows and another fifteen minutes trying to get his stricken tube to hold enough air to get home (glueless patches will be the topic of another Pit thread, someday).

Okay, now here comes the rant.

To all you teenagers who sneak off into the woods to drink beer: Hey, sneaking into the woods to drink beer doesn’t bother me. At one time or another, we all did it (if your parents say they haven’t, they’re lying). So really, who am I to judge? Just be sure to drink responsibly, have a DD, all the other old-man crap I feel obligated to spout.

But why, why, WHY are you smashing your beer bottles? What the fuck are you little freaks thinking about? Overstimulated by too much Muchmusic? Should we be blaming it on Marilyn Manson? Is there some band who has the backwards-masked message “Smash beer bottles on one of the most popular riding trails in your town, all the cool kids are doing it?” Is it hormones that make you into stupid little tire-trashing, trail-wrecking fuckwads?

Let’s set aside Donnie’s skinned arms and ruined tire for a moment. You see, what I really don’t understand is how you seem to ignore the obvious economic impact of your bottle-smashing ways. See, it works like this: The beer store will take back empty beer bottles, and give you what we call MONEY for them. No, you do not need to present valid identification to return empty beer bottles. This MONEY can then be exchanged for goods, services, and more importantly (providing you can find someone with proper or convincing ID), MORE BEER. Therefore, you are literally throwing money away by smashing beer bottles. Simple economics, really.

Money that you little assholes now owe me for the replacement of my tire and inner tube. Little bastards.

grrrr

2

They smashed bottles?

Fucking heathens!

That’s a ten cent deposit. Cash.

not to mention hurting a bike, and bikes are sacred.

Hunt 'em down and hurt 'em for being stupid and destructive. The first gets my pity, the second gets my scorn, the two together are unforgiveable.

3

Ten cents? I thought it was only five cents.

4

Bottle deposits are state laws. Michigan requires a ten cent deposit and just over the line in Ohio where I live, there’s no deposit at all. Most states having a bottle deposit charge a nickel. California, I believe levies only a 2½¢ charge. Interestingly, some states also charge sales tax on bottle deposits. Of those, some refund the sales tax when the bottle is returned, others don’t.

5

In California, the stores will not take back the empties. They must be taken to designated recycling centers. They will pay by the pound, so the broken bottles won’t bother them much.

6

I think the causality is clear here. The bottles contained beer. Beer makes you stupid. And inconsiderate.

Canoe down pretty much any river and see how many Bud cans litter the banks.

7

I hate this. At U of Oregon in Eugene, the main bike path for those commuting to school from the south side of town ran along frat row for 10 blocks or so, and there was apparently a sport made of chucking bottles over the fence and getting them to break on the bike path (the path was also often used as illegal parking-- and people wonder why bicyclists bend radio antennae and move mirrors around. I mean, we get a couple of miles of two-foot wide shoulder, so that we can try to get out of the damn way of most drivers on the busy streets-- why can’t people just accomodate us this little bit?) VERY irritating. Up there with people who write in library books.

8

I could never understand this activity either. So you find this tight little spot in the woods and chill. No one knows you hang out there, so you can drink beer and what have you without fear of Grownup interferance.

Now, why do you want to shit all over this nice little nest you have? By fucking it up with broken glass and trash, you are drawing attention to the fact that someone parties there. People will start complaining because their tires are getting shredded. Now the authorities will be watching that area and you’ll have to move on.

Wake the fuck up! If you have a nice little area, keep it clean so nobody knows about it. Sheesh. What’s with these kids nowdays.

9

My poor dog cut herself twice on broken bottles.It really is crappy that people do things like that.

By the way,when I say “cut herself” I do mean that she required vet visits,stitches etc.

10

The only real solution to this problem is to make sure that the empty bottles are inserted strategically in such a way that the recipient has little or no desire to have them broken at that point.

Cretins who scatter broken glass on any public throughfare should have the same, ground up and incorporated into their food. I have seen a beach party leave a mound of beer bottles that was over three feet high and six feet across. Do you think that these swillmeisters bothered to leave the bottles intact? No, almost all of them were broken making the cleanup ten times harder and the beach a much more dangerous place to go barefoot.

Such conduct rates right up there with grafitti. An eyesore (footsore too) by any definition and vandalism to the environment. Effing swine!

11

[nitpick]Broken glass in someone’s food won’t kill them. Splintered glass is what you want to give them.[/nitpick]

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It’s the thought that counts…

13

My I broaden the scope here, just a touch?

Addendum to beer swilling asswipes: (note, it’s only the asswipes I’m addressing. If you are a beer swilling swell person, you’re off the hook)

The playground is a nice safe place where we can bring our children to play. Little kids, big kids… I’ve seen teenagers in there and I’ve seen kids who are barely walking. That brown stuff on the ground? That’s wood chips, and it’s there to make it softer for our kids when they fall down. And they do fall down. They also crawl around, roll on the ground, and all sorts of other playful kid type things.

Which is why I get really fucking PISSED OFF when I find all your sharp, rusty beer bottle caps littered around in the wood chips. More often than not, if I look down, I’ll see at least one, usually more. What the FUCK is wrong with you? In addition to the ring of benches around the playground I count FOUR yes FOUR garbage cans. Within a 50 foot radius or so. Did I mention the FOUR FUCKING GARBAGE CANS?? Did I mention that our CHILDREN play here? Did I mention the bottle caps are SHARP and also RUSTY? Shall I shove a fistfull of them up your ASS to make you understand the problem a little better?

Fuckers.

14

I only have one question:

What kind of bike?

15

Smashed beer bottles? Oh my!!! Must be those damn teenagers. They’re the only people in the world who smash beer bottles. Its not like any adult would smash a beer bottle, especially not when drunk. I mean, what adult smashes beer bottles when they’re drunk? Couldn’t have dropped them, I mean drunk people still have total coordination, so…

16

Being a teenager as well, I understand where you’re coming from. But the OP does state that he was on a bike trail. Then he goes on to imply that it was in the woods or something like that. Now how would a beer bottle get all the way into the woods by a bunch of adults when they can drink it at home. Futhermore, being an cyclist as well, I can tell you that riding over a broken beer bottle is normally ok. When I race, we’re packed in so tight that sometimes you either go over the glass or you knock out half the pack trying to avoid it. However, when it is smashed into sharp slivers, this is when you run into flats.

Although, I think most of the beer bottles smashed around bars are from those inept adults.

17

Check this out… http://www.notubes.com

The guy sells you a kit and instructions to turn any regular wheelset tubeless. But what’s better is that the solution you put inside the tire to seal it also ensures that if you do get a puncture on the trail, it will self seal.

WORKS GREAT!

18

This was in the woods near here. When I was a teenager, this is where we went to drink, so grown-ups wouldn’t catch us at it. I can’t speak for anywhere else in North America (obviously) but busted beer bottles around here mean a teenage “bush party.” Which isn’t what pisses me off, just the broken beer bottles that cost me a front tire and inner tube. Around here, the adults do smash plenty of bottles, but only at the bar (sadly, I’ve been that person a few times).

Cykrider, I currently ride a Raleigh Serengeti, rigged out with a Judy front fork and STX/XTR drivetrain. My tires were IRC Mythos XC, but budget constraints mean I’m now rolling on a bargain-basement Conti up front.

Dr. Nate, I’ve looked into the tubeless option, but as a hardcore XC rider, currently the best set on the market is far too heavy and expensive for my applications (Mavic rims and Hutchinson Python tires). The site you put up looks promising, but I’m the sort who’d like to see some independent, third-party testing. I’ve put this link up at the BIKE Magazine message board, and I’m awaiting feedback. After all, anything that promises to save me weight is worth a look.

Thanks everyone!

And, if anyone happens to be into biking and visiting the Ottawa area, drop me a line, always looking for cool people to ride with!

19

Tubes are a pain in the ass, if at all possible, go tubeless. You’ll be happy you did. :slight_smile: