When you’ve got 5000 odd people all on the same route for anywhere from 3 – 7 hours there’s bound to be some litter, deliberate or not. There’s no excuse for deliberately littering but when you consider the scale of the event it’s sadly not too surprising.

I’m sure we all hate litter but sometimes on these type of events it’s not easy to get a gel out , open it , eat it and get the wrapper back in your pocket without dropping it and if you are riding with a group of friends you are going to be reluctant to turn round and go back for what you probably think is just 1 tiny bit of litter and potentially lose contact with your group .Either way you always end up with sticky hands which personally I can’t stand . My wife got me a great little gadget which is like a tiny plastic bottle with the same top as on a standard bicycle bottle that you can decant about 4 gels into before a ride and it does away with all the associated faff , litter and sticky hands as you open the gels before the ride fill up your little bottle , put the wrappers in the bin and wash your hands .
you can probably buy them for virtually nothing so perhaps event organisers could supply them to competitors in events like this and hopefully it would be problem solved and everybody wins .

I’m sure we all hate litter but sometimes on these type of events it’s not easy to get a gel out , open it , eat it and get the wrapper back in your pocket without dropping it and if you are riding with a group of friends you are going to be reluctant to turn round and go back for what you probably think is just 1 tiny bit of litter and potentially lose contact with your group

FFS, that is barely any different to folk throwing their McD wrappers out of the car window as ‘they mess up the car’… 😯

FFS, that is barely any different to folk throwing their McD wrappers out of the car window as ‘they mess up the car’…

Well thanks that never occured to me . Just pointing out why it happens and trying to offer up a solution . I forgot that kind of attitude always ends badly on here cos there are some real stars who love to shoot anything constructive down but never offer any workable solutions themselves .

Backpacks are wrong on any bike .I was always taught to let the bike carry the load from an early age

Gel wrappers and the like go back in my barbag

Does it really win or lose the race to stuff it in your pocket….?

Not a race.

Just another charity ride. Not a very good one, apparently – http://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2012/jun/20/charity-bike-ride

Sandwiches for the win – biodegradable too. Maybe not all the necessary marginal gains tho…. 😆

See the Jelly Baby? How come SIS or High 5 can’t make a gel that is effectively self-contained in its own little, edible outer shell. Make the consistency a bit thicker too. And while they are at it, make them in jelly baby flavours. In fact, all we need are giant Jelly Babies FTW! 🙂

Sandwiches for the win – biodegradable too. Maybe not all the necessary marginal gains tho….

I’ve yet to find a sandwich which offers the same energy boost in the same easy to consume for as an energy gel. You’d probably still wrap it in foil or cling film so it’s not reducing potential litter either.

FFS, that is barely any different to folk throwing their McD wrappers out of the car window as ‘they mess up the car’…

It really is quite different. Accidentally dropping a gel wrapper while in a group doing 20+ mph and potentially causing problems for everyone else against the purely selfish act of throwing shit out of a car deliberately.

See the Jelly Baby? How come SIS or High 5 can’t make a gel that is effectively self-contained in its own little, edible outer shell. Make the consistency a bit thicker too. And while they are at it, make them in jelly baby flavours. In fact, all we need are giant Jelly Babies FTW!

Can’t remember who it is (Clif, maybe?) who make block shots. More like jelly cubes than jelly babies but easy to consume, taste good and you get 9 or 10 in a packet, so less waste too.

Not a race.

Just another charity ride. Not a very good one, apparently – http://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2012/jun/20/charity-bike-ride

Indeed not a race, though it’s refereed to as such on their own website which is a bit naughty imo, and some competitors will look on it as a race of sorts, trying to beat their mates/target time. I suspect that the Etape won’t be the only ‘charity’ event where the organising company makes a profit but charities still benefit. It’s still raising a chunk of cash for the charity of choice, just maybe not as much as they could if profits were smaller.

slowpuncheur – Chewy sweetie goodness

We seem to get these litter rants after every big sportive – is it just us that get upset about it?

If we get this complaint after events regularly, then perhaps as a sport we need to get our act together.
Let’s ban even the pro from lobbing litter and bottles for a start, and a rule that if you drop, you DNF.

If it’s not a race, how come there’s a winners ceremony?

I suppose what I am saying is there is a market for Jelly Men and Women. Cover them in icing sugar and they wont stick together in your pocket. No need for any wrapping at all then.

Alternatively, these sportivistas need to get a grip and realise they aren’t in the last 20km of Milan San Remo and that stopping at the side of the road if they are struggling to sort our gel wrappers is going to make chuff all difference to anything. I’ve done Caledonia a few years ago and seriously, after all the grief with the tacks on the road and pissed off neighbours (granted – they were very much the minority) I would have thought riders would have given them less ammunition to object in the future.

I have to be honest having ridden in sportives since 2011 littering is something that I rarely see in the South West, only on the first Ride London was it particularly bad and on that one occasion it was immediately after a feed stop where they were handing out gels. I do agree though, even the pro tour teams are getting fined for littering outside designated areas now, we should challenge cyclists who litter on sportives. Some events are already causing anger amongst residents whom live on the route, the last thing we need is to add to their list of complaints. One organiser started giving you a free gel at the end for every wrapper you brought back subject to a maximum of two I think which wasnt a bad idea.

Worse than littering is the sight of riders at the start of a 100km ride loading themselves up with enough food and drink for a party of eight riding twice the distance. Often there are feed stops thirty odd miles from the start but they set off with two full bidons, pockets full of gels and energy bars and dont get me started on why they need gels and energy bars in the first place….

Scrap that. It’d be like riding with a set of Bombers in your jersey pocket. Tunnocks caramel wafers win the energy v weight equation.

They’re probably all doping as well. 🙁

I was sweeper at a sportive our club put on last year (Skipton CC’s Le Petit Depart), sum total of dropped gel wrappers or indeed any litter in the 70 mile route? One.

So it can be done.

If I were the OP I would email the organisers to tell them exactly why I won’t be entering their event next year.
my nutrition top tip: jelly babies but only boys. You get more jelly that way.

Once I’ve eaten a gel I tuck the empty packet in my sock. Admittedly I tend to wear longer socks than some folks but it works for me.

All the times I’ve done it we’ve stopped at a couple of the food stations. Its free and saves carrying stuff.

Well it’s not really free, but for £65 I want to fill my pockets during the event rather than before it 😆

I don’t think people accidentally drop them, I think they do it on purpose… and I don’t think it’s just those who think they’re ‘pro’.
Used gel wrappers are sticky and make a mess in your pockets which have other things in that you don’t to get sticky so people just chuck them away.
If I ever use them, they get tucked in my shorts or up my jersey.

Used gel wrappers are sticky and make a mess in your pockets which have other things in that you don’t to get sticky so people just chuck them away.

True that. I always have a designated ‘used gel’ pocket for them. But my pockets never get that sticky. I’m maybe just better at eating them on the move than everyone else.

I hate to see littering and will often pull someone up if i see them doing it but i was in the third group away (so about 300+ riders back from the start) and didnt see much of a problem at that point – a couple of wrappers and some banana skins (which unlike the wrappers i dont really have a problem about) over 80 miles isnt too bad. After a few thousand riders have gone past the cumulative effect will be more noticeable but early on it wasnt too bad

If i remember right there was a team in the tour de France last year that had jersey with a litter pocket at the side, not sure what brand made it though.

It was a wet day and pretty cold = waterproofs covering pockets, cold hands and clumsy gloves. I suspect a lot of the litter was accidental on a day like today.
EDIT. For 80 quid I would have thought they could have hired a sweeper for the day.

As others have said, littering is a criminal offence, but this isn’t some city centre, where there may be litter sweepers and pickers employed to pick up your rubbish. This is a beautiful bit of the Highlands, where many people love to visit and some are lucky enough to call home. There is no excuse whatsoever for dropping anything, cold hands or not. Event organisers will get hammered by the local community via the Council for any litter left after a race/sportive, especially an area where tourism is a key part of the local economy.

Sorry, but its inexcusable, even if you feel that paying £70 to ride a closed road permits you to drop litter.

You’re still missing a trick though. Rather than buying expensive gels to decant into it (and still putting lots of excess packaging into landfill), just fill them with your favourite energy drink powder and mix in a little water to make a gel consistency. That’s what I use for gels, and don’t really get the popularity of little sachets which give you sticky hands.

I still don’t get it, and I am learning that the pros get ‘litter here’ zones around feed stations and race finishes. Really poor attitude and approach.

I also do not buy the cold hands/no pockets thing – shove them anywhere or stop for a moment to put it in a pocket or organisers staple a freezer bag to back of every number plate etc. Set the tone of ‘we don’t litter’.

I also have an issue with banana anf fruit remains – it is still litter, still takes weeks and weeks to decompose, still affects wildlife and again sets a tone of ‘some litter is acceptable’. No it is not.

Banana skins are just as bad, 2 years to break down naturally.

Dropping shit outside is just antisocial. If you want to live in a pig sty, that’s your choice. Please don’t inflict it on the rest of us.

You can’t change human behaviour.

You can take advantage of it though.

When I was a lad there was a deposit on soft drink bottles, you never saw them in the wild.

So 5p deposit on all gels.

Then a keen kid on a bike can go around afterwards and clean up. (I would have been that kid 🙂 )

😆

Banana skins are just as bad, 2 years to break down naturally.

Do you really think that’s true?

blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah moss blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

Sorry OP I couldn’t read your original post after struggling with this mispelling of miss.

For the argument that riding is different to throwing McD out window. I disagree.
Rubbish is rubbish. Let’s not be conceited that we’re any better than others. The world does not need to be littered and if we can avoid it we should – bike riding is for pleasure so its completely unnecessary to be littering..

I used a gel right at the end of the Fred Whitton yesterday, don’t normally use them but was glad of it, tasted delicious (Torq rhubarb and custard) and I genuinely felt some benefit, whether or not due to the gel I don’t know but it was worth it.

I don’t understand any of the comments about sticky fingers though, I tore the top off with my teeth, held the gel in my hand whilst removing the torn bit from my mouth, torn bit in back pocket, gel squeezed into mouth, empty wrapper folded under leg of shorts. Done. Zero mess.

Littering at the Fred seemed pretty minor, and what I saw could genuinely have been dropped accidentally, in fact a few even looked like they had been folded so someone had probably tried to stow them in their shorts or something.

Oh, as a side note, I see the usual ‘if you’re that fast enter a real race’ type comments coming out, so just for my own info, does anyone organise ‘real races’ over 80 miles of Perthshire hills? Or 112 miles of Lakeland passes, or 90 miles of Assynt coastline, or any of the other spectacular and awesome routes offered up by Sportives? Maybe fast guys just want to test themselves on something which more closely resembles a tour stage rather than multiple laps of some short circuit on the outskirts of town…

^^^^ not a racer, but surely if

fast guys just want to test themselves on something which more closely resembles a tour stage

they can just go and ride it, anytime ? the roads are quiet anyway and they wouldn’t have 5000 other folk getting in their way 🙂

they can just go and ride it, anytime ? the roads are quiet anyway and they wouldn’t have 5000 other folk getting in their way

Hey, I like the big event feel, I like having 5000 other riders on the road to distract me from whatever’s going on in my legs/head, and I sure as hell would not have completed the Fred Whitton in the pissing rain and howling wind if I’d been riding by myself.

Fair point about the fast guys though, maybe not much in it for them, and I’ll bet none of them even touched their free pie and beans at the end and I heard a suspicious number of orders for diet 7up at the beer tent afterwards… 😀

I don’t understand why mountain bikers don’t just stick tio trail centres rather than going out into the natural areas and destroy the paths 😕

Perhaps if riders had paid an extortionate entry fee they assumed that road sweepers would be employed by the organisors.

I don’t think it should matter how much or how little you have paid, you should not expect others to pick up after you, with the possible exception of immediately after a water or aid station where it’s expected. It was this sort of attitude that made me go from enthusiastic volunteer at our club duathlon to finding something else to do of a Sunday morning. One of the races the club organises is a duathlon (run, bike, run) at Goodwood motor racing circuit. Goodwood don’t really want us there as it’s not particularly profitable but tolerate it on the calendar provided there is zero litter after we leave. We make a big deal about the DQing for littering and why (apart from the obvious) but tens of folk clearly don’t GAF either because they think it’s ok for unpaid volunteers to spend hours walking the course picking up their litter whilst they are back at home or because they don’t care about the long term future of the race.

If you get an event the size of the EC it is inevitable that there is going to be a certain amount of littering going on, deliberate or otherwise. We had a charity walk go by last weekend using the cyclepath and funnily enough the path was covered afterwards. The point is that it was cleared up afterwards. I would be surprised if the EC organisers don’t tidy after the event, or pay a fee to the council to do it. Given that we only have a rant from someone on the day, we don ‘t actually know whether or not this has in fact been done.