ABC Rides Tour de Trash

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

10th Edition ABC Rides Tour de Trash Return for 2016

After a 5 year hiatus, the recent article article from the Press Democrat's Julie Johnson's has instigated the return of the Tour de Trash. One short ride already identified illegal dumping out on Hardin Lane justifying the return of these community road rides.

As a result, the usual suspects organized rides out of Santa Rosa and Petaluma for Saturday February 20. We went out the following day to pick up the trash we geolocated for drop off at the Sonoma County Public Works in Santa Rosa.
The Petaluma ride is shown below where we were joined by Cardinal Newman MTB Team members, Tucker, Giuliano and Harrison.



Yuri took the lead out on this ride where riders, Jess, Frank, Shawn, Dan, Keith and myself welcomed the slower pace.

After 50 miles of pretty much following the Bantam Classic route, we returned to Ptown with 20 locations identified in both Marin and Sonoma counties, including the infamous "stink box" left conveniently right in front of the NO DUMPING sign.

Our new father, Jonathan Lee, had no time for lollygagging and set a blistering pace for Cardinal Newman's, Porter, who had to suck it up and keep up with the riding legend in front of him. Not an easy feat, but a great one-on-one rare opportunity with "The Coach".


Ironically and much to our disappointment, only two meager locations were spotted for worthwhile dumping. Is this a sign that the Santa Rosa area is "cleaner" than Petaluma? Time and the next "Tour de Trash" will tell.

So off we went on Sunday to collect our newly found trash possessions with pickup trucks from "Big" E, Jason "Climber", The "Neck" and your's truly with the Press Democrat in tow. We focused on Sonoma county first as the public works is once again supporting our cause. The stink box set the right tone of disgust for all present including us seasoned veterans. Undeterred, we continued on to the next dump sites as the trucks were getting full fast.



Reaching Gericke, we began the ascent where more trash was waiting for us but much to our chagrin, we were immediately followed by a quad. Out came some locals that thought we were actually going to dump the trash we collected and figured they had us nailed, until we had a Neck2Neck session that revealed to them what we were all about.

At that point, life was good. They even helped us haul more trash out of the ditch. Onward to Carmody Road, where Big E reports that the tractor wheels that Yuri took a beautiful picture of the day before were already gone! Plenty of other trash was still lying in the ditch; could have been the fact they were a roadside hazard.
Trucks were full and we were only able to hit 12 points out of 20, so we headed to the airport and basked in the glory of yet another successful Tour de Trash.

Much positive feedback was received from Diane Peterson's article on our weekend. So as long as they dump, the Tour de Trash is definitely here to stay.

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