Lost items - lost cause?

[d_douglas]

Arrrghh, I went MTBing at the local park about 45min from my house. Absent-mindedly, I left my nice helmet and gloves sitting by the bikewash station.

Three days of searching for that helmet at home and riding to work with cold hands and it just dawned on me that I left the stuff there. I will try to get out to look to see if it is there in the next few days, but there's not much point - a nice IXS MTB helmet in great shape would be a great find for a less-than-honest person :)

At least it was only $200 worth of stuff and not a carbon wheel or something.

Has anyone else left stuff out on the trail that theyre sad about?

[john903]

Well I hope you find your items you never know you may check some bike shops maybe a person drooped them off at a bike shop. I have left a front wheel at a bike shop after a ride I drove home and duh where is my wheel at. Thankfully the shop had it but yea it is a frustrating feeling forgetting stuff.
Have a great day

[jtbadge]

Local MTB/trail work Facebook groups are great for this. I always see people posting up found gear.

[Jaybee]

^^^

Yup. Facebook/Craigslist/local MTB advocacy group. Maybe check and see if there is a bulletin board/kiosk there. I've reunited a couple people with items (including a carbon front wheel) that I've found at trailheads through these avenues.

[Aldus]

Local MTB/trail work Facebook groups are great for this. I always see people posting up found gear.

This is probably your best bet. Hope that someone with a conscious found it instead of otherwise.

[tuscanyswe]

Yes gloves are the most common thing for me to forget and leave at places.
Nice winter gloves can be rather spendy to. Its always very annoying to find out one forgot to bring something home :/

[yakstone]

I’ve never left bike stuff but last year a friend and I left two fly rods at the take out point after a float trip.
We were being inundated be mosquitoes and left the rods standing next to sign at the boat ramp while we ran to use the outhouse. Came out of the bathroom and our ride was right there to pick us up.
Didn’t realize what we’d done until the next morning when we noticed we were each missing a rod.
Seriously thought someone would turn them in at one of the two fly shops in town but that never happened

[cachagua]

In my cliff-diving days I "forgot" fifteen or twenty pairs of sunglasses... well, the cliff faced into the sun, I wasn't gonna sit there and squint while doing bowls to get my courage up, ya know?

Eventually I got to where I'd remember while I was in mid-air, before hitting the water. I was proud of myself, "Hey, this is progress!"

I'm not sure I ever learned not to forget, but I learned to buy cheap sunglasses. (cue the ZZ Top)

[peanutgallery]

2 pairs of sunglasses lost in last few years. Fell into a creek in water over my head and they washed away. Found my bike. Another time, went a$$ over elbow in a rock garden and they disappeared. Funny thing, someone showed up a month or so later on a group ride wearing them. Finders keepers, I was cool with it

Best find, a topreak alien multi tool. Still use it

Lost and found? Faceplace

[unterhausen]

I have lost two cygolite tail lights in the woods. Finally figured out that mounting them the way I was isn't a good idea. I searched for one for a while, but since it wasn't on, it was definitely a lost cause. I hope someone found them, I'm a little concerned about causing a toxic waste site.

[d_douglas]

as a facebook hater, I just posted on facebook (with the help of my 25yr old colleague cause I couldn't figure out how to tag a comment from my own FB page to the MTB park's page!!)

We will see what happens - one never knows.

[scopes]

Hey Darren - this might be yours?! Worth a short at least... Was posted on the South Island Mtb Society page.

https://www.facebook.com/southislandmtb/posts/2308041162600839

ps. Michael here.

[tuscanyswe]

Hey Darren - this might be yours?! Worth a short at least... Was posted on the South Island Mtb Society page.

https://www.facebook.com/southislandmtb/posts/2308041162600839

ps. Michael here.

Thats real nice of you, great first post ! :banana:

[R3awak3n]

this past D2R2, I put my stupid prescription oakleys on my helmet and lost em descending some gravel hill. They were like 3 months old and cost me like $300 (and that was with insurance). I was so mad and messaged the organizers but nothing turned up.

[R3awak3n]

Thats real nice of you, great first post ! :banana:

yeah, that is great

[Tickdoc]

One time after a long organized group ride I loaded up my bike, drove all the way home, and unloaded the bike only to discover I left the front wheel leaned up against the car and just drove off.

Took me 40 minutes to drive back down to where I was parked and there was my wheel just laying in the parking lot untouched.

[d_douglas]

Hey Darren - this might be yours?! Worth a short at least... Was posted on the South Island Mtb Society page.

https://www.facebook.com/southislandmtb/posts/2308041162600839

ps. Michael here.

Thanks Mike and welcome to the Paceline! Let's see if its mine. I bet it is, but worries that it bounced off the roof of my car and is no longer safe to ride :(

Good people around here!

[weaponsgrade]

Thanks Mike and welcome to the Paceline! Let's see if its mine. I bet it is, but worries that it bounced off the roof of my car and is no longer safe to ride :(

Good people around here!

That'd be really cool if it was yours. Let's see, years ago I lost a nice pair of titanium framed sunglass on the Dipsea trail in Marin. I checked the ranger station at the top of the trail for years, but it never showed up. I lost a Crank Bros pump when it slipped out of my jersey pocket on a particularly bumpy and steep fireroad descent. More recently I lost another pump while mtn biking that was slotted into a little pocket of my hydration pack. I'm pretty sure it fell out when I flipped off my bike after sliding off the trail and down a steep face. My computer got dislodged, but luckily I found that. I should've checked for the pump, but didn't. It's probably buried under leaves and dirt now.

[zross312]

My very first ride on my disc-brake, thru-axle gravel bike, I double-flatted at the top of the trailhead and ran out of tubes. Seeing that I was stranded, an incredibly kind couple offered to drive me to the nearest bike shop, so I quickly removed my wheels and packed everything into the car. Finally, after braving 30 mins of LA traffic, we arrived at the shop - and that's when I learned a valuable lesson about thru-axles. You see, I treated them like QR skewers and just put them back in the hubs when I took the wheels out of the frame, and the front axle must have slid out and been left behind at the trailhead. I wound up having to take a 40 minute uber ride home anyway. Considering the replacement thru-axle and the long uber ride, the original flat probably cost me $80.

Arrrghh, I went MTBing at the local park about 45min from my house. Absent-mindedly, I left my nice helmet and gloves sitting by the bikewash station.

Three days of searching for that helmet at home and riding to work with cold hands and it just dawned on me that I left the stuff there. I will try to get out to look to see if it is there in the next few days, but there's not much point - a nice IXS MTB helmet in great shape would be a great find for a less-than-honest person :)

At least it was only $200 worth of stuff and not a carbon wheel or something.

Has anyone else left stuff out on the trail that theyre sad about?

[R3awak3n]

My very first ride on my disc-brake, thru-axle gravel bike, I double-flatted at the top of the trailhead and ran out of tubes. Seeing that I was stranded, an incredibly kind couple offered to drive me to the nearest bike shop, so I quickly removed my wheels and packed everything into the car. Finally, after braving 30 mins of LA traffic, we arrived at the shop - and that's when I learned a valuable lesson about thru-axles. You see, I treated them like QR skewers and just put them back in the hubs when I took the wheels out of the frame, and the front axle must have slid out and been left behind at the trailhead. I wound up having to take a 40 minute uber ride home anyway. Considering the replacement thru-axle and the long uber ride, the original flat probably cost me $80.

and now you run tubeless :)

[cderalow]

for me it's normally taillights or water bottles.

normally a singular glove or arm warmer.

I'll sometimes carry a 3rd water bottle in a jersey pocket on hot summer nights, and on occasion they'll dislodge themselves on a hill or descent. Most of the time I notice pretty much immediately (it's always the fully frozen bottle at the start), and am fairly successful at locating them. every once in a while i either don't notice it's made an exodus until I get home, or it has bounced its way out view.

I've never used to notice when my old AAA battery powered taillights came off, and lost probably 10 of them before upgrading to rechargeables with better mounting methods.

arm warmers/gloves follow the concept of water bottles. take them off mid ride only to have them fall out of a jersey pocket.

i've gotten better about arm warmers (rolling them into a single ball), but for some reason I'm always losing a glove.



I once found one of my lost gloves riding the same route as one of my night rides the next day in daylight.

That was a great moment.

[d_douglas]

a heartwarming story of honesty :)

Someone just called and said he had my helmet and gloves :) - there is one and only one reason why I like Facebook now!

The added bonus is that the guy lives 5min from my house - I can walk there to pick the helmet up.

awwwwwwwww......





Not sure if I should use the helmet as it sounds as though it bounced off the roof of my car or off the handlebar as it sat on the rear rack. He said it was just outside of the parking lot, so I mustn't have been going fast at all, but we all know that fast isnt the recipe for serious damage.

Roll the dice?

[bikinchris]

I left a new pair of Oakleys in a rental car once. A student dropped me off, and since I had no luggage, I didn't search the car as usual. I called the manager the next morning. No luck. Some wash guy was probably sporting new glasses after that.
Another time, I left a camera in a rental car. Couldn't see it in the dark. Manager shipped it back to me.

[bikinchris]

a heartwarming story of honesty :)

Someone just called and said he had my helmet and gloves :) - there is one and only one reason why I like Facebook now!

The added bonus is that the guy lives 5min from my house - I can walk there to pick the helmet up.

awwwwwwwww......





Not sure if I should use the helmet as it sounds as though it bounced off the roof of my car or off the handlebar as it sat on the rear rack. He said it was just outside of the parking lot, so I mustn't have been going fast at all, but we all know that fast isnt the recipe for serious damage.

Roll the dice?

Yes, but just inspect it carefully. With no weight in the helmet, it may have not broken.

[scopes]

Great to hear you'll be reunited! This was a good reason to stop lurking the pretty bikes on here

If we ever see the sun again I'll get some shots of my rigs to contribute.

[HenryA]

Left a custom kayak paddle at the take out after teaching a class. Was so busy with the students I forgot it. Had my name on it, under the finish but it never showed up.

The happy part is that a friend had a nearly identical paddle needing some small repairs. He gave it to me and I repaired and refinished it to like new.

[Peter P.]

Many years ago I rode the 15 miles to the bike shop.

On the return trip, I stopped at a convenience store and for some reason, left my wallet on top of the trash can outside the store.

I realized it was missing a few miles down the road. Returned to the convenience store and thank goodness, it was still there with nothing missing.

[NHAero]

Brand new ski boots on top of my car at my house. Drove off and after a while realized I didn't get them in the car. Went back, never found them. This was on a rural road that I lived on in NH. Someone picked them up darn fast 😢

Last summer, got to a trail head in the White Mtns. Got out, took my hiking poles out, and was putting my boots on when the sky just opened up and it was a downpour. The weather report had been terrible but we had driven over because it had looked better where we were staying. We jumped back in the car and drove back to where we were staying. There we realized, no poles. Went back the next day and they were leaning against the trail sign!

[charliedid]

Great story

[Black Dog]

I have lost a few things over the years. I have kids and they forget everything. We purchased some waterproof durable labels for the kids gloves, jackets, etc... that have a 1st name and phone number on them. I realized quickly that I could use them for my stuff to. Order a bunch with my name and number and they have more than paid for themselves. Makes it to easy for people to get you your stuff back. I think they are from a co. Called mables labels.

[d_douglas]

To wrap this saga up, I dropped by the guys house with a bottle of wine as thanks.

I remember him from the parking lot as he asked me about my Chromag. A man of good taste.

Anyhoo, it is my positive-attitude-Friday contribution ;) :banana: