Last weekend I went for a long training ride into the Santa Monica Mountains to not only get in some good hill climb miles, but escape the dirtiness of Los Angeles, the city I live in. On this ride I decided to go up Latigo as it is one of my favorites, as well as being a good nine mile slog.

One of the most annoying things with living in a big city like Los Angeles is all the trash just thrown on the streets. Walk down Robertson Blvd., just one block from my house and you would be amazed at the kind of litter that people threw out of their cars. Slurpee cups, fast food bags, used condoms, busted up cell phones, and even a used needle once.

So when I head to the hills I expect, and I am now demanding, that I get to escape the litter of the city. So on the ride mentioned above I was horrible let down. I hold us cyclists up to a higher standard than your beer drinking late night canyon racer type. Cyclists have no reason to litter, and I mean none.

So as I started to head up the Latigo climb I noticed a gel packet at the base of the climb. I stopped; I bent over, and picked it up and put it in my jersey pocket. No big deal, someone dropped it by accident I guessed. Once riding again I decided to see if that gel packet was a one off, or some kind of great cyclist screw up. Well, the latter turned out to be true.

I stopped twenty nine times to pick up a gel packet, twice for bar wrappers, and three times for CO2 cartridges. That is 34 pieces of trash that cyclists threw out onto the road and totally messed with my mind. I was completely pissed off. I mean I was PISSED OFF dam it. How in the hell can anyone just toss their trash onto my Santa Monica Mountain paradise?

I am sure that more screwed up in the brain bone heads have already started a new collection of discarded energy product packets and wrappers onto Latigo, and I can only hope that cycling karma kicks them to the asphalt and gives them really bad road rash they gets infected.

STOP TOSSING YOUR TRASH ONTO THE ROAD.

Your cycling jersey has those damned pockets for a reason. Want to know what they are for? So you can store your crap in them. And once you shove that crap into you pie hole, you can put the damned wrappers back in the pocket until you get home to throw it out. Got it? Then live it!

Even my 3 year old son knows not to litter.