Water Bottle Thievery

The 2010 Giro di Coppi stood up to the races “heated” reputation, with temperatures just shy of the triple digits. Staying cool and hydrated is a necessity. Personally, I combated the heat with a plethora of bottles filled with water and sports drink. I brought seven, to be exact. That was my entire collection of water bottles, consolidated in one cooler.

I drank two dry before lining up for the start – refilling one and placing it in a cooler with two other spares for me or my teammates. I started with two on the bike, and one slightly smaller bottle in my jersey pocket.

If you guess that a bottle costs five dollars from a bike shop, I brought $35 dollars worth of hydration receptacles to the Giro di Coppi.

At the end of the first lap, I dumped a bottle at the feet of one of my teammates’ girlfriend, who was graciously feeding our squad along with another teammate’s better half. She flawlessly handed me another bottle at speed. I’d have three more bottles for three more laps, so I avoided the mayhem of the feed zone for the rest of the race.

Aside from dumping an empty water bottle from my rear pocket on the third lap, in which I made eye contact with a dropped teammate on the sideline, then tossed him the bottle, I had little to worry about. I ended up smacking him in the face with the discarded bottle. That’s neither here nor there, unless, of course, the bottle bounced too far off Drew’s head into the brush, never to be seen again.

That is what happened with four of the seven bottles I had brought to the race: they simply disappeared. I checked in my cooler, my car, my teammates’ coolers and their bikes to see if we’d been passed each others’ bottles (our feed zone girls are trained not to discriminate). I walked both sides of the road surrounding the feed zone to no avail. This race cost me more than registration.

Perhaps my teammates took them as feeds and discarded them in the style of a pro peloton with 8 speedy kilometers to go, flinging them across Montgomery County. Personally, I try to return them to the vicinity of my teammates in the feed zone, in hopes of their not-so-inevitable return. Thus the water bottle assault on my boy D-Wis. I do apologize if that bottle bounced back into the road, but it gave a few of us a good laugh none-the-less.

Either way, that particular bottle landed in the vicinity of my own compadres. That is why I believe that there is theft among the MABRA peloton.

Having tossed a bottle or two in the feed zone at the Murad Road Race, I deemed one MIA after policing the area for my wounded soldiers - one of which was a brand new bottle.

No less than a fortnight later, at the Poolesville Road Race, my junior teammate David B. returned one of my sharpy-marked bottles that he found at that race's feed zone. Here’s the irony: I did not toss any water bottles to the side of the road at Poolesville.

David had passed me the formerly new water bottle I had lost at Murad, fourteen days prior on nearby roads. The plastic on the two-week old bottle had been worn thin, as if it had been held in a bottle cage lined with sandpaper. What had happened to my tortured comrade? More importantly, who had used and abused him in such a manner, without ensuring its safe return to my own bottle cages?

There is hope against the thievery of our plastics, though. At the Giro di Coppi just days ago, probably the nicest guy in MABRA, having found one of my water bottles aptly marked with my name and team initials in permanent marker (as are all of my bottles), limped across the parking lot amidst post-race fatigue to return it to me. Nate H., you saved me $5. (I think that was you, right?)

If you see a fallen soldier with my name on it, I would be more than happy to buy you a beer for your honesty and effort in returning these to me. They are all marked with my name or initials and “NCVC.” There are at least four of my rogue (or looted) bottles currently wandering between MABRA’s community of water bottle cages or the grassy road shoulders of Montgomery County.

While I do not promote pollution, I am hoping it is the honest lost-in-a-ditch fate that is finding my bottles. For now, I will grant immunity to anyone in MABRA that returns any of my bottles to me. In the future, however, you’re getting a bottle in the face if I see you looting the feed zone for discarded plastic.

Ask Drew, I have good aim.