Things I've found on rides

It seems like people with unhealthy habits tend to litter more....or maybe there are just that many more people that practice unhealthy lifestyles these days. When I ride on busy rodes it always surprises me how much trash I see. For the most part it's empty cigarette packages, chewing tobacco/dip/snuff/, or fast food bags, wrappers, and cups.

I'm not sure why, but every once in a while an interesting item will catch my eye. A couple days after the race in Kona, I found a brand new Challenge Tubular on the side of the highway out in the middle of nowhere. It didn't even have any glue on it yet. I don't ride tubies, but I snagged it anyway since I've heard how nice the Challenge tires are.

The two most common items I've found are tools and iphones. Iphones? Yes..I've found 3 of them.

I picked up some nice Vice Grips (name brand) and then a couple days later I got some Craftsman pliers. You can never have too many of these laying around.



I drove away with a utility knife on top of my car one time. A few days later I found a new one that is a little higher quality...not that utility knives are that expensive or anything.

I found this Smith And Wesson knife in about a mile west of MLK Street on NE 4th. Who knows what this thing has seen. I boiled it real good as soon as I got home. I actually knicked my hand pretty good with it one time, so it's probably a really good thing I boiled it.




I've found 3 iphones. The first one I found was an iphone4. The grass is cracked, but it works just fine. It was before the 4s came out. I wish I realized back then that even broken I could have sold it for a couple hundred dollars. Now that the 4S is out, it really isn't worth anything. I just keep it around in case I ever need parts for mine.

I found one of the original iphones too. Even in perfect working condition this wouldn't be worth anything, but I grabbed it anyway. I don't really know why.

Today's find was more fun. It was an iphone 4 in a pink case. The case was chewed up, but the phone was in perfect working order. The owner had a passcode on it, but I like puzzles so I decided I'd try and figure out the code. Without being able to access the phone, I wouldn't be able to find out who it belongs to, and they wouldn't be able to get it back.

There were two text messages on the main screen. My plan was to look these people up on facebook and message them to let them know I have there friend's phone. No luck. The names were nicknames.

So I tried the most popular code first...1,2,3,4. I was actually shocked when that didn't work. With a job in IT security I learned pretty quickly that people use the most simple password the majority of the time. On one business trip out to Dayton, Ohio I was looking through an application's logs and noticed one guy used the password "BigBalls69!". That is a little less common I guess). I tried the second most common passcode (0,0,0,0) and that worked.

I don't get it. It's a pain to enter a password each time. If you don't want your info (addresses, numbers, possibly banking info and SSN) protected, why use a passcode? If you do want it protected, why do you use a code that any idiot like me could figure out in 3 seconds?

So I got in the phone and noticed the last call was to "Mommy." Jackpot. I tried calling "Mommy," but the phone was already disconnected. Luckily I had my phone on me, so I called her and she seemed pretty grateful. She was headed out of town and her husband had to make an emergency run to the vet with their dog, so I just left it in their mailbox, which was right down the road from where I was riding. Hopefully the kid is as grateful as the mom was.

I didn't take a picture of the phone I found today, but just picture any other iphone4 but in a REALLY ugly pink Spec case.




Has anyone else found anything interesting?