Please don't pee on your bikes.

I am the Service Manager at a triathlon store. Although our physical location is pretty small we are a pretty well known company in the Ironman community so we get bikes in for service from all over the country. I see a lot of different bikes from all over but one thing is unfortunately quite common: most are covered in urine.

Look guys, I don't know how many of you do triathlons, but if you do, please don't pee on your bikes if only for your mechanic's sake.

It's likely you're not a pro triathlete, you're doing it for the sense of accomplishment, I get that, the only big cheque at the finish line is that "look what I can do" feeling. Good for you, I mean it, I can't swim and God knows I can't run. I know there's the whole "dress for success" mentality that has you spending $7000 on your gear for your first sprint triathlon, but this, by no means, suggests you should pee whilst on your bloody bike. The 2 minutes it will take you to get off your bike, step into the bushes and take a wee will not greatly effect the outcome of your adventure. I promise.

Why do you think this is ok to do? Maybe you haven't heard the other end of it. The mechanic side of it. Don't do it, it's gross, I don't want to touch your bike after you've peed on it. There's a bike in my stand right now 10 feet away and I can smell the wee from here. Not cool guys.

Also, don't bring me your bike before your first race smelling like pee. That's even worse, there's no excuse for that, that's telling me you couldn't be bothered to get off your bike for a wee during a training ride.

Next time you're out for a ride or in a race and the urge strikes, please, please step off your bike for me if not for yourself. I'm the one taking care of your otherwise neglected $5000+ bike.

Lastly, I generally don't accept tips, I'm just doing my job, but if you are among the weers, you better at least offer a big tip.

Not on the bike, man!

But seriously, they can't wash it off? It's like they really need to tell everyone what they've done. Also, you could make a legitimate case for not working on piss-bikes. Just refuse to service them until they're clean.

We have a cleaning fee and we do use it. We are lucky enough to have a hose hookup out back, so if a bike is disgusting enough to warrant a hose down, it gets an additional $10 tagged on there for clean up. If the customer balks and says, "It doesn't look any cleaner", we just reply, "Yeah, but the smell is tolerable now".

They're not going to wash their bike, don't lube their chain either, then it becomes solid red with rust, then I have to use the red chain tool:

But that's a rant for another time.

I charge a cleaning fee also, we go through a lot of Lysol and 409.

Sports drinks are another huge problem, such a sticky mess. Time is money so if they bring me a bike with derailleurs encased in a glucose and electrolyte cocoon, and it takes me 20 minutes to get to the derailleur to make the adjustment they get the $20 fee plus the adjustment fee.

For the male riders anyway, it is easy enough to pee without stopping and without pissing all over your bike, unless you are riding a fixie. I wouldn't want to wrench on their stinky bikes either.

Ew. I would def. institute a cleaning fee. That's gross. Really, really gross.

I'm not even sure I could bring myself to pee on myself.

Who can take a whiz at full sprint? I don't get it.

Also, it takes a LOT of fluid intake to keep up with that much physical activity.

I'm no athlete, but when working outside in the heat (think Road Atlanta in the summertime, for instance)...it's pretty common to not pee all day. Sweat takes it out of you on days like that.

Clem

I think the worst thing I've ever experienced was when the truck got back from IM Coeur d'Alene.

We have a Peterbuilt that pulls trailers in tandem, one is our mobile store, the other is local transport bikes. The Second trailer had about 60-75 customer bikes who had just completed the event (read: covered in wee). Imagine the smell we were greeted with when we opened the trailer that had just spent the last week and a half traveling and brewing in a locked trailer from Idaho to North Carolina in June. Ew.

Maybe they are marking the bike as his/her territory?

The grossest thing (to me) is that the triathletes will regularly cut up little pieces of their powerbars and stick them to the top tube of their bikes. No bags or containers, just raw powerbars smushed onto the top of the bike. Combine that with the obvious pee contaminant and you have to wonder how more of them don't get sick.

DrBoost wrote: Maybe they are marking the bike as his/her territory?

This is definately not a factor on the ladies' bikes

That's just disgusting.

Some good friends of mine owns a store for triathletes and are avid triathletes themselves. Never told me about the whizzers.

I hope they aren't doing it to spite me or something.

Tim Baxter wrote: Some good friends of mine owns a store for triathletes and are avid triathletes themselves. Never told me about the whizzers.

Do yourself a real favour and don't ask. You really do not want to know. I'm holding back as this is a family board. Oh the stories I could tell.

Don't hold back Carson! Let's read some disgustingness!

I live near Virginia Commonwealth University. It was a stinky school when punk was big. Now that cycling is cool for hipsters...dear god. It smells worse than a week long jam band festival on that campus now. It's 90 degrees out today. Shower folks!

I know Carson's got a few that will top this one. We had a bike in the store for a tuneup and new grips and tires installed. It was a mountain bike that had been in the shed for a few years, neglected. We put it in the stand to work on it and it just looks like a dusty old mountain bike. The mechanic popped one of the grips off with the compressor and earwigs just started pouring out of the end of the handlebar. That was pretty gross.

thedude wrote: Not on the bike, man!

i LOL'd. thanks, dude.

Ash, that is gross. I've had a few issues with insects too. that reminds me of this picture I came across:

Speaking of ants, remember when I mentioned the sticky sports drink? Well, turns out, ants like this. I had a bike in last week that the finish was literally crawling. I went to grab it to do the repair and I couldn't find the bike because the work order listed the colour as red, but at first glance the bike was brown. I looked closer and every speck of that bike was crawling with ants, that bike got the hose.

If you don't have to pee, you're not drinking enough. And remember, triathletes get on the bike after spending some time in the water. I obviously have some absorbent tendencies, as I always have to pee after swimming. I can see how this would happen. I've done a tri and never felt the need to pee on the bike, but I'm not an iron man.

So I can certainly see it happening. But what I can't see is why you wouldn't clean the bike off afterwards. That's just gross. Carson, next time you have to transport a bunch of bikes post-Ironman, just hose 'em down. You know they're gonna be stinky.

Powerbars on the handlebars or the top tube? Of course. Makes perfect sense. As long as you're not the sort of person who uses antiseptic wipes after touching every doorknob, there shouldn't be any problem that your immune system couldn't handle.

I wasn't talking about bike cooties, they're harmless. Triathletes are notorious for never washing their bikes, so that powerbar rresidue starts to, shall we say, build up and attract other things. And then there's the pee that's flying around all willy-nilly.

Ew, that's just nasty. However... I did puke on my horse once....

Well I was hungry, but this thread took care of it. Yikes.

I've never peed on my bike, but I'm assuming you wouldn't, ahem, unholster. Otherwise you could simply aim to the side and pee on someone else's bike. So the stream would pass through a diffuser - ie, your shorts. Would you hit the top tube? I have no idea, and I'm afraid someone else will have to perform this experiment. I suppose it depends on the pressure of your particular hydraulics.

I can see how bits of powerbar would start to cause a problem over time.

Why wouldn't triathletes wash their bikes? Yeesh, if I'm gonna drop $10k on a bike, I'm going to keep it gleaming and in top shape.

Keith wrote: If you don't have to pee, you're not drinking enough.

I do agree with this...however there are circumstances when I have a hard time keeping up with water intake...and I can only imagine a triathalon is one where I, at the very least, wouldn't have to go quite so often.

And I'd have to go REALLY bad before I could let it rip and full tilt while sitting on a bike seat...

Clem