One of the extra benefits of cycling or walking is the free stuff you find on the road. On almost every ride you see recyclables, sometimes valuables, sometimes money, or just the bounty and beauty of nature. A bicycle is always good for an interesting workout; occasionally it even makes an exercise session profitable.
Motorists are always losing odd bits. Most of the car parts you find beside a road are broken pieces of junk. If you have time the junk metal can be worth harvesting for its weight alone, but the more you learn, the more likely you are to spot something with cash value—or at least social value. More than once I’ve recognized a missing piece from a neighbor’s car. Finding a lost hubcap or door handle is good for neighborly relations. Wrenches, bolts, and other tools can be quite valuable.
A spare piece from a car that’s become an antique may have gained value over the years since it was abandoned. This can be deliciously ironic. Perhaps the original car was scrapped because it needed replacement parts that were hard to find, so now one of the parts it had lost has become a collector’s treasure. You can find collectors and prices online. One nice winter evening, on a narrow forest track that should have discouraged motorists even in 1972, a friend’s headlight reflected on a piece of metal that looked just big enough to balance on the bike’s handlebars. She stopped to pick it up. It was the front spoiler from an old Opel Manta A, a rare find . She got $71 for one stop!
Money is another thing you find on roads, trails, or even beaches. According to an old English saying, “See a penny? Pick it up? All day long you’ll have good luck. See a penny? Let it lie? All the luck will pass you by.” I feel lucky, or blessed, to be able to see and reach small coins.
It’s worth checking the date on an old coin, however small. For some people a coin from the year of their birth may be considered lucky or nostalgic, so the right coin is a charming gift that may actually make someone’s eyes light up—especially if you know the person already has soap, handkerchiefs, and silk scarves. In the United States there’s more to it than that. Though coins found outdoors are never in mint condition, U.S. coins from years before 1960 are always worth more than their face value, because they contain a higher proportion of copper or silver than newer coins do.
Extremely old coins are rarer, of course, but on a trip to Greece at least one e-friend of mine reported finding a battered Greek coin that she believes to be “ancient.” She says she’s keeping it as a lucky piece. Tourist bait, or the real thing? Who knows? She’s happy.
Some countries deliberately mint collectible coins, like the U.S. “State quarters”, Bicentennial coins, wheat-ear pennies, and presidential dollar coins. You can actually buy display cases designed to hold these coins. Once these cases are even half filled, they sell for more than the value of the case and the coins inside. I once sold $10 worth of “State quarters” for $25. They’d be worth more by now.
I found what looked like a cheap glasses case. It was actually a display case containing all the 1969 coins from the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. I asked my favorite metal dealer how much they were worth by now. He said, “About $100 by now. Try to keep them in a dry place. They’ll gain value every year.”
This leads me to eyewear. You find a lot of that, too. Lenses may be missing or damaged beyond repair, at least for the person who lost them, but intact or mendable frames are worth money. Of course, if you manage to find the prescription lens someone lost while it’s in usable condition, that person will be delighted. It’s worth retracing the steps of someone who lost a prescription lens! If you’re blessed with good close-up vision, it’s probably even worth investing in an eyewear repair kit; friends who are “blind” without their glasses will love you.
Another category of finds is trinkets. Jewelry usually fits into this category because almost all jewelry worn in the U.S., certainly all I’ve found, is shiny junk that may not even contain recyclable plastic. Once in a lifetime you might find real gold or gems. Toys and “souvenir” items turn up beside busy roads almost as often as recyclable metal. I’ve found knives, spoons, plates, dolls, shirts, party costumes, music, videos, even “sex toys.” If you pick up, disinfect, and display all the trinkets you find you could stock a table in a flea market booth. Some adults who don’t want to wear jewelry that even looks valuable will wear the kind that’s obviously ceramic, wood, or even plastic.
Then there are the rare high-value finds…the wallet that still contains cards, papers, or even money, or the cell phone with somebody’s souvenir photos and friends’ contact numbers stored in it. In my lifetime I’ve been able to return three wallets, two phones, one stray kitten, and four stray dogs. Only one of the wallets contained somebody’s pocket money, but a neighbor once found a roll of bills worth more than $1000 on a city sidewalk.
Clues to crimes are hard to recognize if you’re not the victim, but I have found some. A pile of illegal trash might contain papers the park police, Forest Service, or Environmental Protection Agency can trace back to the dumper. An empty purse or wallet, or even a stray shopping cart, might contain a thief’s hair or fingerprints (if you touch it, the police will also find yours). Once when I reported an act of vandalism, neither the police nor I knew whether black plastic bags left on the ground were clues, but as the vandal repeated his crimes those bags appeared as part of a pattern that eventually identified a habitual poacher and animal abuser.
Finally, cyclists are always finding beautiful views, flowers, trees, birds, and animals. Nature lovers often keep a “life list,” and some even connect online and compete to document the number and location of birds, box turtles, or other life forms they’ve seen. As your species list fills up you can start logging and photographing specific behaviors. You may even become familiar enough to recognize the wildlife who live near a favorite trail because “your” wild geese, great blue herons, deer, crows, or ospreys (as distinct from visitors of the same species) notice any unusual behavior on your part—a new coat, or walking instead of cycling!
Bike shops and sites like Bicycle Guider seldom advertise these fringe benefits for choosing cycling for a workout routine, because they can’t guarantee how much free money a bicycle will generate for any given person. Nevertheless, over time, all cyclists find social, emotional, and financial rewards along the trail.