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Montana rider

Montana rider

Tom Sawyer
Mar 14, 2005
1,946
2,622
When I was a 18 mile (each way) bike commuter in DC -> Falls Church I would find the occasional road booty....




Sick of flat tires, he’s picked up 400 pounds of metal bits with his bike
Alex Benigno hits the streets every day collecting loose debris with magnets attached to his ride

By Cathy Free
March 26, 2024 at 8:00 a.m. EDT
Alex Benigno, a.k.a. the “Atlanta Magnet Man,” rides through a city neighborhood to remove metal bits from the road with his magnetic trailer. (Alex Benigno)

Alex Benigno was sick of changing his flat tires. He was getting them all the time on his car tires as he drove around Atlanta, and on his bike tires when he biked after work.
“I’m really good at getting flat tires, and I was tired of patching them all the time,” he says

He looked into it and learned that metal road litter is a nationwide problem, often caused by nails or other sharp objects spilled from trucks, and sometimes even done deliberately. In the United States, a vehicle tire is punctured every seven seconds, causing 220 million flat tires a year, according to a report by Autoily.
Benigno decided to do something about it. During the pandemic, when there wasn’t much traffic on the streets, he noticed there were small bits of metal debris strewn everywhere.
Alex Benigno, pictured at Piedmont Park in Atlanta. (Alex Benigno)
“I figured if I was picking up all these nails in my tires on an abandoned street, then other people must be getting flat tires too,” he said.

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About a year ago, he bought 10 strong magnets for $160 online, attached them to the underbelly of his bike trailer, then went for a ride through Atlanta late one afternoon to see how many nails, screws, bottle caps, flattened cans and pieces of metal wire he could attract. Benigno rides a stand-up bike because of his back surgery 12 years ago.
During his first 10-mile trip with the magnets attached, the underside of the trailer picked up about six pounds of sharp metal bits.
The underside of Alex Benigno's bike trailer shows some of the sharp metal bits accumulated during a recent ride in Atlanta. (Alex Benigno)
“From there, I decided to keep going out after work every day, added more magnets and tried all kinds of configurations with them to get to where I was collecting even more,” he said.
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He attached a broom to the trailer to help sweep more metal into the magnets, and he selected different areas of the city to ride through each time.

By December, he said he was picking up about 50 pounds of debris every 10 days, scraping it off the bottom of the trailer each night and storing it in bins in his car and home or at the photo supply shop where he works.
When he started an Instagram page in January to alert people to the problem of metal debris in the streets, Benigno called himself the “Atlanta Magnet Man.” His videos and posts quickly built a following, and Georgia Public Broadcasting shared the story of his street cleanup efforts.

People immediately began to post thank you messages, sharing their own stories of flat tires.
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“Midtown is the worst,” wrote one person. “I have had a couple of flat tires in recent years with all the construction, you are a brave guy.”
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“The tire repair shops must thrive there! What a nightmare! Thank you for helping,” wrote someone from Ohio.

“Love how simplistic this is. I think I’m going to modify my scooter like this,” wrote a follower from Georgia.
Benigno posted one of his cycling videos on YouTube last month to give people a better idea of how much debris his magnets pick up.
When Laura Lewis, an Atlanta scrap metal artist, found out what he was doing, she offered to take the mess he’d collected off his hands.
“I gave her the whole batch — 410 pounds worth,” Benigno said. “I love that she can do something with it.”

Lewis said she’d been looking for some smaller metal pieces to add more detail to her sculptures.
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“When he dropped it all off, it was like he’d brought me a bunch of 100,000-piece puzzles with no pictures and no box,” she said.
“I’m still sorting through it, and he’ll soon be bringing more,” said Lewis, 49. “I’m thankful that he’s picking up scrap. It gives me hope to know someone’s out there, cleaning up after people and taking action.”

The City of Atlanta did not respond to a request from The Washington Post for comment about Benigno’s volunteer efforts, but he said he’s fine continuing his daily cleanup route without its involvement.
“They send out street sweepers to clean the streets, but they really can’t catch all the small bits,” Benigno said. “Because some of these things are so little, they’re flipped around by the sweeper, and when someone runs over them, there goes another flat tire.”

He said he usually takes his trailer out seven days a week, and he is always amazed at the random stuff his magnets pick up.
“Probably the strangest thing I’ve seen is a live round bullet, but I also saw a construction crane hook once,” he said. “I had to pick that one up by hand. Mostly, it’s nails, screws, washers and stuff that’s fallen off cars. A constant stream of metal bits.”

Benigno said he hopes that bicyclists in other cities might be inspired by his example to become magnet men — or magnet women — in their own towns.

“This problem isn’t unique to Atlanta — it’s everywhere,” he said. “We’ve all known the aggravation of finding a nail in a tire. With all the problems in our lives, we don’t need to deal with that, too.”
“The satisfaction I get in knowing that what I’ve picked up won’t end up in someone’s tire and ruining their day is why I’m still out here,” he added. “I also get a pretty good workout at the same time.”
 
jimmydean

jimmydean

The Official Meat of Ridemonkey
Sep 10, 2001
43,155
15,236
Portland, OR

NASCAR driver and team owner Joey Gase hurled his own rear bumper at another driver during the ToyotaCare 250 at Richmond Raceway two weeks ago. Gase was taken out of the Xfinity Series race by Dawson Cram and he wanted to vent his frustration at Cram, so he ripped the damaged panel off his destroyed car. NASCAR fined Gase $5,000 for his trouble. The second division team owner isn’t sweating the financial penalty after picking up a new sponsor, Bumpers That Deliver.
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jimmydean

jimmydean

The Official Meat of Ridemonkey
Sep 10, 2001
43,155
15,236
Portland, OR

The State of Colorado is giving weed enthusiasts an opportunity to wear their passion for hashin’ on their sleeve, er, automobile. The state was famously the first to legalize cannabis for adult recreational use in 2014, and has spent the last decade leaning into the revenue-generating business of weed. Since 2021 the state has held an annual weed-themed license plate auction to benefit the Colorado Disability Funding Committee on April 20. This year’s auction includes the plates “420,” “NUGGET,” “Reefer,” and “Grass.”
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