"Tom Schulenburg" <
[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> "Nick Burns" <
[email protected]> wrote in message
>
news:[email protected]...
> > Not only are French gutters cleaner that he is acustomed to, but a lot
of
> > places in the US can actually be ridding without fear of flats.
> >
> > Imagine...
> >
>
> Have you been to France before?
Yes
The few times I've been there, if it wasn't
> a strike by the garbage men, The garbage cans were either removed or
bolted
> shut to prevent people from setting off bombs in them (This was in Paris, granted a few years
> ago). Instead of putting garbage in the cans, people would stack it up next to them, or in
> the gutter. I know they try to keep the streets clean, but it seemed to be a losing battle.
> Have things
changed
> since the late '90s?
>
> -T
As far as filth and trash, the European cities are generally worse than American cities but outside
the big cities people tend to be a lot more careful. Paris and Milan are both a bit more filthy but
I never had problems with glass. There seems to be specifically more glass on the ground in the US.
That is the topic. I never had training based in a large city, but I did spend some time with my
bike visiting both of those. I only ever got one flat in Milan, near the Galleria (between the
Galleria and the Duomo). Cars are not allowed there any longer. Since it was night time, I did not
even look to see what caused the flat, I just changed the tube. Geneva is the cleanest city I have
ever seen. I have only been there twice but both times it looked about as clean as Disneyland.
The city in the US where I spent most of my time was San Francisco. I understand that to be the
cleanest American city? That is what they claimed anyway...and it was terrible with regard to glass
on the ground. It was terrible anywhere that you would see shoppers, tourists, the financial
district and certain ethnic neighborhoods. The parks were fairly free of glass and so was the
Presidio. I am living in Northern California right now and I will usually see glass from a freshly
broken bottle on average of about once per hour. I perceive that people do not throw the bottles
from cars because the glass is usually near an area where you could find pedestrians. I have heard
people talk about other parts of the US where bottles are thrown from cars. I don't think that
happens here. I have never seen it.
YMMV