This year, during the COVID-19 restricted Grand Tours, there are fewer fans lining up along the stage routes of the Grand Tours. This has led to an explosion of fines against riders for littering! Starting five years ago, each Grand Tour started designating parts of each stage where the racers can unload their wrappers, trash, and empty water bottles for collection. Personally, I would prefer the people complaining about littering during races to shut up and organize trash pickup, but having the riders save their litter for certain areas is good public relations to encourage recreational riders to do the same. However, water bottles were always a sticking point, because riders are not going to save an empty water bottle on their bike when they need to replace it with a full one. Sticking a wrapper in a back pocket is easy compared to stashing an empty water bottle or expending extra energy to return it to a team car.
The loophole has always been that disposing of a water bottle in front of a spectator who picks it up as a souvenir means the race officials decline to fine the rider. However, because of Spain's current rise in COVID-19 cases, they have discouraged spectators along the route, resulting in more littering fines this year than last year. On the plus side, because there are fewer spectators, that means there have been fewer penalties on public urination since they are assessed if a rider does his business in view of the public. Win-win?
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