It must be puncture season!!

[FatBloke]

I cannot believe the number of discarded gas canisters I come across on the roads. Everyone must be getting hundreds of punctures!!   

[spesh]

Small point of order, Fattersbeseething... it's actually "lazy ****s who can't be bothered to pick up their litter" season.

[Tim Hall]

A crispy fiver says they're not the by product of CO2 enhanced puncture repair but the discarded  detritus of laughing gas inhaling youths. The cartridges look similar but the N2O ones tend to be shinier.

[offcumden]

Ah, I'd noticed that most of them seem to be shiny.  I wouldn't have thought that many cyclists use CO2 canisters - but I may be wrong.  Apart from being a terrible waste of resources just to save a few seconds, it'd be inexcusable to chuck them at the roadside.

[Basil]

I read the OP and thought ' Nah N2O.' Tim beat me to it.

[ian]

Sadly, you pipped my drug expertise too. Loads of them around here and I don't think it's freelance roadside dentists.

[Tim Hall]

A couple of years ago The Boy noticed CO2 cartridges in my Box of Stuff, except he didn't know what they were. In a reversal of the concerned parent role he asked me if there was anything I needed to tell him.

[spesh]

LOLz 

[robgul]

A crispy fiver says they're not the by product of CO2 enhanced puncture repair but the discarded  detritus of laughing gas inhaling youths. The cartridges look similar but the N2O ones tend to be shinier.

Riding the London Sightseer Audax on Sunday the whole route was littered with them - they do seem to be made a of rather lighter metal than the usual Co2 puncture kit ones as many of them were crushed (presumably by cars driving over them?)

Rob

[T42]

Can you make soda water with N2O?

ETA nah, looked it up, wouldn't dissolve.

[essexian]

I've got a couple in the Glove box of my car.....CO2 of course! I wonder whether they would get a second look if the Police ever had the need to search my car?

I would hope they would know the difference or I might have to spend some time explaining why I can't actually touch my toes anymore..... 

[ian]

There's got to be a bunch of kids out there trying to get high on CO₂ canisters.

[mrcharly-YHT]

There's got to be a bunch of kids out there trying to get high on CO₂ canisters.

I think they'd only do that once . . . It is a (not very nice) way of killing things (put animal in bag, fill with CO₂).

 CO₂ + moisture = carbonic acid

[rafletcher]

There's got to be a bunch of kids out there trying to get high on CO₂ canisters.

I think they'd only do that once . . . It is a (not very nice) way of killing things (put animal in bag, fill with CO₂).

 CO₂ + moisture = carbonic acid

Yebbut surely the asphyxia would be quick - FCV of quick.

[ian]

I think they'd need more than one canister for asphyxia (and it's a panicky desperate kind, to the go gently to sleep forever kind). The pressure might do something interesting if they imbibe directly, I assume the nitrous canisters are lower pressure.

Carbonic acid is extremely weak, which is why soda water doesn't dissolve our innards.

[Kim]

IME once the concentration of CO2 is high enough that you can smell/taste it, you're not going to hang around trying to deliberately breathe the stuff.

Freeze burns also seem like a likely consequence.  Not that that stopped people putting liquid nitrogen in cocktails...

[Beardy]

This is an interesting discussion. I have in my time swum <sp?> with the fishies and spent a fair amount of my free time in classes learning about the affects of various combinations of the component gasses of air at pressure on the human body. This is the first time I’ve heard about the potentially toxic effects of co2. I suppose this could be because in the lower skill levels of recreational diving expelled gasses are, well, expelled into the water and it’s not until you move onto rather more exotic (and expensive) rebreathers that you retain your expelled gasses for reprocessing.
Every day’s a school day.

[Riggers]

I picked up one of Friday in the rear tyre (of course!!) but as it's a slow one, I have done the usual and have, thus far, resisted any urge to take the damn back wheel off and repair it!!!