Comments on: Stuff that Flies

By: wirehead

wirehead — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 01:45:15 +0000

Worst gnat story:

I was riding along with the yellow lenses in my glasses. It’s foggy, so I take off my glasses for a bit.

*then* we ride through a cloud of ‘em. And I get hit in the eyes, enough to cause there to be a red spot on my eye that freaked my wife out and thus caused me to have to inspect the eyeballs for the next week or two.

By: Dee

Dee — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 18:10:56 +0000

Your bee stories are hilarious, Fatty!
I suppose I am lu-cky!
I have not been stung while riding.
I have swallowed my fair share of harmless bugs.
My husband has been hit by bees, but they bounced off. The scariest flying things he’s dodged were wild turkeys…on more than one occasion.

By: Margo

Margo — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 22:58:58 +0000

Ugh. I used to ride a motorcycle, with one of those full-face helmets. I was riding one warm day with the plastic faceshield down. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something moving and realized that it was a wasp walking on the inside my helmet. I have no idea how long it had been there – it would have been extremely difficult for anything to get in the helmet with the shield down, so my guess is that it was there a while. (Otherwise, it walked up my neck to get in there, which might be more frightening.) I slammed on the brakes, ripped my gloves off before the bike was even really stopped and then ripped off my helmet. The thing didn’t actually sting me, but it did sort of terrify me. The funniest part was that when my friends saw what I was doing, they knew what must have happened – no one rips off their gear that fast unless something’s crawling in it.

By: Djjazzyeric

Djjazzyeric — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 22:16:16 +0000

Once on a ride I was stung in the thigh by a bee, then had three large chunks taken our of me by a deerfly that had flown down my jersey. I had a witness to the horror of the blood runing down my chest and back.

I’ve also been stung on the tongue by a wasp. NOT a pleasant feeling.

By: Kt

Kt — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 21:20:06 +0000

I got stung at the base of my throat– right between the collar bones– one morning on the way to work by a yellow jacket.

It was about 7:20 am, and cold that morning, as I waited for the light to change to green. WHY there were yellow jackets up and about that early and in that cold, I will never know. I even had my jacket zipped up to my chin.

It hurt a lot.

Scariest bee moment: when a bee flew into my sports bra, climbed around trying to find the exit, and then flew off. That was the weirdest feeling in the world, I freaked out and almost crashed into the ditch trying to stop, unzip my jersey, lean over and get it OUT all at the same time. I gots skillz. My boyfriend got stung about 15 minutes later in that ride, he felt the yellowjacket hit him in the side and sting, so he pinched it in his jersey and pulled over. I couldn’t figure out what he was doing!

Lucky, we’re not allergic.

By: Martin

Martin — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 14:23:03 +0000

From what I read you have lack of mosquitoes where you ride. It goes like this: you ride uphill, temperature is close to 30C (that's 86.0 F in Utah), your speed is well below the first escape velocity (cca 12km/h, 7.46 mph in Utah) hence you can't escape from swarms of 5 milligram vampires. You can't stop or they'll eat you alive, you can't go faster cause, well, it's a steep uphill. Place is Slovakia, but you can have the pleasure anywhere with lots of slow waters.

By: Don

Don — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 04:26:05 +0000

OK, Im about to throw up over the bee stuff… I’ll just be honest.
BUT! I just can’t help but think:

By: bubbaseadog

bubbaseadog — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 01:55:32 +0000

down herein texas we got what we cyclist like to call double f$#@%^&*&^%bugs and they hang around in swarms on backroads an hiway shoulders..too say the least they are annoying and nasty cause you really dont know what there doin all front to back or back to front.but you got a pretty good guess. any way they can mess up an early spring mornin ride or walk for that matter. be careful out there and win susan

By: Skidmark

Skidmark — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 00:26:12 +0000

What’s the last thing going through a bug’s mind when it collides with you at 50 mph?

Its arsehole!

By: donbiker

donbiker — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 23:31:45 +0000

Robins love to eat fermented pyracantha berries and get high. One day I passed a bush right at the peak of a robin orgy and was enveloped by a cloud of tipsy robins. Amazingly, not one of them hit me. I almost fell off my bike laughing.