Begin rant:

Assorted species of oak are second only to palms here in Central Florida. And it's acorn season. They get shot out from under the car tires. I get pelted from above at the slightest breeze. Knocks on the helmet are startling beyond measure. Acorns accumulate in the gutters, oh, heck, the entire bike lane can be covered in them. They plug roadside drains flooding the bike lane. Macerated acorns and morning mist create an unholy slime.

Enter squirrels.

Useless cousins of rats can not seem getting enough of them, darting into the traffic to pick the freshest one, sometimes at the cost of one's life (OK, from a rider's perspective - the more the merrier). But....Squished carcasses are rotting away - although they are picked regularly, even couple days can do damage. Besides, even fresh entrails are not the most esthetically pleasing way to start stressful workday.

Thank you for letting me vent

End rant

SF

Acorns are childs play, you need to have black walnuts on the road in the dark.

Acorns are nothing. Try riding over chestnuts or walnuts or apples. Squirrels are a huge road hazard for cyclists.

We didn't get any this year. None! WTF?

Er, this is the South. Swamp Chestnut Oak acorns are more than 1 inch in diameter. Yes, diameter, nice round missiles of doom.

No walnuts tho. Some people grow them in the yard, but it is too hot here to grow them as ornamental trees on municipal dime. Occasional hickory nut is no fun.

SF

Commute on one of these!

The fun part is the walnuts hiding under the wet leaves. They haven't got me yet. Yet...

Walnuts, leaves and single track. This combanation means someone is going down sooner or later.

Raleigh is called the City of Oaks but acorns haven't been too bad here this year. Acorn production varies quite a bit from year to year and it was probably off because we had a terribly hot dry summer. However, now is the time for leaf piles in the streets, which is very annoying for bike commuting. The city eventually comes around and picks up leaves piled near the curbs but it takes a while and some people are slobs and pile up the leaves so wide that they block the streets. Some streets around here are essentially one-lane roads this time of year due to leaf piles.

Fantastic Rant!!!

Pffft, try avacados here in SoCal! Just kidding! They're not really a threat to cyclists unless you don't watch where you're going. Still, not many avacado trees grow on the side of streets.

We have small acrons here, so they don't bother me. We do have some sort of tree that have these spiky balls. One or two can take you out if you're not careful. They don't cause flats, but they could make you wobble or fall if you run over one.

I hate pine cones, crab apples, chestnuts, acorns, bags of dog poop, squished squirrels and raccoons, and a regular feature on a stretch of my route is an orange. Oh and the sandwich (I think it was egg salad) that I nearly smooshed while watching someone make a 12 point turn (no joke, the driver was delightfully inept).

I still stand by the fact that grasshoppers in the summer are the worst.

If you formatted the lines a little differently that would make a nice poem

We get horse chestnuts here that can be the size of a softball:

The local trees had a freakishly large output this spring, and I have noticed some trees starting up again as we go into winter. I have an oak that pumped out thousands of acorns onto the street in front of my house for over a month, staining the street brown. I'm still plucking seedlings out of my hedges.

We have a county ordinance protecting the live oaks that makes it costly for me to remove the tree, but I know a guy who can make it look like an accident for an extra 50 bucks

acorn booms and busts
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/03/ny...ng-humans.html

Ahhh....Fermenting citrus season is just around the corner, as people grow them in yards for ornamental purposes....I should file away "delightfully inept" for future reference. May I?

Please do! It works too well for too many situations.

I Scrat!!!!!

Pine cones are the worst, I have seen 5 people crash in the last 4 months because of pine cones.