So, over the course of your bicycling lifetime, how many bugs have you swallowed??

I estimate about 100 over 3.5 years.

And you?

Are you on on of those high protein diets, Denver?

Too many to count... In all honestly, i would guess well over a thousand bugs in the last 10 years.... one such encounter really sticks out in my mind:

Two or three years ago I was riding on a bike path next to a river, the sun had just gone down, and the bugs were coming out. I was near the end of the 26mile round trip, coasting down a slight hill, I had my mouth wide open, trying to catch my breath from climbing the other side of the hill. Next thing I know, im riding through what a thought was smoke from a campfire, then it felt like hundreds of pins hitting my face, arms, and legs, it wasn't smoke, it was millions of mosquitoes! By the time I figured this out, it was too late, i had a mouth full of the things, i took a swig of water from my camelbak and tried to spit them out, but to no avail, they stuck to everything in my mouth, my teeth, the roof of my mouth, my tongue... everything, plastered by these black little creatures from hell. I took another gulp of water, and tried to spit, i couldn't even get the water out of my mouth, the taste was horrible, I wanted to puke, but i couldn't, some unknown force made me swallow.

I thought i was out of the clear, i lived through the great bug cloud. that was, until i ran my tongue over the front of my teeth... bugs, everywhere, it was like sand paper... i used my tongue to scrape the rest of the bugs off my teeth, these i could spit out, all but a few on the back teeth, it was easier to just swallow them. It took me another 45 minuets to make it home after the encounter i was spitting out bugs the whole way. I must have spent another hour brushing my teeth, and flossing, a mosquitos can really get lodged between two teeth at 20mph.

Has anyone else come upon these clouds of bugs when riding? I have learned my lesson, dont ride with your mouth open!

Ive eaten a few this year and found it offensive as I'm a vegetarian.

Still, it was worse for the bug..

My main horror is wasps hitching a ride on my chest or, last week, on my leg. I freak out at those! Oh and the buzzy things in the helmet vents too!

>Has anyone else come upon these clouds of bugs when riding? I have learned my lesson, dont ride with your mouth open!

Yes!!

I do a lot of riding on trails that follow stream beds, which is why I find so many bugs. Huge swarms of bugs, dense and seemingly following me, gathering around my head and staying with me even at 20 mph. I don't know if that is true or not (they follow you at 20 mph??) but it sure seems that way.

I have tried to spit the bugs out, but they generally lodge near the back of my throat, and the only thing is to drink water and enjoy the litlle critters as they wiggle down your throat!! Perhaps I ought to carry some catsup!!

Allister - Yes, I would really like to know the protien content of one bug.

I've been lucky in the sense that I've never swallowed a bug (yet!), but I had one encounter with a bee which flew down my open jersey on a nasty downhill section. I completely freaked out thinking it was going to sting me.

When I stopped at the bottom, the Bee was just sat on my jersey zip, looked around at me, winked, then flew off...boy was I thankful!!!!

Rich

Some followers of the religion of Janism would wear veils or other mouth coverings so that they didn't cause harm to insects by having them fly into their mouths.

In more modern times, I know someone who had the words "Cars Stink!" printed on dust masks meant to be worn by cyclists.

I've swallowed my share of bugs, just two nights ago was the latest meal. I took my dog out for a ride. (She likes to steer, while I pedal). Whump, right in the back of my mouth, didn't have time to react, just swallowed,...yuck!

Hey, what the last thing a bug sees the instant it hits your windshield?....It's butt!

Bugs are nasty, but there is nothing worse than being the first one out on the trail and having to ride through all the spider webs. Down here we have these large agressive spiders (about the size of a small hand) we call them Banana Spiders. They're yellow and black and have a nasty sting. They build these huge webs across open areas to catch bugs. There is nothing that freaks me out more that cruising along at a pretty good clip and coming face to face(do spiders have faces?) with one of these.

It does get pretty funny sometimes though. Everyone knows exactly whats happening when you're riding with some friends and the first guy skids to a stop, jumps of his bike, rips off his helmet and starts slapping his own head. We call it the spider dance! It's really funny to watch, not so funny to do!:dance:

OK, the spider story freaked me out. I'll stay a northern roadie, thank you.

I did have a yellow jacket sneak down my shirt and tried to chew me a new navel this summer.

As far as inhaling the random bug, I tend to subsequently make this bizarre sortof cat-with-a-hairball gack noise which startles the neighbors mowing their lawns.

I was coasting down a hill about 25-30 miles an hour and there was a big old buzzard snacking on some roadkill. Buzzards in Texas will wait till the last possible moment before they get out of the way. I nearly rear ended the filthy bird, and to make matters worse it was trailing a long piece of gut. I nearly puked.

My wife claims she can identify bugs by taste

Ehhh!! Im with Kestrel! Keep the spiders away... Has anyone else noticed that some moths taste like cotton candy?

I am sure that "unknown force" was from the "dark side."

Joe, you should write some of those disgusting horror stories, you know, the kind that get worse as you go, with hope slipping further and further away with every sentence!

Yech!

I swallowed very few, actually, but when I had one "splat" into my glasses, it made me feel like I really belonged on the road with the cars.

The ultimate encounter with a bug while riding story.

https://www.true-storys.com/storys/truespdr.html

Actually, this story has to be made up. At least, I hope it is....

The ultimate encounter with a bug while riding story.

ROTFLMAO!!

What a story to wake up to!!

There was a joke when I was in primary school that went "How do you recognize a happy cyclist?" Answer: "to the number of dead bugs stuck on his teeth"

I had a bee fly into the vent of my helmet,people must have thought i was having a fit when i stopped all of a sudden,ripped my helmet off,sent my sunglassses flying and waving my arms around my head.

Living in a coastal region, I swallow bugs of various sizes quite regularly. I like the really big succulent ones!

I'm getting hungry...

Yuck!

.I had the same thing happen once. The bee stung me on the forehead, but it didn't seem too bad so I finished the ride. The next morning, I had an allergic reaction and my forehead started swelling. By noon I looked like a Klingon refugee from a Star Trek convention. Had to go on massive doses of cortizone for a week to get things back to normal.

Oh dear god.... I never finished that spider story. I get the creeps just typing the *S* word. ick... I am the proud owner of a scar from a brown recluse bite, and it disgusts me every time I look at it! YUCK YUCK!

I, so far, have swallowed one bug. Now that I think about it, it's disgusting. But at the time I was so into what I was doing that it was funny. In fact it was hilarious. It was some little flying thing in a swarm by a lake. Bigger than a mosquito. I tried to spit it out but ended up swallowing it instead, and it wouldn't STOP WIGGLING!!! It was making me cough! I was downing water like mad for a good 30 minutes trying to make it go down. Poor little guy fought bravely...

Only been riding for a year and only had one encounter with a bug. Little thing. Hit me in the lip. No consequences.

As a child, hanging out with friends in the woods one morning - we spotted one of the kid's older brother (Buster) roaring down a path on his bike on his way to our general location. Buster was excited about something, and was standing on the pedals and screaming Tarzan-style on his way down. At one point, he grimaced and fell of the bike crying hysterically and waving his arms around his face. He had ran into a large garden spider web and had swallowed the large spider while screaming. He had to go to the hospital, where they told him we was "going to make it".

Dang! What vivid descriptions, dude. (You are underpaid.)

I have gotten those huge spiderz in my yard. They are full of colors and stretch out their arms like a slinky basketball star. Every day they show up in a different locale.