So I went out for a quick 15 mile ride today and rode through 3 swarms of gnats. It was especially gross because I swallowed quite a few. What other bugs or creepy crawlies have you all rode through or gotten smacked by while riding?

One day ... I was riding maybe a bit too fast and had eaten maybe a bit too much and so I wasn't feeling very well in my stomach.
Suddenly, a fly flew in my mouth just I (mistakenly) inhaled through my mouth and somehow, because of the shock, I ended up swallowing it.
I stopped and started to vommit while still lurched over my bike.

Since then ... I never inhale through my mouth anymore.

It's just protein - take a swallow of water to wash it down.......

I caught a bee in a helmet vent one morning - by the time I got stopped and ripped my helmet off, the darned thing stung me three times.

Let me tell you - bee stings on the top of your head REALLY HURT !!!! There ain't much fat up there!

I have to ask. Did you see the fly on the "way out?"

OUCH! My biggest fear whole riding is swallowing a bug that stings or bites.

I got a nasty sting from some kind of wasp/ hornet creature on my leg. It scabbed up and was around several weeks later. I also saw a snapping turtle about 20" long wandering across the path one day. I briefly considered getting a pic but then I couldn't remember exactly how fast snapping turtles were so I kept going.

In my neck o' the woods we've got lot's of biting/stinging critters from March through November. Mosquitoes, gnats, black flies, deer flies, fire ants, chiggers, red bugs, biting flies, tics, spiders, no-see-ums, all kinds of wasps, hornets, bees, timber rattlers, copperheads and cotton mouths. You can occasionally breathe through your mouth in daytime, you'll get a mouthful at night. We lost a couple of dogs in the neighborhood this year to copperheads. A good friend was walking her chihuahua at night when the dog bent to sniff a "stick". It was a copperhead warming itself on the asphalt. It bit little Rudy right in the eye. In a defensive rage this 70 year old woman with breast cancer grabbed the snake by the tail and swung it smashing it's head on the road. She called the vet and had the dog there in 5 minutes along with the snake. The venom had gone straight into his brain. The vet finished the job. The other dog that was bitten, a Jack Russel, lingered for days. Larger dogs and healthy humans usually survive though I imagine that getting bitten in the eye would be bad. Cotton mouths are more deadly, but you seldom see them far from the water. We leave them alone in the woods or swamp but if we see them anywhere near where kids or animals play they're dead. Most of us keep a loaded .410 shotgun (called a snake charmer) around. The spring is the worst for cotton mouths and late summer seems the worst time for the copperheads.

amen ma bruthuh, amen.

i went through quite a few swarms too. they kept getting on my shirt and arms. gross!

My friend dropped his bike in disgust after getting a second flat on a mountain bike ride at Whitetail in Pennsylvania. I heard a noise and quickly moved towards the bike hoping to locate the puncture from the air I thought I heard hissing out. I moved quickly backwards when I realized the sound was more of a rattle than a hiss.

I've swallowed a few gnats, flies and other small stuff. Fortunately haven't had the planets align and eat a large bug.
I have had some pretty big ones bounce off my eye-wear (never leave home without it), helmet, shoulders and legs. I swear I should have seen a couple of them coming because I'm sure they cast a shadow on the ground while travelling!

Around here, there have been gnats galore along the Wabash and Interurban trails. You learn real quick to ride with your mouth shut! Usually they stop once there's a cold snap, but in the meantime are almost everywhere there's a bush or tree. The pesky little asian beetles are back too, and they try to bit you right when you're trying to do something else outside. They're a nuisance when you're up on a ladder replacing a porch light!

does this mean that your friend ran over a rattle snake? i hear that if you do that, there's a good chance the snake will get stuck in your spokes / wheel and bite.

No, he dropped the bike very near a rattler though. We tossed sticks and sones at the snake from a distance but he didn't seem to care. He appeared to get bored after a while and slithered off. Then we could grab the bike and roll it a little ways down the trail before repairing the tube.

I've ridden over a black snake but she didn't get it in my spokes. A pigeon flew into my wheel once, and lost a lot of feathers, but I guess he bounced off or something. I rode over a squirrel, he looked OK somehow, ran off...

I hate it when stuff like that happens, although if one of those incidents had caused me to take a bad spill, I would have hated it even more.

The section of that trail above whitetail is sort of rattlers paradise. Wife and I rode up to Waterville from Whitetail earlier in the year. Sort of swampy on either side of the trail. At Waterville she refused to continue. Next rest area on the trail was Rattler Run.

So unless there is snow on the trail my wife wants no part of it!

We are find similar things on the Lehigh Gorge Trail. Snakes are now protected in Pennsylvania and the rattler population is increasingly rapidly as a result.

I didn't have any close encounters of the insect kind last summer. This summer we seem to have grown a bigger crop and I have gotten rather tired of ingesting them. If I can't hack them up and spit them out I just swallow them. As someone said they are just protein, they are considered delicacies in some cultures, and my dog Luke isn't nicknamed "Flyswatter" for nothing! If you are pushing it and don't need to breath through your mouth, well friend, no offense but you have a bigger nose than I have!! Does anyone make a "mouth screen"?

When I was a young lad I would occasionally bike the 10 miles to a neighboring town to visit their hobby shop. On one of these outings I rode into a swarm of bugs without giving them much thought. It was a big swarm and about halfway through I realized they were bees! At that point I started pedaling for all I was worth to get out of there and I managed to splatter one bee against my glasses. I'd always read that bees are fairly docile while swarming and I guess that is true since once clear of the swarm my only "damage" was the need to clean that bee off my glasses.

Ken