indyfabz

And shorts.

I never realized that until I started riding across the country. The mosquitoes were bad in many places in MT and horrible in many places in MN. We even had them inside the HI Hostel at Lake Itasca.

Many years later, I was touring in MT with the GF. We were heading towards Wisdom. Long, mostly gradual descent until a few miles outside of town, where there was a slight climb next to a ranch that slowed us down to mosquito speed. I felt things on my legs. Looked down and saw several biting me. Looked ahead and saw a bunch of them on the GF’s butt. We opted for a motel room rather than the free campground which I had stayed at over a decade before that I knew had a screened in shelter because of the mosquitoes. The GF’s butt looked like she had a bad case of acne. They had bitten her through her cycling shorts. We had to cut our evening walk around town short because the wind had died down and the mosquitoes were flying around our faces.

Tourist in MSN

A couple years ago I finally decided to buy some Permethrin to spray on clothing as a bug repellant. But have not yet been in any heavily bug infested areas to test how it works on bike clothing. I sprayed the bike jerseys I usually use for touring. And sprayed the clothing I plan to use later this year for backpacking in case of any ticks that carry Lyme disease.

Touring I usually wear mountain bike style shorts that are shorts with a separate detachable liner, have not had trouble with mosquitos on those types of shorts before, so did not spray them. I have one pair of bike pants with convertible zip off legs, sprayed the leg portions, more for ticks than for mosquitos.

Am packing for my next tour, the Picaridin bottle went into the handlebar bag yesterday. Also have a small bottle of deet for when the mosquitos are so bad that I might need both, but that will be packed into a pannier. I suspect that a month from now I will be complaining about mosquitos, but maybe the Permethrin will work as claimed?

sknhgy 

Our mosquito population is civilized and there is very little Lymes here, so far. I use permethrin as a precaution. I keep a small spray can of OFF in my seat bag in case I have a flat in the evening and can't outrun the critters but that's the only time I would need it.
But yes, I know all about those MN/WI mosquitos and ticks and I'd like to plan my trip during a time when they are not on the rampage. Back in my drinking days I was a big fan of Point Special beer.

robow

Tourist in MSN

My bike tour in Florida Everglades in Feb 2017, I was a bit slow in putting on the repellant, lesson learned.



I was really surprised how nasty those bugs were. But I kept thinking it is February, there can't be bugs this time of year.