I haven't been hit by much (have been hit by far more bees & things flying down hills), but, man, do we have the debris! In the winter they use a salt/stamp sand mix (very fine rock from the old copper mines around here) quite liberally, and they don't always do the greatest job cleaning it up in the spring. Nor do they do it very early in the spring. So the shoulders of the roads are very gritty and very dangerous in places. Of course, the cars expect you to be on the paved shoulder, not realizing how dangerous that can be. We also have lots of logging trucks, so they leave a goodly amount of bark and crud.

My commute to work is partly lightly traveled country road with no paved shoulder, but it isn't bad, partly small town (maybe 1 mile), which was very bad early in the season, and 1/2 2-lane highway. The highway is terrible. First, the stamp sand. Then, the bark and wood debris. Then, the miscellaneous man-junk (plastic and metal - the usual crud). Then, a few weeks ago they (state? county?) must have been doing some work along the gravel shoulder of the highway, and when they were done they graded it so that in places they dragged gravel onto the wide paved shoulder, making me weave toward traffic periodically to keep from crashing. Then, last week, I noticed periodic patches of fresh, loose, small gravel. Maybe they tarred some cracks in the pavement and covered it with that? I don't know, but it's loose & dangerous, and like a big truck drove along spilling a little once in a while.

Along the highway I do NOT claim my lane. Cars are going 65. The shoulder is very wide where it is 2 lane, much (and quite suddenly) narrower in the section where the passing lanes are, and it becomes 4 lanes. Some of it is clean, and some of it is terrible. I've hit things. Lots of things (mostly pebbles, but some unforeseen metal objects). So far nothing has been thrown at me, at least. I have a bunch of routes, several of which include the cruddy highway section. I'm not sure whose responsibility it would even be to clean it up. It isn't in a city. The state plows that part in the winter, so maybe them - yeah, I bet I'd have great luck complaining to the state and asking them to take a street sweeper out so my bike rides would be safer.

Just be glad you had your helmet on! While I have been seeing more people out riding lately, the increase seems to be mostly helmetless people.