Had to spit out a grasshopper!

[cylegoddess]

I seem to prefer getting my protein, from gnats.
As the Prime Minister said, during a speech when a fly flew into his mouth( as you do here in Australia ) "MMmmm yummy."

[Norse]

On a ride a few weeks ago, my friend and I rode through an area that was just swarming with locusts - it looked like the plague. I was in front and the grasshoppers were flying off the road as I went through, left/right, smacking my legs, sticking in my spokes.... My friend said that I parted them for him so he didn't have it so bad, meanwhile, I had to peel them off my spokes.

[kfergos]

Ew. Could you feel its legs?? (Gross, I know, but inquiring minds want to know.)

When I did an MS 150 last year, there was one section of the ride where there were these huge bugs -- people said they were June bugs, but I don't know since I'd never seen them before -- that were flying and dying all over the place. They looked like smallish cockroaches. One rider got one in her mouth, and later they gave her a T-shirt. I'm not sure it's exactly a fair trade. Bleck.

[Norse]

Ew. Could you feel its legs?? (Gross, I know, but inquiring minds want to know.)

Yes. It was almost constant. Yucko!

[MtnBikerChk]

Eeeeewwwwwww!!!!!

[Jolt]

Yuck!!!

[cylegoddess]

You all should come out here, to Australia. We get LOTS of really friendly flies.
Swarms of them.
And unlike Cali flies, they dont stop when you shoo them away.In fact, Ive had to run down streets and hide inside to get away from them.

But seriously, its ok compared to swooping, psycho magpies that are about to breed and nest, ALL ALONG THE COMMUTING BIKE TRAILS - and attack us poor cycling folks, by swooping down and at your face , sides of face, back of neck and back. The least worst, just scare the crap out of you, by suddenly hitting your back( they are BIG - the size of parrots) when you least expect it.

[crazycanuck]

Oooh how I love to be a human winshield washer whilst walking down the road. The flies are so bad here in Western Australia that if you get below fly speed, you're covered.

Mtn biking uphill is sooo much fun in the summer..Flies, pea gravel, dust, heat..what more could you ask for.

Summer, please come soon

[kenyonchris]

Yuch. I have had flies in my mouth on the road bike but it is the spiderwebs and spiders on the mountain bike that creep me out. I hate riding first.

[beancounterbeth]

Last weekend we went to HHH. We stayed at a hotel in Lawton since all the hotels in Wichita Falls, TX were booked. When we got back to our room after watching some races and eating dinner it was around 9:30 at night. That is when we found that our hotel had been taken over by crickets. They were all over the parking lot and you couldn't help but hear them crunching under the tires as we ran over them.

It got worse....Much Worse! When we got in our room the crickets were in our room as well. Not 1 or 2 but a bunch of them. Since there weren't any rooms available in Lawton or Wichita Falls we were stuck with our cricket infested room. The hotel came in and sprayed and I ended up sleeping wrapped up in the sheet like a burrito. I got maybe 3 hours of sleep at the most before we had to get up and drive to WF for the HHH ride on Saturday morning. At about 11:30 on Friday night I was on the verge of tears trying to figure out if I should just go sleep in my car or stay in the room.

[salsabike]

Beth, don't leave us there! Did the HHH go okay in spite of the repellent cricket room?

[Eden]

Hey in some cultures that would have been a tasty snack

We went riding in up a mt pass that was swarming with butterflies once. Up was not so bad - not too hard to avoid hitting them - got cute overload with having butterflies cruising my slipstream, getting rides on my handlebars, etc

On the way down..... we really did try to limit butterfly carnage.... At the gate (the road was close to cars - very cool) I actually had to remove a live (and incredibly undamaged) butterfly from the inside of my helmet!