Tell me your bug stories, I know you got one

[bruiser]

Well after MT Kevin's recluse encounter anything I have to contribute will seem very trivial!
However there is one occurrence that I will always remember. I was on my bike and wearing
a full-face helmet travelling along a winding road that required my full attention.
It was summer and I had left my visor open about an inch to let some air circulate.
Suddenly I felt an impact on my top lip...after years of riding you get to recognise the 'feel'
of any insect impacts and this felt like a wasp (yellow jacket). On the next short straight section
of road I glanced down and a large wasp was crawling along the lip of my of my helmet inside
the visor! :yikes:

Now I hate wasps with a vengeance having been stung once by a wasp that had obviously been
in an unsavory location (trash cans or animal poo) and the site of the sting became infected and
swelled up enormously. Not good. Had to take penicillin for a month!

So, anyway, I saw this wasp on the lip of the helmet and I grabbed the lip with my left gloved hand
so it wouldn't be able to get in and sting me. Of course then I wasn't able to use the clutch. Luckily
I was able to do some clutch-less downshifts and even more fortunately I managed to find neutral!

I couldn't be sure that my tight grip had killed the wasp so I came to a standstill with some trepidation,
kicked out the side stand and dismounted. Unfastening the 'D' ring was impossible with my gloved right
hand so I pulled my right glove off with my teeth.
When the time came to reveal the beast, I opened my hand to find a very pi$$ed queen wasp which
almost immediately flew off. Lucky escape that!

Lucky for you the queen wasp doesn't normally sting.

 

[bruiser]

Wasps are parasitic and normally feed on...

Spiders.

Now you know why they're attracted to us.

 

[Cruzr Joe]

Luckily, my only good bug story was en route to Memphis on I-40 with my face shield down and this nasty bug splatters on my face shield and about one third of the face shield is covered in slime and blood. Pulled over and cleaned the shield and continued on. YUCK

Cruzr Joe

 

[Bob Denman]

At least they died happy! :thumbup:

And to think; you got to be a part of it! :thumbup:

 

[bullant12]

Myself and Dentin (Leira) were heading towards Columbus, MS during nightfall. We left work late that afternoon and our final destination was Destin, FL to spend the week, but we were going to spend the night at Columbus AFB and continue in the morning. Anyway, leaving Tupelo after dinner and heading south to Columbus, our helmets started to be hit by hundreds of beetles flying all over the place... it felt like someone was shooting pellets at us. When we got to the AFB's Lodge, our :spyder2:s and helmets were splattered like paint gun pellets. And of course, myself and wife had a nice pps: serving of bug "dessert".

 

[LJspydee]

Bug story

We were ryding back from Wisconsin Sunday evening and something hit my chest. We were passing a construction site and I thought it might have been a rock or debris. When we got home this fell off my jacket. Sure glad I was wearing a ryding jacket, gloves, helmet and face shield!

 

[jerpinoy]

Lamont, that hurts coz I know I got bit on my left arm. I should have taken a picture too and post it.

 

[wyliec]

We were ryding back from Wisconsin Sunday evening and something hit my chest. We were passing a construction site and I thought it might have been a rock or debris. When we got home this fell off my jacket. Sure glad I was wearing a ryding jacket, gloves, helmet and face shield!
View attachment 73288

Can you imagine riding without a shield and getting that in your mouth?

 

[spydaman60]

i've only got one! came down from upstate ny and as i was going thru kingston, ny, on the ny state thruway i hit about 4 or 5 cicadas. these things are half the size of a hummingbird. :yikes: needless to say, couldn't see much out of the shield, but that's not what i was thinking about. i was thinking, here's this insect that lives in the ground for 17 years and then comes out and has sex once, only to get hit by a spyder!:roflblack:

 

[Bob Denman]

View attachment 73288

What in Gawd's name is that :shocked:?? Bugzilla??? :yikes:

 

[spydaman60]

Can you imagine riding without a shield and getting that in your mouth?

that's one of those cicada bugs that i mentioned in my post!:yikes:

 

[flamingobabe]

The worst to me was near Gunnison, CO.....was riding along the river an all of a sudden something smacks me on my cheek and splatters all over my face shield....yellow icky stuff....I do my best to wipe it off...sticky and just wipe it on my jeans.....when we finally stop I had a cut across my cheek..nasty stuff....once Mark caught a bird that flew into his fairing and up near the handlebars...then he tried to handed it to me....I screamed like a girl

 

[NancysToy]

...then he tried to handed it to me....I screamed like a girl

:roflblack::roflblack::roflblack:

 

[bcoulter19]

I hadn't had my spyder long and wsa riding without gloves doing about 70 when a june bug hit me just below the knuckle of the ring finger on my left hand. I thought I had broke my hand. That was the last time I rode with no gloves. OUCH :shocked:

 

[Lamonster]

The worst to me was near Gunnison, CO.....was riding along the river an all of a sudden something smacks me on my cheek and splatters all over my face shield....yellow icky stuff....I do my best to wipe it off...sticky and just wipe it on my jeans.....when we finally stop I had a cut across my cheek..nasty stuff....once Mark caught a bird that flew into his fairing and up near the handlebars...then he tried to handed it to me....I screamed like a girl

I don't know if you remember when I rode the M109 to your place and hit a cloud of honey bees just before I got there. I had sticky honey and bees all over me and the bike but never got stung. :shocked:

 

[Dan McNally]

I can tell you that getting bit by a brown recluse SPIDER is not any fun. the doc was pretty sure he was in my riding gear. 125 mile ride and took me 10 min to get off bike when I got home. 7 days of wife packing gause in the big hole in my leg, wasn't what I would call a great vacation.:yikes: Oh yeh, no riding for 2 weeks.:banghead:

Read this, :yikes: went out to the garage, shook the heck out of my riding jacket and pants :clap:, and brought them into the house to hang . . .

 

[Bob Denman]

I don't know if you remember when I rode the M109 to your place and hit a cloud of honey bees just before I got there. I had sticky honey and bees all over me and the bike but never got stung.

They were probably too busy trying to get out of your way; there was just no time left for them to get mad! :yikes:

 

[Pappazippy]

Mine doesn't involve a bike. It involves a Phantom, that is, an F4 Phantom fighter. Southeast Asia, I was prepping for an engine test run. Had to walk the back bone to pull the covers off the tail probes. While backing away from the vertical tail I heard a loud hum coming my way. Just as I turned around I was hit square in the face by a fully loaded rice bug. Sucker knocked me off the back bone. I fell down the side of the fuselage, bounced off the wing and hit the ground. Knocked the wind out of me. My ground man thought I'd been shot.

By the way Lamont, I know that had to hurt.

I hear ya Bruiser! I have been smacked a couple of times by those rice bugs (flying monsters more like it) I was in SE Asia working F-111's and at night after a normal downpour they came out by the hundreds and headed directly to our light alls. They would smack anything in their way. They sound like miniature buzz bombs. I gathered a few up every night for my Mammasan and left them outside my hooch in a paper bag. Even now when I tell people about the size of those critters they think I'm lying. Also they give me a hard time about the :cus: you lizards, yes they are real and they really sound like they are saying "f :cus: You" when they chirp. As far as riding, I've only been hit by a few exceptionally juicy grasshoppers in my face shield. Definitely gets your attention.

 

[Bob Denman]

"Rice Bug"?? :shocked: They don't sound dangerous; exactly how big are they? :dontknow:

 

[kawakii]

Well this story isn't exactly a bug story. Last year while following Jake on the Spyder - in our car with the pups on our way to Spyders in the Adirondacks the car in front of Jake hit a porcupine leaving Jake no time to react so he hit it as well throwing up porcupine spikes, guts, etc all over the front of the bike, jake,and his helmet . Luckily we were about 2 minutes from the next rest area and I we pulled in well jake gets off the bike and I see at least 4 porcupine spikes sticking out of his bare arms ; - he had been riding in a Tshirt. So we proceeded to pull those out, clean up the up crude holes, and change he clothes and clean off his Helmet. Luckily no damage to the Spyder and we were able to rinse down the front of it with a hose when we arrived at rental house.

Watching Jake pull out the porcupine spikes and listening to his choice words made me glad I was in the cage for that experience. He was lucky he had a full face helmet on our his face would have definitely caught a spike or two and most likely he would have had a mouth full of guys .. Gross.