This is the SECOND TIME it’s happened. I grab my brain bucket, pull on the gloves and jump on my Magna. I cruise around the corner, up the street, and hit the highway. When I hit 60MPH, the airflow through my helmet’s vents, dislodges anything that crawled into them.
What happens is I get up to speed, and all the sudden there is a Speeider crawling on my face shield. Normal reaction is to swat it. Well, tonight I swatted it. It of course, being INSIDE my face shield… was unhurt. So it jumped onto my face. On my cheek. Then it ran under my eyeglasses. (Insert the “Scream Like A Girl” sound effect)
At 60 Miles Per Hour. There it is. On my eye. Under a face shield, and glasses, and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it until I calmly pull over and stop. BTW, my bike can make a stop from 60 in about 5 feet.
What happened after I stopped is something like this:
FOXTROT!
Time to put that helmet in a lightweight cloth pull tie bag when not riding.
YikeS!
All my years of scooter riding and THAT is a new one I haven’t heard.
Spiders crawling on the face and you can’t get it off because of the barrier between hand and face, all this while trying not to kill yourself at 60 mph.
That is some new kind of hellish torture right there.
No thank you.
I had my face shield up… and had a hornet enter it at around 45 mph… wedged itself between the side of me head and the helmet liner.
It wasnt happy.
I thought I was about to die.
jim
Driving down a country road toward Wilmar until my left shoulder was all of a sudden absolutely on fire and I didn’t know why.
Pulled over, reached in through my jacket and under my shirt and pulled out a handfull of angry ass hornets!
Tore my jacket and shirt open to swat the rest off my chest then zoomed down the road a 1/4 mile pulled over to examine the damage.
No stingers but just a big swollen red mass.
Freaky, but I’d take that again over a flipping spider on my face.
At first I was chuckling because of the most excellent Megamind references…then I got to the part when it jumped. Judasjumpingpriest kill it with FIRE! Good on ya for having your wits and stopping safely. I, most likely, would have done a gainer off the back of the bike at 60 while trying to rip the helmet off. Freaking jumping little…anyway. Remember Arachnophobia with Jeff Daniels? Campy and predictable, but if that movie would have been 3D I probably would have gone into cardiac arrest a couple times.
Again…glad you’re safe.
–E
The only thing that can compare to what I did when I stopped…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOUvUV69PzA
had the hornet in the helmet. Why do they always get right to the ear??? I think the worst I had (For bugs) was a dragonfly right between the eyes at around 50. I still dont know how I pulled over with my eyes shut and watering that much.
Now has anyone else took a HUMMINGBIRD to the chest at around 70? That almost took me off the bike lol. I can laugh now but I could have sworn I was shot by the pain and bruising.
I got my first bike when I was stationed at Myrtle Beach AFB, SC and I experienced first hand just about every species of bug the South had to offer. Being the young dumbass 19yr old I didn’t ride with a helmet at times but that changed when I caught the biggest, hardest junebug right between the eyes at around 30-35mph. Any faster and I more than likely would’ve been killed. I had an egg sized welt and I had to lie to my supervisor as to why I had this big black and blue thing on my forehead. I also remember riding through lime green and yellow clouds that happened to be very juicy flying bugs that like to hang around highways. I don’t like spiders and I wouldn’t be able to handle one on my body…much less my face. Now when I hear about spiders I think about those big hairy camel spiders that I used to see in the desert. Them things will chase you and they are fast and can jump pretty damn high.
June Bugs… the .45ACP of the insect world.
*cringe* Oh that’s about my worst nightmare right there.
None of these things ever happened to me in my cars, not even my 2 favorites the ’69 GTO or the ’88 Mustang GT. No brain bucket needed, plus a big, thick piece of glass between me and various stinging insects and small birds. Sheesh, I don’t even get wet when it rains, I can listen to the radio or a CD of my choice, and the A/C is great in the hot weather. Oh, and I can carry a lot of crap in the trunk and not worry about the vehicle being off balance, or trying to decide what to leave and what to bring – I just bring it all. :>)
But can you get a 12-second 1/4 mile and 40+ MPG too?
I’ve not tested that – but I suspect if a speeider is involved, I’m probably an 8 second quarter.
I’ve cleverly hidden my “Scream Like A Girl” soundtrack in a video titled “Sergeant Mac’s Excellent Taser Training Adventure”……
Yep, you REALLY might want to consider keeping the hat inside the house. Otherwise ya MIGHT end up with a Brown Recluse or a Black Widow crawling on the face one of these days…
Spray some deet on your helmet, mabye ?
I like spiders, but not sitting on my eye at 60mph.
So you’ve got itty bitty quarter fairing on your bike. It is your sole source of transport. It is cold out but you gotta ride. You have a cold on top of that. You are wearing a full face helmet. You are in high speed traffic and your nose is dribbling but you can’t wipe. Then you sneeze……and gooberize the inside of your face shield.
Been there done that. That is the reason why I carry some napkins in my tail bag. Nothing like having to open your shield to see and getting smacked in the face by your own snot.
A friend of mine hit a pheasant with his chest, going along a country road at night. Ended up with a small bruise and a dead pheasant in his lap.
“Oh, Hey! Free Pheasant!” He then decides to actually attempt to hit a pheasant at the earliest opportunity, to see if he can replicate the feat.
So, the next night, same road, same area, he startles some more pheasants. And aims for one.
His aim is pretty good, except he hits it with his face this time… The pheasant destroys his new visor and its corpse is wedged solidly into his full face helmet, concussing and suffocating him all at once.
It turns out poaching pheasants with a motorbike is not the best of ideas…