What's your worst encounter with a bug?

[john]

 dusk ... down off a hill (wide open) and just onto a mile long bride across lake palestine         
a big bumble bee hit me under the outside of my ride eye  ... cheek bone           
felt like a ballpeen hammer ...            
  right hand came loose..
sugar screams W T H is go'in on ...
if not for her ... i would have rolled right off the rear fender
1971 flh electra glide police special ... 1300 bucks at a city auction             
i had taken the sheild off ..    this was in 1978
i love  a wind sheild ever since...           

[Grumpy]

Had one back in about 1970, was going N on US19 around Tarpon springs, this was before everyone moved to Florida. No shield, just sun glasses doing around 80. Had a hornet bounce off the headlight and promptly went down the neck of my shirt, that bastard must have stung me 4 or 5 times, trying to stop and get him out at the same time, I ran off the road, slid in the grass and laid the bike down. I bailed and was in the process of ripping my shirt off, when a state trooper pulled up. He had seen my antics going down the road, and in the grass, and was firmly convinced I had lost my marbles. Had a good laugh after I got rid of the varmint, had 4 knots on my chest that looked like gold balls. I refuse to wear button up shirts on the bike now.

[Jess from VA]

I have another.  Tenth annual River Run out of SoCA to Laughlin NV in around '90.

17,000 bikes or so running West across the Mojave, and 10 bazillion Monarch butterflies running North in Spring migration.  Gooey, nasty, bad tasting and streaming, cooking guts all over every bike.  The old tattood  guys with no shields and foot long beards were the funniest.  Most of the butterflies in the beards were still alive and mangled.  They don't hit hard, more like a ball of yellow snott.



Rode thru the biggest migration in North America.. on exactly the right wrong day.


At times, it was Biblical.

[saddlesore]

In spring, Lake Winnebago. in the middle of Wisconsin there is a lake fly that hatches in swarms big enough to show up on radar. All of the cottages around the lake are black with the flies.
I made the mistake of taking a ride around the lake at that time. I went south on the east side of the lake at night. I had to pull over several times to take the full face helmet off to scrape the face shield off in the grass on the side of the road.   The flies were down my neck,up my sleeves and pants legs.
At that time I didn't  know a different way home so I never tuned away from the lake.
In about an hour I was in the shower and rinsing my mouth out.
Never did that again. 

[john]

                                      " biggest migration in North America "

          that i would like to see                 

[cookiedough]

In spring, Lake Winnebago. in the middle of Wisconsin there is a lake fly that hatches in swarms big enough to show up on radar. All of the cottages around the lake are black with the flies.
I made the mistake of taking a ride around the lake at that time. I went south on the east side of the lake at night. I had to pull over several times to take the full face helmet off to scrape the face shield off in the grass on the side of the road.   The flies were down my neck,up my sleeves and pants legs.
At that time I didn't  know a different way home so I never tuned away from the lake.
In about an hour I was in the shower and rinsing my mouth out.
Never did that again. 

I have seen that before with the mayfly hatches along the mississippi river.  Luckily, I wasn't on the cycle.  The swarm is so bad that the roads become slippery from bugs on them all over, very disgusting and the car was covered with them splats all over.  Would hate to be on a cycle in one of those years where the hatches are huge, YUCK.