It depends largely upon how they are equipped

[Willow]

I ride without a windscreen, well mostly.  My Interstate does have an eight inch screen.  Sometimes I hear riders talking about how much bugs to the face can hurt.  I generally scoff.  I've taken plenty, some fairly large.  I was riding once with a full face and whistling.  I had the visor up which is generally how I wear a full faced helmet.  Something passed through the opening in my lips and the first time I was aware is when it struck the back of my throat.  I hope it didn't live long in my digestive system.

Yesterday I was riding US 40 to Topeka.  I was wearing a half shell and traveling probably 60 - 65.  I saw it only for a moment.  It wasn't large.  It hit between my glasses and the helmet.  Either it had something evil up front or it hit leading with a stinger.  It hurt!  I thought I might need to pull over and check my forehead.  I was amazed that I didn't see any blood on my glove.

The pain did diminish over time and was apparently not as life threatening as it initially seemed.  It still hurts but not so much as it did.

Do they hurt?  Well, it largely depends upon how they are equipped.      

[Jess from VA]

The face can withstand a decent amount of punishment.

The eyes, not so much.

Even with a full shield/fairing and good eye-wear, I've still managed to have bugs and objects get in my eyes.   

(Half DOT helmet and eye-wear;  my Scorpion half DOT now has the little short drop visor which almost guarantees no objects in my eyes (coupled with the fairing and shield), and I put it down more than I thought I would.  I don't mind the wind, it's the sun and the things in the wind. 

[Rams]

Several years ago, I saw it coming an instant before it hit. 

Cicadas are not tasty in the least......  That's all I have to say about that......

Rams

[Serk]

You do you, but I've had to replace too many windshields (Motorcycle and cage) due to leaky rockhaulers driving around these parts to ride without a windshield...

[csj]

Bout 40 yrs ago I saw it coming..... Orange and Black..... Big Monarch.... Sp--Lash.

Couldn't see a thing. Took a 1/2 hour to get it scrubbed off the face-shield.

[The emperor has no clothes]

Do they hurt?  Well, it largely depends upon how they are equipped.     

Women and bugs have much in common. 

[MAD6Gun]

 I also do not ride with a windshild. But I do wear a full face modular helmet.  A few years ago wearing my first Shuberth helmet. This helmit was nice because it had a very large vent on the chin bar. Lots of air would go through it. Anyway I was just a few miles from home coming down an off ramp. No idea what it was because I only saw it briefly when it slammed into the chinbar. Whatever it was, was strained through the screen in the vent then into my mouth right behind said vent.. Yuck yuck yuck.. couldn't pull over fast enough.

 I have also hit some so big I thought I had hit a small bird.......lol

[MAD6Gun]

Do they hurt?  Well, it largely depends upon how they are equipped.      

Women and bugs have much in common.  

 I hate to tell you this Rob.  But if it hurts you may be doing it wrong..just saying....

Or did you mean something else. If that is the case never mind....

[Wizzard]

I was riding through AR at night wearing a t shirt and a wasp went up my sleeve and down my back. Stung me like 6 times before I could get stopped and it hurt like hell.

[Gryphon Rider]

Do they hurt?  Well, it largely depends upon how they are equipped.      

Women and bugs have much in common.  

 I hate to tell you this Rob.  But if it hurts you may be doing it wrong..just saying....

Or did you mean something else. If that is the case never mind....

Is there a right way to take a skillet to the head?

[old2soon]

              Going to my midnight shift on my trusty 73 Honda C B 500/4. No W/S and my visor was removed from my 3/4 helmet as it had gotten bug encrusted bout half way to work. Saw the B-29 bug and zigged and zagged and jinked-ALL to no avail! THAT bug-moth-wrapped itself around my right eyeglass lens and INSTANTLY my right eye was on fire. Rolled into a closed gas station and used dirty W/S wash water to attempt a flush of the right eye. The fresh water spigots were not on!   My shift supervisor was an E M T and he dug most of the remnants of the B-29 moth out of the eye but it was already swelled shut. After seeing my Dr. I went to the first M/C shop I came to and bought 3 more shields for the helmet. Did NOT want to go thru that ever again.   Been lucky far as bugs or remnants there of NOT gittin in my eyes but some have made contact tween helmet and top of my shades! And I believe some of those making contact were in fact armored. RIDE SAFE.

[F6Dave]

I was at Sturgis several years ago and noticed these hard beetle like bugs flying around.  When they hit your helmet or windshield they sounded like rocks.  A few days later I read in the local paper that one rider with minimal or no eye protection had one travel through his eye and lodge in his brain, killing him.  Some bugs can be pretty dangerous!

[The emperor has no clothes]

Do they hurt?  Well, it largely depends upon how they are equipped.      

Women and bugs have much in common.  

 I hate to tell you this Rob.  But if it hurts you may be doing it wrong..just saying....

Or did you mean something else. If that is the case never mind....

Is there a right way to take a skillet to the head?

With a Shuberth "helmit" of course. 

[Chrisj CMA]

I used to make fun of guys that had windshields. I had five motorcycles without shields before my first Valkyrie with. Windshields are not for wimps. They are for smart people for rides over 40 mph around town. Even the tiny shield on my solo bike deflects rain and bugs over my head

[The emperor has no clothes]

Normally bee stings don't really bother me too bad. But one day I was hit in the shoulder by what I thought was a pebble or something, it hit pretty hard. Then I felt something on my forearm. Looked down and a bee was stuck in my arm giving it everything he (or she) had. It took me a little while to get rid of him as I was riding in some tight curves. That sucker hurt for the remaining 30 miles home and the next 3 days. I don't know if bees have adrenaline, but this sucker was so pissed at getting hit at 65mph that he was going to take retribution before he died.

[Jess from VA]

Bugs are full of acid.  Thus hard on paint.  Thus they can taste really bad.

Monarch butterflies taste incredibly bad.  Darwinian evolution, and survival of the species and all. 

And I've had the same experience with bee/wasp stings; they are much worse in older age (and aging immune systems) than they were in our youth.

I have declared permanent jihad against yellow jackets (regular bees are great).

(Not talking about allergy or anaphylactic shock)   

[Willow]

Do they hurt?  Well, it largely depends upon how they are equipped.     

Women and bugs have much in common. 

We are in agreement!   

[..]

https://www.facebook.com/atlantamotorsportspark/videos/2258854384141913/?t=0

[Westernbiker]

This sums up the bug type, funny read.

There are many great things about riding a motorcycle. The freedom of being out in the open, the wind in your hair, the smells of the countryside and the BUGS on your face. Well, maybe that last one isn't one of the great things, but it is certainly what the riders are talking about these days. The rains we got a few weeks ago were good for the lakes and vegetation but it has also been a catalyst for bug making. It's been a while since I have encountered this many while riding. Bugs have been such a big topic I decided to look up the term in the dictionary to see what Webster's had to say about them.

Main Entry: 2bug
Function: noun
Etymology: origin unknown
Date: 1622
1 a: an insect or other creeping or crawling invertebrate, b: any of several insects commonly considered obnoxious, c: any of an order (Hemiptera and especially its suborder Heteroptera) of insects that have sucking mouthparts, forewings thickened at the base, and incomplete metamorphosis and are often economic pests.
 
I'm not sure what all that tells me except that they were around before the first V-Twin and they are OBNOXIOUS PESTS. I did a ride up through Prescott, Jerome and Sedona a couple of weeks ago and had plenty of time to think while getting layered with all types of flying invertebrates. What is it about these guys that they feel it necessary to fly right in the middle of the road? They have millions of acres to fly, why does it have to be right at eye level in front of a motorcycle doing 70 mph. I'm not an entomologist, but I think I could have been a poster child for one after that ride. I felt like a walking class insecta after that one. If I were still in 4th grade I could have just turned in my shirt, glasses and headlight, added a "Praying Mantis" and I would have gotten a "A" on my biology project.
 
What I find really interesting is all the different shapes, sizes, colors and tastes you can encounter. Some are sweet, some are sour and some have no taste at all. Some splash all over your face and some feel like a rock when they nail you in the cheek. Red and Yellow guts seem to have been the popular colors for Spring this year. It's also amazing how accurate these guys are. It's like there is some big control tower up there with "Bug Vader" barking out instructions to all the "suicide bugs". "Ok, we've got a guy daydreaming on a blue Titan doing 75 mph southbound on I-17, go for the left glasses lens. DIRECT HIT!! He'll be pulling over soon." I'm sure you can all relate to that.
 
So after about 20 hours and 740 miles of open road riding over the last 3 weeks I have had plenty of time to think. What could I relate these bugs to that would make the non-rider understand what this is like? There are so many ways that a bug can attack that I came up with this.
 
If bugs were bombs, here are what 7 of them would be:
 
The "Bunker Bugster". This is the bug that hits you so hard in the cheek that it rattles your teeth, has a stinging sensation and feels like it is now firmly embedded and you will need tweezers to pull it out. You can almost imagine this one to have a sharp pointed beak and his feet are wiggling trying to get out.
 
The "Smart Bug". This is the one that can pinpoint the last available square centimeter on your glasses or windshield that is allowing you to see at all. Once hit by a "Smart Bug" you are forced to the side of the road for cleanup. You can always count on running into one of these on your trip.
 
The "Napalm Bug". This is the bug that hits and immediately explodes spreading a red and yellow substance over your face, clothing or glasses, sometimes causing a burning sensation on the skin and has a sour taste. If you clean this one off with your fingers in route, do not later touch your eyes or pick your teeth.
 
The "Cluster Bugs". This is a group of several thousand tiny bugs that fly together in a group. After riding through them you can find them stuck to your lip balm or held on by oily sunscreen. Requires a sharp fingernail to remove them as they smear easily if you try and wipe them off. Always keep mouth closed tightly while riding through "Cluster Bugs".
 
The "Cruise Bug". This is classified as a SMART Bug that comes in from the side and can actually hit you in the ear while doing 70 mph. Not really sure how this one works. But it feels like a "Bunker Bugster" when it connects. If big enough it can actually make you change lanes.
 
The "Satellite Guided Bug". This is one of the smartest and most accurate bugs. This bug has been proven to be able to fly up your nose at speeds up to 90mph creating a very uncomfortable situation for the rider. This bug is very hard to retrieve and can make you look like a nose picker in front of your riding buddies for up to 2 miles before giving up on it. This is AKA the "Ghost Bug". You know a bug went up your nose, it feels like it is still there, but you can rarely actually retrieve it. A Very frustrating bug that can actually take up to 10 miles to convince yourself that this bug is dead and not crawling around in your nose.
 
And lastly, a recent development in the bug world is the MOAB.
The "Mother of all Bugs". A very large bug. Bigger than any previous bug. A Juicy, multicolored bug that when hit quickly spreads itself all over you, your passenger and the guy riding behind you. If hit with one of these MOAB's, especially in the glasses, you and your group will be forced to the side of the road for extensive cleanup before continuing your ride.
 

Hopefully the non-rider can now understand what we go through for the love of riding. As I have said before, being a motorcycle rider, it almost seems like we have an unfair advantage when it comes to building memories. Every day we fire up our motorcycles and head out on the open road, we are filling out another deposit slip for our memory bank of life. Bugs are certainly a part of that right now. And the more you ride, the more experiences you have to share with others. All that being said, I am ready to go back out there and do it again right now. And for the riders who will be out there too, the next time you get hit with a bug, make a quick mental note of which "Bug Bomb" you were hit with.

[Oss]

chuck that was great !

Riding from Americade with my friend Jeff one year I had the experience of some of those smart bees riding right into my right ear and getting caught under the flap of the small helmet with the leather earpieces  They were stingin me pretty good and I was screamin pretty good too words I cant repeat here

Jeff was in back of me watching me try to hit them out of there with no success and doing an emergency brake on the shoulder of the farmer field  Swelled up like stink 

No lie

The street sign to my left said  BEEHIVE LANE

No $hit sherlock   

Took 2 benadryl and rode home 4 more hours

[Moonshot_1]

From the title of this thread I thought it was going to be about Oss's secretary interviews.

Profound disappointment.     Profound.

[Oss]

agreed   

[Gryphon Rider]

Do they hurt?  Well, it largely depends upon how they are equipped.     

Women and bugs have much in common. 

[Willow]

From the title of this thread I thought it was going to be about Oss's secretary interviews.

Profound disappointment.     Profound.

LOL!  The only advice I can offer to you and to my friend, OSS, is to increase any effort to somehow struggle your way out of latent adolescence (that's heavy talk for grow up).      

[Daniel Meyer]

Did y'all know "bug" is also a unit of speed?

"bug1" is defined as the speed at which a bug will go "splat" instead of bounce off...and is generally accepted to be 50mph. It's acceptable as a unit of measurement for motorcycles as simply put...the vast majority of us regulate the speed of those things in approximate 50mph chunks anyway.

Out of the driveway and down the alley? "bug". Hit the freeway? "bug2" (unless there's traffic, then it's a different speed unit altogether which is loosely defined as "AFAYCWHTCIFOY" (As Fast As You Can Without Hitting The Car In Front Of You). Empty freeway? "bug3" Yeah, a lot of us can't actually achieve "bug3" but the attempt usually has us shaking, vibrating, or being blown around that the speedo needle is a blur anyway. Also we tend to tell of these adventures to other motorcyclists so "bug3" it is.

So, when ya order up "bug3"....that means "fricken fast".

It can vary...summer for instance...when the bugs are less juicy...the speed of "bug" is a little higher. Summer in Texas...well "bug" can mean breaking the sound barrier.

S'okay though. The air is thinner. Boyle's law I think...which I believe also covers a lot of the stories we tell...

The unit of "bug" however, is SUBSTANTIALLY different if the insect in question possesses a stinger of any kind. This unit of "bug" is modified by a factor that is dependent on how many swear words were uttered and at what volume.

Yanno...this seemed relevant when I started

[Moonshot_1]

From the title of this thread I thought it was going to be about Oss's secretary interviews.

Profound disappointment.     Profound.

LOL!  The only advice I can offer to you and to my friend, OSS, is to increase any effort to somehow struggle your way out of latent adolescence (that's heavy talk for grow up).      

NEVAH!

[¿spoom]

I ran without a shield forever, got off pretty easy over the years. But I was soooo happy I had a fairing w/shield on the bike when I collected a robin right in the middle of it. That left a mess...

[rocketray]

I had a semi a maybe hundred yards in front of me and 3 lanes to the right run over a 2X4 some 3 1/2 feet long  and toss it some 50 feet in the air..we had a some 40 mph south wind that pushed the board over into my lane some seconds later and it was end on fixing to go through my heart some 5 -10feet from my windshield..God intervened and it turned sideways  smashing flat across my windshield.....in my Corvette..yep....so wear shatterproof eyeglasses,have flip down in the helmet glasses,helmet shield and the motorcycle windshield ..and get the  most  protective everything else you can afford and tolerate

[cookiedough]

always windshield, way too many bugs and once it gets below 50 degrees a windshield is nearly essential  if have helmet on or not.

[Rams]

Those from the mid-west will probably know what a Meadowlark is.  My guess is it's about a 1 lb bird.   Felt like a two hundred pound linebacker.

Back in my stupider days, I took one at somewhere over the 130 mark directly to the forehead area on my helmet.   Almost took my head off.  My neck hurt for over a month.   Replaced that helmet, it did not look cracked or anything but I could never get the dead bird stench out of it.

Rams

[The emperor has no clothes]

It's good to see you fixed the title. Took everything I had not to comment on it. (Well, not everything)  

[Crackerborn]

I remember hard back beetles ringing a full face helmet like a bell on SR7 between Royal Palm Beach and West Atlantic Blvd traveling from a buds house to home late at night during FL summers. I quit riding with my shirt tucked into my pants after some kamikaze stinging yellow and black insects of unknown variety inflicted massive trauma to my chest and back while I tried in vane to remove them without taking on a guardrail. And I am very happy this guy doesn't live near me

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dDQ9y9VaN_I/TcsBOfrdNnI/AAAAAAAAAHM/G6Xd3SZbups/s1600/2067966664_001f0b3455_o.jpg

I am not sure if bug3 speeds would kill it or me. And a windscreen saved my bacon when a suicidal turkey flew off the shoulder of the road into oncoming traffic, aka, me.

[3fan4life]

Took a direct hit from a vulture once.

The fairing and windshield on the Interstate still bear the scars.

I'm glad that they're on it instead of me.

[Willow]

It's good to see you fixed the title. Took everything I had not to comment on it. (Well, not everything)  

Yes, I'm using a new browser that doesn't provide automatic spell check.  I'm learming how much I depended upon that feature.   

[The emperor has no clothes]

It's good to see you fixed the title. Took everything I had not to comment on it. (Well, not everything)  

Yes, I'm using a new browser that doesn't provide automatic spell check.  I'm learming how much I depended upon that feature.   

And here all this time I just took you for near genius.  (I figured your hand was still bothering you)

[MAD6Gun]

It's good to see you fixed the title. Took everything I had not to comment on it. (Well, not everything)  

Yes, I'm using a new browser that doesn't provide automatic spell check.  I'm learming how much I depended upon that feature.   

  I depend on spellcheck to much and sometimes i miss one which is evident since I tried to make a humorous comment earlier just to have the resident grammer cop correct my spelling of "helmet".

[Kidd]

3 years ago ,while on my BMW  ,doing 60mph  I lifted my visor   to scratch  my nose and immediately a wasp flew in , started biting my ear , took self control to pull over  and remove my helmet.

2 weeks ago ,  met a guy on a 2014 Valk  with no protection on his face or wind shield  , he was bragging  about having 56K miles on his beloved machine  ,  he must have a  tough face .
I can imagine  the   all the rocks , bugs  and road debris  his face has seen

[The emperor has no clothes]

It's good to see you fixed the title. Took everything I had not to comment on it. (Well, not everything)  

Yes, I'm using a new browser that doesn't provide automatic spell check.  I'm learming how much I depended upon that feature.  

  I depend on spellcheck to much and sometimes i miss one which is evident since I tried to make a humorous comment earlier just to have the resident grammer cop correct my spelling of "helmet".

Willow is more the GRAMMAR cop, I’m better at spelling than at grammar.  

[Jess from VA]

Having a bee in your helmet, buzzing and squirming, trying to find an escape, and thinking the hole in your ear is the way out, and working as hard as he can to crawl inside your head is one of the more memorable experiences I ever had.  And at 70mph on the freeway.  

Slide to a stop in the median grass, jump off, toss the helmet straight up, dancing around, smacking both ears with your hands.  And the people driving by giving you the strangest looks.

See what doing drugs does to people kids?  They lose their minds and flip out.

Amazingly, that one did not sting me.  The one in my shirt stung me several times.  I'll take the stings any day to not have one try and crawl in my ear hole again.

[old2soon]

Having a bee in your helmet, buzzing and squirming, trying to find an escape, and thinking the hole in your ear is the way out, and working as hard as he can to crawl inside your head is one of the more memorable experiences I ever had.  And at 70mph on the freeway.  

Slide to a stop in the median grass, jump off, toss the helmet straight up, dancing around, smacking both ears with your hands.  And the people driving by giving you the strangest looks.

See what doing drugs does to people kids?  They lose their minds and flip out.

Amazingly, that one did not sting me.  The one in my shirt stung me several times.  I'll take the stings any day to not have one try and crawl in my ear hole again.

               Cheap harbor freight bright orange ear plugs. RIDE SAFE.