with this beautiful weather come the bugs…i had forgotten about them and now they’re back!!
Its amazing how quickly it happens as soon as it gets a bit warmer, I saw a massive dragonfly today too. Good times ahead.
Got stung by three bees this morning , rode through a swarm of about 2000 on Yarra Blvd
it was weird
Rode home at dusk along the bayside path yesterday - must have eaten about half a pound of the little buggers. It’s all good protein.
i got swooped by a magpie on the weekend 
first time since i was a little tacker
The pollen / seed pod crap from the elms is diabolical in the CBD today. Wish I had one of those facemasks - but goggles would help too. (Eyes -> Goggles -> Nothing.)
Re: magpies
My team leader at work (misnomer: we’re no team, and he kinda leads from the rear, IYKWIM, AITYD) was swooped quite badly by a magpie or possibly a wattle bird the other week. With him being a dirty foreign Canuckistanian I knew it was my patriotic duty to lie to him about the perils of our native animals and warned him he was lucky not to have contracted Avian Bird Flu, or lost his head, &c., and being the caring, understanding 90s type that I am, made some li’l hats for him to wear while he walks to the station. (Maybe it was that hoodie with the giant spots that set the poor animal off … )
You might have to laminate them if you want them to stand up to the weather.
Ah so it’s not just me… my eyes have been watering all day and my nose is running. Bahh!
haha nice one b0rken! thats way better than any drop bear tale! apparently if you look them straight in the eyes they don’t swoop. i took the ride faster approach
Are magpies the reason people put those long zip ties on their helmets?
I have seen heaps of people with them in Brisbane and can’t work out what the hell they are for - other then looking like a twat.
They are usually worn by 50+ females. Just an observation :evil:
twat? I thought they made the rider look more like a scrotum.
In other flying debris news: in today’s Age
A pedestrian walking past a Melbourne hospital ended up being treated inside for minor head injuries after gale force winds knocked a sign off the building.
A St Vincent’s Hospital spokesman said the passerby received stitches after the plastic sign was loosened by a gust of wind and fell at the corner of Victoria Parade and Nicholson Street in Fitzroy.
He said a piece of plastic from the sign, about one metre by four metres, hit the person in the head and damaged a parked car just before 2.30pm.
ziptie would have saved him. Ziptie and one of them blue eye medallions.
edit: OH MY GOD NOT A PARKED CAR!!111~
Yep, personally I will put up with the magpies!!
ahhh i too witnessed these zip ties on riders helmets during this past week and thought they must have been a deterrent for swooping birds…haha
untrue. someone at work was telling me their brother had a maggie swoop and take out their eye.
I got all industrious on one of those round ice-cream containers when I was a kid. Painted some evil-arse eyes and a mouth, stuck on some ears and fake hair and stuck it on the noggon backwards when I was out riding. Worked a treat, but I really did feel like a dipp-shit wearing it!!!
MAgpies…
one of the bastard things got its claws (talons?) caught in the back of my jersey on a morning commute. drivers and passengers all pissing themselves and I ended up getting a tetanus shot and the third degree from the missus about the scratches on my back.
haha! i noticed those stupid zip tie things too. they wouldn’t really do much anyway and considering YOU HAVE A HELMET ON YOUR HEAD.
oh and good story for the pub cap’n commuter!
Helmets don’t always help. There used to be this magpie that swooped at a major intersection on my commute. For a while it had a go at my helmet so I though I was relatively safe. One day it decided to have a go at the side of my head and scratched my ear. Not too badly hurt in the end but could have been worse. Between looking stupid and missing an ear or eye, I’d rather look stupid. One is for a season, the other is forever.
Des
Hmmm … I think the ties work - at least to keep the attacker further away from the head; still don’t make it onto my helmet.
Yesterday I was repeatedly attacked whilst walking my bike thru QUT to the amusement of many peds! Maybe it is the helmet that attracts interest - I wasn’t going to take it off!
On an orienteering course a while back one of the runners was quite badly cut just over the eye by a swooping magpie. The most aggresive attackers are butcherbirds where they decide to copy the magpies!
a little blue dragonfly got a free ride on my shoe today!! s/he looked a bit windswept…