When I don't want to deal with cars at all I drive to the end of Newhall Ave, near Hart High school and start riding on the bike path there. You can ride around for hours without seeing all of it. Not hectic like the beach bike path or even Balboa park.

I had to stomp it to finish it off.


https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...7e7e4e85d.jpeg

They should have taped him to the verticle stabilizer.

perhaps it it just melancholy....




Yes I did!

or worse Ticks! The horror!

It's not as bad as failing to get old.

Don't worry V.V. that far back in time you would have been eaten by a dinosaur

I was attacked by oak mites yesterday and the itch is almost at the chigger or poison ivy level. Some of the bites are on my back where I can’t reach to scratch them.

so Doug's an 80's guy?

Where were you when you were attacked? details please,, hiking perhaps?

Sounds quite unpleasant. Maybe the mrs could rub some steroid cream on your back?

Google says blame the cicadas for the oak mites.

Had never heard of them. Had to look them up. Sound nasty.

While touring in MT one year I sat down on the side of the road to shed my base layer and leg warmers. Stood up, pulled up the bib straps and started to feel little bites. Turn out I had sat down on the opening to an ant colony. Got stings as far up as my neck.

Always pay attention to where you sit.

Why is there chicken stock on the floor?

With our fire ants, that only happens once. Then you learn to watch where you step.

Lovely little critters.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...680cd32ed0.jpg

I do. I have a tube of clobetasol ointment, the most potent topical corticosteroid prep in the universe, I’m told, and I will have LSS oint my lesions.

Yeah, that’s the mofo!

Because I was too lazy at the time to take it down to the basement.

The discussion of oak mites and the mention of fleas gives me phantom itches. I hate little bitey ****ers and always have fairly itchy reactions to all of 'em.

I brush by a favorite beetle lunch hangout, during my lawn cutting activities. Dozens of the little buggers tumble on to me and the mower.

Yeah. I have heard people talk about fire ants. I think what got me was something tamer.

I was in the middle of nowhere and there was nothing to sit on besides the ground. Because my touring shoes are so big and bulky I have to take them off to remove my leg warmers. I managed to pick the worst spot for that. Two feet in either direction and I would have been ok.

Having lots of biting bugs are my least favorite part of camping. I would rather have rain.

I think the worst was the first place we camped in MN after riding in from Fargo. Think it was called Strawberry Lake. A couple nearly flew in my mouth as I was eating cereal the next morning. Even though it was relatively warm and dry, I wore my cold/wet weather clothing to keep as much skin covered as possible. Took it off only when I got to the end of the campground driveway and immediately jumped on the bike to get away. When I unpacked by tent at the next campground there were blood spots on the inside. They were from crushed mosquitoes.

The winds stayed true and I got to go out and crush some souls last night - good fun. :D

Rather than sprint for town signs, I decided to spice it up a little and try to ride off of the front, instead, and see if I could hold them off. For a particular sign at the end of a 2-mile straight, I jumped with about a mile and a third to go, giving them a fighting chance to track me down. I gapped them in the time that it took for the dumbness of my move register and then I pushed to maintain that gap. Once they gave up, I wound down and rolled past the sign. I had tried to make that move last year, and got pipped at the line, so to make it stick was gratifying.

Also set a season best 60sec power record on that effort. Actually, in the last week, I've set season bests at 5sec, 60sec, 5min and 20min. Maybe that's the silver lining of the forced recovery, due to the wildfire haze.

It's been really dry here this year - too dry. The silver lining has been the lack of mosquitoes; I've only had one bite this year. I hate mosquitoes.