How many cicadas does it take to stop a cyclist?

[dkel]

Any day now I expect Brood X is going to break out with a vengeance, getting all over everything and everyone that ventures outside. I was not here for the 2004 deluge, but I was in high school in Annandale (go atoms!) for the 1987 event, and remember it being quite dramatic: you could barely leave your front door without one landing on you. Does anyone recall what it is like to ride with so many cicadas out? Having bugs land on you while you ride is pretty common, but cicadas are not your average bug. At least they’re dumb and slow.

Topic

[Steve O]

@dkel 210496 wrote:

Any day now I expect Brood X is going to break out with a vengeance, getting all over everything and everyone that ventures outside. I was not here for the 2004 deluge, but I was in high school in Annandale (go atoms!) for the 1987 event, and remember it being quite dramatic: you could barely leave your front door without one landing on you. Does anyone recall what it is like to ride with so many cicadas out? Having bugs land on you while you ride is pretty common, but cicadas are not your average bug. At least they’re dumb and slow.

I was around and a daily commuter in 2004. Honestly, I don’t recall them being an issue while riding. Wear your sunglasses I guess. Otherwise, it seems they either bounced off or were easily flicked away.
And even though they get huge media coverage, there aren’t really dense swarms of them like biblical locusts.

[ursus]

@Steve O 210497 wrote:

I was around and a daily commuter in 2004. Honestly, I don’t recall them being an issue while riding. Wear your sunglasses I guess. Otherwise, it seems they either bounced off or were easily flicked away.
And even though they get huge media coverage, there aren’t really dense swarms of them like biblical locusts.

I remember that they created a lot of noise, and in a few places there were a lot of dead ones on the ground, but I don’t recall any falling on me.

[jrenaut]

I was a car commuter in 2004 and distinctly remember one flying in the side window of my truck and hitting the back window right behind my head at 70MPH on 66. That was fun. I remember not being thrilled with the noise and the bugs everywhere but I really don’t remember it as the apocalypse that so many others seem to.

[ChristoB50]

My favorite quirky red-eyed insect! I have one in my living room at all times
[ATTACH=CONFIG]25301[/ATTACH]

I recall lots of noise (in some areas) and lots of on-the-ground crawlers if you’re out at the broad emergence time; vivid memories as a teenager, of driving home after a late movie with a friend, and his street was “alive” as we pulled in and the headlights swept across a sea of them crawling on the pavement! It was grueling as we cringed at the notion of driving over them and killing so many… (sensitive teens, we were!) But then I don’t recall a lot of trouble outdoors, encountering them once they transform into flyers, in subsequent emergences… Though I may have simply never been outdoors in a densely-enough populated area to have problems with them in my hair, continually bumping into me, etc. (And I wasn’t biking at the last Brood X emergence.)

You can get involved! Who doesn’t like to be involved?
You can help build a more detailed map of cicada emergence/sighting, helping U-Conn with their long-running mapping process; there’s even an app to make it easy…!
https://cicadas.uconn.edu/

{Edit: Fun Fact! Periodical cicadas are best eaten when they are still white, and they taste like cold canned asparagus. Like all insects, cicadas have a good balance of vitamins, are low in fat, and, especially the females, are high in protein. —I cannot personally attest to this, however!}

[gibby]

They’re really slow and dumb and kinda big so it’s more startling than anything. A couple times on my commutes back then, a cicada would fly right at my head and then slowly bank away as it realized it was about to hit a helmet..

[Starduster]

{Edit: Fun Fact! Periodical cicadas are best eaten when they are still white, and they taste like cold canned asparagus. Like all insects, cicadas have a good balance of vitamins, are low in fat, and, especially the females, are high in protein. —I cannot personally attest to this, however!}

Soft shell cicada. On a menu near you soon.

[ImaCynic]

Strap on a butterfly net and snag a few! Some of you may recall seeing this

[mstone]

honestly, the gnats on the w&od are more annoying

[DCAKen]

@mstone 210565 wrote:

honestly, the gnats on the w&od are more annoying

One of the good things about wearing a mask while biking is not worrying about a mouthful of gnats

[VikingMariner]

One was enough to stop me. It got inside my helmet and would not leave. Very annoying to have it moving around on my head. Had to pull over and set the bastard free.

[Author]

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