I just found a really good reason not to speed

[McWild]

So I just got back from my first Akaroa GP on the new bike, my RGV250.
Obviously it has a fair bit more grunt than the RG150, and means that I'm able to comfortably cruise a little bit over 100.

And upon returning home, I encountered a problem.

Bugs.

Holy shit, the bugs. Any minute now, I expect Greenpeace will knock down my door and perform a citizen's arrest for what I have just completed, that is, the massacre of what must be half our entire country's worth of small, low flying bugs.

My headlight, mirrors, screen, and front fairing seemed no longer to be white, the stickers, buried.
It was only through two small pinholes that I managed to see the way ahead through my visor, and twas almost as if night had fallen, or as a solar eclipse because of the shade provided by the stacks of bugs protruding from the forehead of my helmet.
And the shoulders of my leathers began to resemble an American football player's armour.

I feel as if I could have done less damage if I had dropped a bomb of Raid upon a nearby wood.

An entire packet of baby wipes made barely a difference.

So I ask you, citizens of Kiwibiker. How do I hide the evidence? How do I clean off bugs?
I hope you reach me before Greenpeace or worse, the bugs do.
Or I fear this could be the last post I make.
:bye:

[YellowDog]

Lucky you had your visor down!

[beyond]

Clean em off?.... easy... find a rain shower and double your speed :)

[CookMySock]

Ah yeah you need a good cleaning product for that, or else just lots of warm soapy water. Don't rub hard, just slop it on and take your time.

Sigh, I have been enjoying a bug free couple of months, but looks like its back in full swing again.

Steve

[Babelfish]

So...

Any minute now, I expect Greenpeace will knock down my door and perform a citizen's arrest...
...
An entire packet of baby wipes made barely a difference.


I wouldnt worry so much about greenpeace, SIS might be more interested if you found heaps of bugs... :shifty:

As for the baby wipes...why did you toss off after the ride?? Anyhoo, I think you might find some manly cleaning products at your localy blokey bloke store :Punk:

[kevfromcoro]

Must be a s island thing
we dont have that trouble up here.

[RantyDave]

The cruisy wednesday night ride went through a stage of "returning" via piecock hill road which can become almost knee deep in bugs as the sun goes down in summer. Anyway, so riding through this pea soup of DNA one fine evening I find myself less able than usual to see through the bugs smeared across my visor so I .... wiped.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh, not good. Not good at all. A full blown stop and removal of hat was required or I wasn't even going to get around the next corner. So don't do that :)

Dave

[Creeping Death]

Congrats on the new ride McWild,after all the problems with the FX!:woohoo:

[owner]

:sunny:I find when a big fuck off bug(bumble bee/cicadar) splats on my visor, I think Hmmmmn..... if something unexpected happened I would splat the same as that bug on that power pole or that fence post or that road sign.
Then I cut the speed down I think they are a great reminder of my mortality


Those little bugs that you can't feel don't bother me, warm water and a rag sorts them out

[Mom]

I .... wiped.

I hope it was front to back and not the other way :pinch:

Yeah, bugs are terrible when they self destruct on your visor and bike. What I hate even more though is the fact that their innards are actually sticky! What is with that? Ok, so they are now part of your splat (as opposed to stamp) collection but do they have to stick like shit to a blanket as well?

[LBD]

Bugs.

Holy shit, the bugs. Any minute now, I expect Greenpeace will knock down my door and perform a citizen's arrest for what I have just completed, that is, the massacre of what must be half our entire country's worth of small, low flying bugs.


I feel as if I could have done less damage if I had dropped a bomb of Raid upon a nearby wood.

:bye:

Send that man to the West Coast NOW!!!!

Swarms of large dragon flies in the tropics make for a painful experience when wearing light tripical type clothing...

[DarkLord]

Put some sunnies on and leave the visor open. Saves you stopping for lunch.

Mmmm...... crunchy.

[hospitalfood]

warm water and dishwashing liquid gets them off the bike and visor.
i use rain to clean the leathers. it takes HEAVY rain to get them all off and you have to ride in it for at least an hour so they soften up before they wash off. my leathers are usually totally coated with them before i do this.............

[CM2005]

your bike is beautiful. pepsi RGV's are awesome. that is all

[Muppet]

One of the locals in Little River told me to slow down to 50km/h and the blighters won't stick to you, tried it and it worked.

[dangerous]

So I just got back from my first Akaroa GP on the new bike, my RGV250. haha... congrads man, TIE :scooter:


Must be a s island thingNA... its a lake Elsmere thing, Breading season of these wee buggers is a bitch, you can see tornados of the pricks swarming, quite amazing really as they are like a big black low flying cloud... they live.bread in the swamplands that runs aside the Akaroa H/W. They will all be gone in a month. Crusty wee buggeres sounds like a shot gun blast hitting ya but on the upside... they dont make much of a mess and clean of easy.

[varminter]

Bugs ? in the South Island ? Has the ice melted ?

[McWild]

your bike is beautiful. pepsi RGV's are awesome. that is all

:sunny: Thank you, I agree!

[scumdog]

Bugs ? in the South Island ? Has the ice melted ?

Yes.

And all the polar bears have gone too.

[MVnut]

Yeah nice bike mate, saw it at LR, about 30 or more bikes there today...cool, and as for bugs....

[dangerous]

Yeah nice bike mate, saw it at LR, about 30 or more bikes there today...cool, and as for bugs....

a biger touring fairing do have their advatages LOL...

[PrincessBandit]

Yeah nice bike mate, saw it at LR, about 30 or more bikes there today...cool, and as for bugs....

Holey moley Bugman! That is so gross.

While we were in Raro recently I enjoyed the pleasure of riding without a helmet and one lovely warm evening was riding back from the takeaway (10km from our motel)...... I wondered what the little mild pin pricky things that kept "happening" on my face were.... Didn't take me too long to realise the answer to that :doh: Amazingly though there was no evidence on my face when I arrived back to the motel.

[EJK]

To avoid scratching your visor, wet a tea towel and cover over your visor for a few minutes. When the corpses get all mushy and moist, just wipe them and it's done.

Reference: From a UK motorcycle magazine.

[MyGSXF]

To avoid scratching your visor, wet a tea towel and cover over your visor for a few minutes. When the corpses get all mushy and moist, just wipe them and it's done. Reference: From a UK motorcycle magazine.

Yep.. & good ole "Pledge" spray (I prefer the Orange scented one... :rolleyes:) is a brilliant cleaner as well. Spray it on & let it soak for a while, then wipe off. I keep a can in my tank bag, so I can regularly clean my visor. It helps prevent bugs sticking.. helps rain run off.. fills in fine scratches & helps prevent the inside fogging up too! :yes: (with all that multi-tasking ability.. it musta bin invented by a chick!!) ;)

[ready4whatever]

damn. didnt really think of bugs as a huge problem. i had a mate who hit a flying blackbird and it ended up breaking his legs and ribs cause he came off

[pritch]

On my one and only Akaroa ride (so far) I struck big clouds of what I thought may have been the adult form of the willow grub, like a green and brown mayfly. (Used to tie my own trout flies so am interested in such things.)

I don't know if it was Elesmere but there was a body of water on my right with big trees on the side of the road.

"Big clouds" doesn't quite cover it, biggest densest clouds of insects I've ever seen.

[DarkLord]

Riding at night always seems to do it as well. In December last year I rode to Taupo from Auckland, leaving at about 6pm or so. Most of the trip was in the dark and the little blighters are attracted to your headlight. I could see the moths coming at me from miles away and could actually feel them bouncing off my helmet.

[Shadows]

Bugs.

Holy shit, the bugs. Any minute now, I expect Greenpeace will knock down my door and perform a citizen's arrest for what I have just completed, that is, the massacre of what must be half our entire country's worth of small, low flying bugs.




Yeah nice bike mate, saw it at LR, about 30 or more bikes there today...cool, and as for bugs....

Ahhhh. Those bugs. Clean those little fuckers off tonight or your gear and your bike will stink like fish by tomorrow.

[jrandom]

Warm soapy water to get rid of the bugs. Plexus (http://www.plexusplasticcleaner.com/about.html) on the visor.

Particularly unpleasant when it's a bee or a wasp and it hits you stinger-first in the neck as opposed to helmet or leather. Happened to me twice last summer.

Bird strikes are worse, though. I've had a hawk fly up into my shin at about 130 on SH22 (I swerved around it, but it flapped the wrong way). Thwack. Didn't feel like much through my armour, but I had to clean the blood off my boot when I got home. Requiescat in pace, birdie.

Also, a bird impacting a knee slider front-on at 200-ish on the bike ahead of you makes quite a stunning cloud of feathers to ride through.

Had a bird hit me in the chest as I rode through Ngaruawahia once. Dunno how the bird fared, but I wouldn't have liked to try that at three times the speed.

Flying critters is all just part of the game.

[munterk6]

Yeah I saw you and ya rgv at little river yesterday, nice wee bike! So good to see so many young fellas gettin into bikes....it seems every time the helmet comes off, its some crusty ol fella......like me. <_<

[Muppet]

damn. didnt really think of bugs as a huge problem. i had a mate who hit a flying blackbird and it ended up breaking his legs and ribs cause he came off

A flying blackbird?:laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh:

[jafafour]

avoid the 'bug hour' 30 minutes before and after sun set. thats the worst time , all the little buggers wake up and go out for a fly, they seem to like the heat coming off roads.
I usually try and plan a break around that time, it's not a solution, but it helps.
After that it can just be a huge hassle having to stop every time your visor gets coated too much. I usually carry some tissues( usually taken from the gassy) and a small bottle of visor anti-fog with me. The worst I can remember was an average of 20 minutes between having to stop and clear my visor, on the national park road SH4 round 9- 11pm in January.
As for bugs on your gear, its either one of two things- Gross and a constant distraction at gas stations where you try your best to minimise the layer from all forward facing parts of yourself, or a badge of honor for a ragged road rat.

- its worse if you're in another country with laxed laws and you're being a bit cheeky riding helmet-less in a tshirt and shorts - those splattering giant bugs are horrible when they're spread over your face! and Ive been stung - twice , while riding. Once on the arm , once under my knee. - (another endorsement for 'ATGATT' )

[MIXONE]

I always seemed to find swarms of the little fecks around Little River.The first time it was WTF!
Remember Finn's old avatar.That was probably taken after a ride to Akaroa.

[SMOKEU]

Has anyone tried RainX on their visors? It might prevent them from sticking so much.

[ready4whatever]

A flying blackbird?:laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh:

yip it hit his helmet which gave him the upper-cut affect

[Leyton]

So I ask you, citizens of Kiwibiker. How do I hide the evidence? How do I clean off bugs?
:bye:

LOL!! I use warm soapy suddy water, and sometimes I use Muc-Off ($20 a L Ouch!) and it seams to do the trick :)

Softening them up is the key :) Then they slide off. The litlte shits!

[Bounce001]

Riding at night always seems to do it as well. In December last year I rode to Taupo from Auckland, leaving at about 6pm or so. Most of the trip was in the dark and the little blighters are attracted to your headlight. I could see the moths coming at me from miles away and could actually feel them bouncing off my helmet.
Riding between taupo and tokoroa in the forestry at night is worse with the huhu bugs coming at you. One bug to splatter the whole visor

[sondela]

Yes.

And all the polar bears have gone too.

Are you SURE one didn't get... "Lost?"

Bwahaha..

[tri boy]

Bugs I can deal with.
Bee swarms are a different matter.

[Reckless]

To avoid scratching your visor, wet a tea towel and cover over your visor for a few minutes. When the corpses get all mushy and moist, just wipe them and it's done.

Reference: From a UK motorcycle magazine.

Or when out on a ride just go into the gas station and clean it with the window cleaning thingy. I leave the helmet on, give it a soak of with the spongy wet Window cleaner side, then flip it over and squeegee off the residue with the other side, just like you would a windscreen. Doesn't seem to harm the visor at all, I have a Shoei and Shark RSR2 and never had a problem!

Secondly I have a little squirty bottle with a wiper blade on the outside you get from the bike shops, $14 bucks or so I think?? I usually don't use this unless I'm somewhere I can use some soft tissues or toilet paper to assist in the cleaning process though.

[Harvd]

Hmm i did the same ride on saturday and there were about three tiny bugs on my visor once home. And the weather on sat and sun was exactly the same? Must have just timed it right!

[dangerous]

On my one and only Akaroa ride (so far) I struck big clouds of what I thought may have been the adult form of the willow grub, like a green and brown mayfly. (Used to tie my own trout flies so am interested in such things.)

I don't know if it was Elesmere but there was a body of water on my right with big trees on the side of the road.

"Big clouds" doesn't quite cover it, biggest densest clouds of insects I've ever seen.thats them...

[boman]

Has anyone tried RainX on their visors? It might prevent them from sticking so much.

I have, And it dosn't. Makes the water run off tho. But so does pledge.

[FruitLooPs]

Yeah i've encountered them a good few times, other times i've steeled myself for the onslaught only for it to be nearly clear.

I remember coming back from Queenstown at about 10pm bloody lost on the Canterbury plains (missed thompsons track turnoff by miles) with the RG150 endless lines of pine forest equipped with the stupid 15watt candle headlights - moths for Africa, I had to tuck racing style to keep going until the windscreen coated up fully .. then the low oil light came on .. of all the times :laugh: <_<

[DarkLord]

Riding between taupo and tokoroa in the forestry at night is worse with the huhu bugs coming at you. One bug to splatter the whole visor

True. I had my visor up (briefly) one night and took one of those bad boys in the face. Not to be advised.

Moths/butterflies can be real bad for visibility as well. The other day I was out on some back roads around Taupo and a butterfly hit my visor. They usually just splat and leave a little smear but one of its wings became stuck in its guts, so I had this wing stuck to my visor fluttering away... not a good idea when you are trying to haul ass round corners.

[Thani-B]

Particularly unpleasant when it's a bee or a wasp and it hits you stinger-first in the neck as opposed to helmet or leather. Happened to me twice last summer.

Riding along one day when I saw out of the corner of my eye a wasp walking along inside my visor. Needless to say I stopped and ripped my hemet off the fastest I ever have. Not fun.

[jimichelle]

andrew spray silicone spray to the front of said motor sickle before setting forth on any new adventure
ps get a hair cut looks bloody funny how it spews out in all directions with yr helmet on

[1wheel riot]

hr you should try siting at 200 or 210 it brings a holl new meaning to splat. o and soapy water they sofin and wipe off

[StoneY]

Yep.. & good ole "Pledge" spray (I prefer the Orange scented one... :rolleyes:) is a brilliant cleaner as well. Spray it on & let it soak for a while, then wipe off.

My Dad used Pledge on his helmets for years, I can confirm this myth as TRUE!

I found a small Citris based windscreen concentrate from Gull servo's is awesome, I make a dilute mix of it in a spray bottle and it cleans anything off my visor, helmet and even the bikes!
Fast, no chemicals and smells great too!
Visor best done with a paper towel, two squirts, clean!

AND it is the best wheel cleaner I have ever seen to, no shit:woohoo:

As for bugs; anywhere between Masterton and Napier at night.....gah!:angry: