Prior to getting on my bike I hadn’t spent much time eating flies.  Especially not the large fat buggers that nonchalantly fly at you like a youth walking towards you on the street using their mobile phone, expecting you to get out of the way of them.  Cycling changed this.

Now, as a rural cyclist I am used to both the noise, taste and experience of coughing up whatever it was that slipped into my open mouth and into the back of my throat.  On a good day they will be spat out immediately and easily and hopefully not in the direction of my fellow riders.  On a not so good day they are swallowed, forgotten only until you start thinking about whether it would, or could survive in your stomach and worse start to breed.  How is that possible? Clearly not, but try telling that to your brain when you’ve just eaten one.  And on a really bad day they stay in your throat.  However much you cough, gag or reach, you can’t get it out and only a quick dismount so you can put the full weight of your body into the reflex movement required to dislodge it.

Last night was particularly bad.  Spared of the larger portions of these insects I was instead battling with swarm after swarm of tiny little flies, the type that form clouds in front of you.  Your best reaction is to close your eyes and mouth and blow through your nose in the hope they will deflect.  Yeh right! The little bastards love it, sticking to every square inch of the sweat that now acts like glue on your body.

I am sure this is not as bad as it gets.  Let me know if you have experienced worse and for tips on how to cope, take a read of this article at Bike Radar How to deal with swallowing a fly