Motorcycle Views

Wild Motorcycle Tales

Here's a great story from RedJacket. Got your own story? Send it to me.

Buzz Off

It was in May 2000. A group of friends and I were heading along the Blue Ridge Parkway to do some bike camping. At the time, I had a VStar Classic with windshield and all the trimmings (lowers, pipes, jetted, throttle lock, etc.). My helmet of choice at the time was an HJC Police Shorty with the storm curtain removed. Most of the time, I ride with earplugs. My Roadhouse pipes could get a bit aggravating after awhile, as well as the constant wind noise. I like the soft, orange bullet type of ear plugs, but I digress. Suffice to say, that I forgot to insert them back at the last overlook we took for a break.

There were six bikes in all, and I was next to the tail gunner. On a straight stretch of the BRP, two of my friends in the lead decided to "wick it up" a bit in a friendly rivalry of torque display. I had the speedometer humming pretty good in my attempt to keep up with them, when my ear was suddenly impacted by an insect. "Shoot!" I exclaimed, "I forgot to put my earplugs back in at the last stop!" "Okay" I thought to myself, "Keep calm, slow the beast down and get it safely off the road". In the back of my mind, I was hoping that the tail gunner was also hauling his bike down so that he didn't rear-end me. Also, I couldn't shake the feeling that this was not going to end well, and that whatever was jammed into my ear was bound to bite, sting and/or bore into my brain at any moment.

Needless to say, I did a pretty good job of stopping the bike and moving it into the grass. I leapt off the bike and threw off the helmet so that I could assess my situation. My tail gunner had also made all the right maneuvers and was quickly by my side to find out what was going on. There was a large, buzzing insect lodged DEEP within my inner ear. So deep in fact, that the wings were physically beating against my eardrum. The sensation was freaky enough, but because it was so close to my eardrum, it amplified the sound to that of an angry bumblebee! My friend pulled out a water bottle in an attempt to flush it out. As we attempted this, a camper van pulled over with an elderly couple. They too tried to help, but were at a momentary loss. A few more minutes later, and the rest of the crew had finally circled back in a panic, fearing that one of us had crashed. The lady returned from the van a few more moments later with some Swimmers Ear liquid drops, and we poured that into my ear. The, as of yet unidentified insect, went from annoyed to downright ANGRY as this was alcohol based. However, the drops killed it in about three minutes. Again, we flushed the ear out with bottle water and hoped for the best. No buzz. No pain. I could hear very well and we figured the insect was flushed.

Shaken and a bit weak, I boarded my bike and continued the rest of the trip without incident. A few days later after being home, I went to the doctor to check my ear out. The bug was still lodged in my inner ear, but in a crevice slightly above the eardrum where it did not interfere with sound. After 40 minutes of flushing with warm water and oil, the insect was properly flushed out in one piece. It was an ordinary house fly, and not a very big one at that.

The moral of this story is two fold: 1) Always wear ear protection, whether it be from a full helmet, bandanna or ear plugs. 2) Always keep a level head in panic situations. Deal with getting the bike safely off the road, shut off and secured first. Then deal with situation second. -- RedJacket

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