Late one night on the way home from a big party, Bugs and I were riding in the dark with our motorbikes under a fine rain. We had about a dozen kilometers to go and we already knew that we had to ride on muddy and slippery roads.
As we went along the pitch-black night gave me the shivers so I followed Bugs because I felt safer. The beam from my headlight pierced the darkness. I don’t know what really happened next, maybe I was very tired and my eyes must have closed for a few seconds. Suddenly I saw Bugs standing still in the middle of the road. He wasn’t moving and I had no time to ask myself why. He shouldn’t have been there. I was almost on top of him and I realized that if I touched my brakes on the wet road I would skid into him. I instinctively geared down and accelerated flying past him on his right, brushing his sleeve with mine.
I continued going straight on as if on the road. I saw in my rearview mirror Bugs flashing his head light “on and off” to signal that something was wrong. I looked very hard in front of me and saw my own image coming towards me very fast. If I hit the brakes I would have skidded into a huge shop window. I geared down from fourth to first gear in the space of twenty meters, the engine revved at maximum and sounded like it was protesting against the abuse! Roaring and screaming it brought the motorbike to a halt ten centimeters from the window. I sat there shaking with my heart in my throat and stared at my image reflected in the window. Bugs came up to me, touched me on my shoulder and signaled thumbs up as it was time for us to go. We had misjudged a T-junction crossing into the main road as a result of the rainy conditions. Luckily it was late at night and no cars had passed at that moment.
It then started drizzling almost like thick mist. I signaled to Bugs to go ahead and I would follow his tail light. We set off and arrived at the bridge over the river where Pollyshorts road begins. The rain stopped and I was not surprised to see in the beam of my head light and feel on my body those terrible crawling creatures called flying ants.
Photo by Ken & Sharon Lotts
I signaled to Bugs to stop alongside the road to decide what to do. We agreed to go on and face the flying ants, their numbers would certainly increase as we proceeded, we both knew that. We went ahead at full throttle although the road was so steep that we had to ride in second gear most of the way, and that was not very fast. The flying ants did increase in number and the air was so thick with their wings that I could hardly see. Anyway I concentrated on Bugs’ tail light as that was all I could see for a long while (thinking back, I must have followed the sound of the exhaust pipe making a buzzing noise, like a lifeline for me). At one time I heard the buzzing increase not because we increased in speed but because the road got steeper and Bugs had to gear down to first and so did I.
There was a terrible smell in the air, as the flying ants were squashed in our engine fins and they smelt somewhat like fried fish. This made me laugh a little in all that incredible adventure. I can’t say how long this went on but all I know is that the nasty flying ants had time to get into my shoes, up my trouser legs, and into my underpants. Some found their way into my jacket down my back and chest. They were just crawling all over my body. Let’s not talk about the flying ants that got into my helmet, my ears, my nose, my mouth. I tried to spit them out and got no result.
In my desperation I then decided to get out of this mess as soon as I could. In first gear I slipped the clutch so the engine revved even higher so as to gain some extra power and overtake Bugs. He signaled thumbs up again but as I looked up I saw total blackness ahead of me. I then realized the importance of that red tail light, so I got again behind Bugs, my eyes glued to that lifesaver.
I can’t say what happened in the next twenty minutes. We were in my garage laughing at the cat chasing the wingless ants running on the floor as they fell out of our clothes. Bugs and I looked each other in the eyes knowing the danger we had run, because the one side of the Pollyshorts road had a partially unguarded drop for several hundred meters and somehow we managed to stay on the road and got safely through that hell.
I think we should be very grateful to our 50cc engines that never let us down even though we treated them very harshly at times. The Yamaha 50 and the Suzuki M10 were indeed our most loved possessions.
Photo by Ken
About Mauro
I got my inspiration for this website from the song called “Imagine”, and so I decided to go on this adventure. I have always wanted to put up something like this where my friends and I could express our memories and dreams for the future. Share them with us, because if many people dream the same dream it will certainly come true.
Oh mama! How I hate flying ants! My stomach churnes just thinking how it must’ve felt with them crawling all over you. I too sometimes follow “Bugs the lifesaver” when we travel at night on these narrow roads, it kindof makes one feel safe seeing that red light in front in the dark of the night.
I get the shivers reading about those flying ants too! I don’t remember much about them, but I think they were worse than those green cimici we have here in Italy, and that’s saying something!