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My shins are really stinging this morning after hitting a few nettles on the side of woodland Singletrack,
How do you avoid them, wearing trousers or tights is not an option, pull my socks up, maybe, ride elsewhere.
Can anyone recommend before and after care. I usually use a dock leave and scientifically they don't work but I always find they help, placebo may be.
Is their a spray or such like to cover my shins before setting off..
Go faster. Everyone knows they don't sting at speed 🙂
It was on a fast section of riverbank as it was, if I went faster I'd be in the Calder .. @spooky_b329
Apart from not riding it or wearing longs there's not a lot else you could do?
Maybe try some kind of a barrier cream before you ride and then daub some savlon cream on after a shower? Give the affected area a good scrub whilst in the shower as this will help dislodge some of the irritant left behind as you brush past, oh and as no one else has said it yet.......... A dose of MTFU.......
Sorry,
Just use the cream 😀
Pah nettles.
Gorse bushes....bastid things tiny thorns take weeks to come out of skin, if at all.
Global warming innit
Bliss minimalist knee pads and longs socks.
Man pill time
Tim "the gardener" Burden
(always bleeding, getting stung/bruised)
Aah, the warm tingly glow of summer. It's the way they hide the brambles that gets me
they always seem worse when they're young, but I don't know whether that because we forget what they feel like!
Anti-histamines are the best treatment
After care for me is antihistamine cream and a piriton tablet.
Get a grip! I doubt they are stinging stronger than ever, it's just you're not used to it. Hairy legs help. If you're really that bothered then wear strimming trousers or some leather chaps like the horsey people.
got a belt off a nettle on my ride home from work on monday, skin was still "buzzing" last night, 24hours seems a long time.
faustus - that'll make for a hot sweaty ride!
The first nettles of the season are always the strongest, as they grow the irritant seems to get diluted.
Where we've had such a mild winter, it hasn't fully killed last years growth off.
They're mostly avoidable locally at the moment, but give them a couple of weeks and they'll be at full height.
The nettle sting was soon overridden by the blood / scratches from brambles and the like on Saturday.
My shins look like they've had a date with Freddy Kruger.
antihistamine MTFU cream it is then, them brambles are slippery ****ers, got one around my inner elbow, which took an age to tear off,
hope the scratch will have gone before i give blood next week.
mtf cream seems to work well, i road 12km home after popping my shoulder a few years ago, and managed to walk to a mates car after ripping an overnight stay and surgical clean on a knee last winter.
Are you southern, by any chance?
The stingers I don't mind, it's the brambles that have the ability to wrap themselves around your arm as you brush past them..
bloody softies, I quite like nettle sting, especially when it tingles again a few days later 8)
Shin guards? 😆
Dock leaves do work, most people don't use them right though.
I see people crushing a leaf for 10 seconds then rubbing it on the sting, that won't work.
You need to crush the leaf then roll it between your hands for until there's a puddle of liquid in your palm, this might take a minute or so. No liquid and you've not rolled it long enough. It's that liquid you need to put on the sting, you can chuck what's left of the leaf away.
its the time of year to re-build your immunity.
Avoiding nettles is one of the basic skills I've mastered the best. Sit down, lift both legs up high and shriek as you sail through the patch of nettles.
As an aussie mate of mine says, 2 spoons of concrete so you can harden the F%£$ up.
For best results, read the above in your best aussie accent.
If ever there was a time to MTFU, it's when faced with nettles.
It's well below the serious pain threshold and has no damaging effects, so the solution really is to toughen up. Princess.
Brambles too - the only think that annoys me about them is that they rip my clothes and render biking t-shirts unsuitable for casual wear.
That, I reckon.soobalias - Member
its the time of year to re-build your immunity.
Plus it always seems worse if it's wet.
Pull up your socks
I quite like bramble rash on my arms in the summer, I know I've had a good one when I've got the little slits at the top of the forearm and onto the inner elbow, then Weeks later when you ride that same but if trail and there are barbs left on it at all you know your not the only one and everyone's having a good summer
My shins look like they've had a date with Freddy Kruger
Snap, same here 2 weeks later and it still looks like I have been self harming.
Don't mind nettle stings though, I always thought the effects were worse later on in they year once they have reached full growth for the season.
Vaseline on your legs
Ride with your mate and get him to go through first at speed.....you follow right on his back wheel. I find this works every time for me (don't think he's realised yet) 😆
I always remember that I've got some comfy shin guards after I've been kruggered or my personal favourite of the screws of the flat pedals hitting my shin when getting fatty mcfatface thru those weird metal style things...
I don't mind the tingling though......like that muscle rub on your sac - sweet 😉
Nettles - MTFU, but take cetrizine if it really bothers you. Brambles agree they are much worse though my real faves are Sloe bushes - nice thorns which break off and stay in you.
Living in Australia the pain and resultant itchy tingle is something I sort of miss. One of those rites of Spring so to speak. Freshly cut hawthorn hedges on the other hand can get to hell. How many ruddy punctures can you get in a 30 m stretch of path!
Refreshing the topic... As after riding into the Nettles Jungle on Tuesday night I still can't stop scratching my arms and legs... I had ridden through some big ones in the past, but this is just beyond everything!
The first night after the ride I couldn't sleep at all... Some Mutant Nettles out there!!!
Agree with(Pah nettles.
Gorse bushes....bastid things tiny thorns take weeks to come out of skin, if at all.)
Plus one for blackerry brambles that rip open a shin .
Cure is as other say longs or plenty of Guinness after till you forget the stinging .
Aloe Vera gel helps too !
Just ignore it mind over matter and will go away.
Scratching will make it worse.
Hose off using water.
... plenty of Guinness after till you forget the stinging .Aloe Vera gel helps too !
Mixed in, or as a chaser?
Got nunchuka'd by the nettles last night for the first time this season. Deffo mind over matter.
Maybe just me but i love the tingling sensation a few hours after getting stung.
Then again I actually thought the midges helped me get through the kielder 100 a few years back. Certainly helped me to not stop
Pervert. Well that makes two of us as I was thinking the same thing when I got in bed a couple of hours later.
Put one of Charlie The Bike Monger's stickers on your bars.
The one that says "Toughen up princess" or "Be more Scottish"
Both equally effective. 🙂
I fell into a huge patch of nettles while riding near Jedburgh once. Got stung all over my legs. It wasn't much of a problem until the ride was over and I was getting a lift home. Then it was like the entirety of both legs were either buzzing or on fire. The nettle stings I'd experienced before were nothing in comparison. I tried to stick it out but I only lasted until lunchtime the next day when I made a dash from work to Boots for anti histamines and witch hazel cream.
On the other hand I don't find that gorse thorns tend to stay stuck in me when I get spiked by them, so while they're initially painful it's not a lingering pain like nettle stings are.
I had a big clearing out project (gardening) yesterday involving eliminating lots of nettles among other things. Stung to blue blazes within seconds so juts kept going. In the end there was a blanket sting across ams and legs that became oddly pleasant - still there now >24 hours later.