Spitting whilst cycling – yes or no?

Kind of belongs in the “you

Kind of belongs in the “you know you’re a cyclist when…” thread.

And yep. Any time. 

Did snot rocket one time and got the wing of a BMW that was passing. The driver wasn’t happy and stopped and ‘asked’ if I did it on purpose. I asked him if he meant to pass me less than an arms length away on purpose. 

Pro tip… do it under your arm and it will land just outside of your pedal. Can be safely done just about any where then.

One just needs to know which

One just needs to know which side is on, if the right nostril needs clearing out then ensure to be in primary/outside if two/three abreast, if it’s the left nostril then on the inside.

Etiquette dicatates a left nostril vacuation is done thusly;

Visual check for busybodies whom will frown upon your vacuation, if a neighbour/A.N.other you don’t get on with is in the vicinty proceed as normal. check for other cyclists, if unwanted wheel sucker in vicinity, proceed as normal.

final wind direction check, no point going through if wind direction will likely mean a face full of flob and will ID you as a newbie to the world of flobbing on the go to others.

Turn head left and down, raise elbow forming an arch with your arm to give plenty of room and reducing chances of flob/goz from landing on you, press robustly against the right nostril (certainly don’t want any blowback from right nostril!!), inhale and blow for all you’re worth.

Note size and direction of excretion for future analysis on stravawanker, ensure to check for any stragglers around nostril to be wiped by glove (you are wearing gloves right?), casually take sip from bottle.

However, bonus points are awarded for braking, gear shifting, making acute turns/avoding potholes whilst in the act of vacuation, double bonus points if you break with etiquette and manage a full on flob onto the side window of any lowlife moton that you caught up with that razzed you not 30 seconds previous.  Triple bonus points if you get it through an open window, actually get it through a narrowed gap and hit said moton you get a free tommy tank off one of the fat slags from viz comic and a packet of haribo.

guyrwood wrote:

guyrwood wrote:

I’ll spit if there’s no one around and I need to clear my throat, hard exercise causes expectoration and it needs to be gotten rid of. I wouldn’t do if there were any ‘civilians’ around though, I’d wait until I was on my own.

 

Snot rocketing is f*cking discusting though. I was on a sportive a couple of weeks ago and a bloke did it right in the middle of a group which included me. Utterly revolting, stop and blow your nose if you need to, don’t cover other people in it.

As you say, exercise often brings it on so there’s no difference whether it comes out of your mouth or nose, surely. It’s the same stuff.

Always check you’re not doing it into path of another rider or vehicle etc.

Yes, generally when I have

Yes, generally when I have half swallowed a fly…

Ride on my own most days so I

Ride on my own most days so I don’t give a hoot about it. Probably would try and refrain if I was going through a town centre or something but once on the open roads anything goes.

guyrwood wrote:

I’ll spit if there’s no one around and I need to clear my throat, hard exercise causes expectoration and it needs to be gotten rid of. I wouldn’t do if there were any ‘civilians’ around though, I’d wait until I was on my own.

 

Snot rocketing is f*cking discusting though. I was on a sportive a couple of weeks ago and a bloke did it right in the middle of a group which included me. Utterly revolting, stop and blow your nose if you need to, don’t cover other people in it.

sergius wrote:

Only really required when I’ve got a cold, and I don’t see any distinction spitting out a load of gunk into a hedge and having a quick slash in the bushes.  Both of which I’ll do when no-ones about.

 

🙂

To my mind there is the difference between being outside and being in public. If you are out cycling and there are people around then you are in public, otherwise you are just outside.

So taking this definition it looks like both posters so far agree that it shouldn’t be done in public.

Whenever I have nearly been hit by such a projectile from the cyclist in front that I am approaching, I have never seen them look around to see if there is anyone around. So therefor I conclude that they do not care about doing such things in public.

I’ll spit if there’s no one

I’ll spit if there’s no one around and I need to clear my throat, hard exercise causes expectoration and it needs to be gotten rid of. I wouldn’t do if there were any ‘civilians’ around though, I’d wait until I was on my own.

Snot rocketing is f*cking discusting though. I was on a sportive a couple of weeks ago and a bloke did it right in the middle of a group which included me. Utterly revolting, stop and blow your nose if you need to, don’t cover other people in it.