After the last ride round Cannock Chase through some deep undergrowth here and there in shorts and the STW stuff re Ticks I will have removal tool in Camelbak when its delivered.

Another trick is a capful of dettol in a bath the day before a day in the hills.

makes you smell like single malt?

That’s just an added bonus 😀

yes. Mine are like tweezers but narrow and curved at the end. Millets sell them.

Been near ticks (in the countryside) and getting any of this? – Night fevers, crazy dreams and dreams within dreams, mild or severe visual disturbances, headaches, fatigue, lack of concentration, feeling of “other worldlyness”, light sensitivity, anxiety/paranoia, joint pain, rashes….. get to a doctor ASAP it gets worse if left and you can end up mentally or physically disabled or you could die.

You need to get them off asap. If you dont they crawl up somewhere dark(hair, armpits, groin etc) latch on and start to burrow in making them harder to get off. Once they’ve done that they can transmit diseases.

Also the longer they are there the more chance they give you something awful. More than three days and the chance is supposed to be very high.

Some of these guys are tiny, the size of poppy seeds so really hard to see. A good thing to do is put any kit that doesnt always get a wash (shell/camelback/gloves etc)on a dry spin cycle in the washing machine, any live ticks crawling around on it will die; rather than crawling off into your house..

Autan active for me from about now onwards. I’m the guy that all the bugs like.

I don’t check when I’m actually riding – I’d never get anywhere!

Tick check in the shower when I get home.

Last year I forgot to put the repellent on I got 13 in one hit, but they were all nymphs except for one in my armpit.

None to one or two usually, with about a maximum ‘latch on’ time of around 6 hours

+1 on teh Autan.

I started using the ‘protection plus’ after my scare last yr and it does keep them off

I’ve never had a problem getting my finger and thumb around the tick close to the skin and then giving a short sharp tug. If I struggle to get them off the dog then I smother them in vaseline and they fall off pretty quickly.

It is a nasty desease but the odds of infection are only maybe an issue if you are an avid Daliy Mail reader, especially if the tick is an immigrant on benefits.

In 25+ years of walking and riding on the Quantocks I’ve only ever been bitten by a tick once. My dogs used to pick them up for a pastime when I walked them up there, but they move pretty slowly and I’d quite often see them climbing up the dogs legs when I got back to the car and just brush them off. They appear to need a bit of time to find a suitable spot (under the dogs collar was favorite) and latch on.

I had never even heard off ticks until coming on this forum. Never had one either, saying that I’ve also never been bitten by a mosquito or similar. They dont like me!

But I may invest in a removal tool anyway.

Thinking though, if you wore tight Lycra wouldn’t they only be able to latch on to visible skin?

The guys at the Ben Nevis Distillery said a few spots of diesel on your cap to keep midges away, might work with tics, a few drops on your riding shoes? And it’s only slightly carcinogenic 😉

I wonder how many people who have been diagnosed with ME actually have Lymes Disease. Sent the link to the website to a mate whose girlfriend has exactly the symptoms described but has been diagnosed with ME.

Seems to me from reading that lots of people who have had Lymes weren’t aware of it for a very long time until they sussed it by chance. Makes me wonder how many cases go undiagnosed.

Tool on order