Is it me or are the nettles particularly harsh at the minute or is it case of the more you get stung the more they affect you?

You’ve just got girly over the winter.
Wait ’til September…

[scratch] I’ll see you your nettles and raise you a 1000 midges [/scratch]

I just had a quick blast down the Mersey, I have been bombarded by midges and my legs are throbbing with nettle stings.

Ow.

Not quite in full swing yet down here (South East) but suspect will be by the time I go out Sunday 😯

Though i’m not keen on the sting itself I quite like the after glow of nettle stings. My old grandmother, god rest her soul, suffered from arthritis in her hips and knees and swore blind that nettle stings helped and used to collect them, lay them on her kitchen floor and roll around on them in the buff – doesn’t conjure an pleasant image in your head, but she swore blind they had some form of positive health benefits. She was a 60 a day smoker, a raging alcoholic until she kicked the habbit in her 60’s, and went on to live into her 90’s and died of Alzheimers, so maybe she hit on something there.

My legs were itchy as **** last night, way worse than usual. But not sure it’s nettles, could be sap off something else

They’re all new growth round here so the stings are at full strength. As I found out yesterday when the trail suddenly went from wide and fast to 3mm wide and covered in them! I was going too fast to stop so just blasted through them, the ‘afterglow’ when I reached my next junction was exceptional 😯

Apparently there are people who derive sexual pleasure from nettle stings.

Fact: nettles thrive in nitrate-rich soil so usually find the right conditions in places where many people have urinated over the years. This is why you find them along thoroughfares like bridleways and footpaths, especially close to settlements where there used to be lots of pubs.

if nettles are bothering you, then you could always help a bit and cut them down.

shears, sticks, etc. Easy and rewarding.

And… mountainbikers, seen out and about helping, will open doors trails.

(it’s a bloody good retort for the grumpy walkers)

nettles are the least of my worries! brambles – now they are bastards round our way. i look like i`ve been self harming most of the summer.

They are great to eat. cooked like spinach (nettle and cheese risotto),made into soup or tea. Only use the top leaves early in the nettle season.

I’m allergic to them so hate the b*****ds! Mind you, when you take the puritan or equivalent afterwards it doesn’t half knock you out. Especially when taken with a glass of two of red wine. The buzzing feeling returns the next day though and does so for best part of a week afterwards.

some of the trails round here get seriously overgrown by the end of summer. last year I got as far as wondering if I could carry a petrol strimmer like a knight’s lance and joust my way down a BW laying waste to the nettles as I pass

< 600mm bars FTW. Enduro riders die by a thousand nettle stings.

Is it true that the stinging variety aren’t native to the UK, that they were brought over by the Romans who used them to keep their legs warm “That is, they beat themselves with the herb to encourage surface blood circulation in an effort to keep warm in the dismal, damp climate to which they had been banished”

Also loving this from Wikipedia:

Competitive eating
In the UK, an annual World Nettle Eating Championship draws thousands of people to Dorset, where competitors attempt to eat as much of the raw plant as possible. Competitors are given 60 cm (20 in) stalks of the plant, from which they strip the leaves and eat them. Whoever strips and eats the most stinging nettle leaves in a fixed time is the winner. The competition dates back to 1986, when two neighbouring farmers attempted to settle a dispute about which had the worst infestation of nettles.

I’m an unwilling sufferer of this evil weed. Has anyone taken the drastic step of experimenting in an effort to identify an effective but not overly warm prophylactic layer?

Apparently there are people who derive sexual pleasure from nettle stings.

Not quite that, but I do like the low throbbing sensation I can feel in my legs which does seem more apparent when I am laid in bed.