John B. Slocomb writes:

On Mon, 13 Apr 2015 09:22:06 +1000, James
wrote:

On 13/04/15 08:33, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 4/12/2015 3:48 PM, Sir Ridesalot wrote:


A few years ago a number of bicyclist in a group ride on Victoria
Island (iirc) got very sick and had to go to hospital because they
rode through some water that'd come from a farm. The spray onto their
water bottles carried the bacteria (E-coli iirc) into their bodies
when they drank the water.

Wow. Good reason to use fenders.

Yes! DANGER! DANGER!

When my wife, daughter and I did a bike tour of Ireland, we were in
Killarney, cruising around the national park. There were plenty of
sheep about, plus horse-drawn carriage rides for the tourists. And it
was raining. (Of _course_ it was raining! It was Ireland!)

Anyway, the various animal droppings plus the rain covered the roads in
a rich organic soup. We were _really_ glad we had fenders.


It's only a matter of time before fenders (mud guards) are made
mandatory to protect us from bacteria getting to our drink bottles.

If just one life can be saved (insert wringing hands...)

I shudder to think of the bacteria that is probably alive and well in my
foam hat right now. I could die if I scratched my scalp and put my
helmet on!

Apparently there are multitudes of bacteria already in the Human gut.
and E. coli is a consistent resident of the small intestine.

from:
http://www.livescience.com/3092-huma...a-thought.html
"In sheer numbers, the mammalian colon harbors one of the densest
microbial communities found on Earth. For every human cell in your
body, there are roughly 10 single-celled microbes, most of which live
in your digestive tract."

Some strains of E. coli are actually dangerous, but most are probably
good for you. I believe numbers of E. coli are so frequently assayed is
that they are a sign of human fecal contamination in water. They are
assumed to be accompanied by other fecal bacteria more pathogenic but
rarer, and hence harder to detect.

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