... and the boys get muddy;)
Christy is visiting family and friends in Oregon, Jenna is busy feeling pregnant, so Josh and I opted for a morning bike ride in the So. Cal Rain. Having thought ahead, borrowed a bike, and laid plans to cover a significant amount of single track in the hopes of another epic adventure - we awoke to Someone raining on our parade! We opted to make the best of it and packed up for a wet, and potentially muddy ride.
On our drive to the park we had opportunity to listen to a wonderful SEVERE WEATHER WARNING broadcast for the very region we would soon be riding in! They promised rain to pour down on us at rates of 1 inch per hour and that the mud would have potential to slide. Our response was along the lines of "thats interesting" and to "press on" as we are men not mice (btw where do they go in rain like this, every depression I saw was full of Mud or water).
Upon arriving at the base, we quickly donned our gear and started riding up the hill (hoping to stay warm) and just as quickly found that the mud here is similar in consistency to glue that is just about to set and deep enough to crest the sides of our shoes as we quickly found peddling difficult on a bike standing still. Luckily for us, the rain appeared to have only half the power predicted and the torrent running down the concrete drainage ditch combined with the strength of a good hill was less powerful than fresh legs coupled to the minds of hearty weekend warriors! Alas, the ditch only covered half the distance of the hill, leaving a couple of now significantly wet bikers to become significantly muddy pushers who stole the nicely graded gravel road that used to be in this very place.
Upon reaching the top of the hill, the planned route had shrunk and thoughts of maintaining high ground were second only to the thoughts of burning lungs (despite the downpour). We scraped a few pounds of mud off our bikes and again took to the saddle for a cross country ridge ride on single track. The first hill captured our attention as the increased body weight on our tires only added additional layers of mud and more weight to the bike which further perpetuated the more weight = more mud until being scraped off on all sides my our trusty forks. This was quickly forgotten as the steepness of the hill found us wanting the brakes that had by now been packed full of mud! To top it off, the less viscous mud - though decidedly more tenacious was fetching a ride on a mud ferris wheel to suddenly release it grip and attack the offending weekend warrior from both sides - which altered the riders ability to both breath and see! After surviving the first gravity challenge and again clearing ourselves and the bikes of a couple inches of mud we were able to begin legitimately riding again - thoughts of high ground having prevailed. It quickly became apparent that braking power would continue to be an issue as each downhill portion was very slick and the friction of the brake pads just as low!
Thats about when Someone decided that since lying was bad and that since a SEVERE WEATHER WARNING had ben issued - they better provide the truth to the broadcast. I am quite convinced that 1 inch per hour was a conservative estimate and wouldn't you know it, as I began powering up the next hill, the chain got jammed against the frame stopping forward movement quite suddenly. Now when your riding you don't really pay attention to the direction of the rain but standing on an exposed hill with a bike whose chain is not compliant with the idea of forward motion (though it claimed to have been attacked by some dark brown goo) - it becomes quite apparent the rain was moving faster horizontally than vertically and that it appeared to be more like a waterfall than mere rain!
Fixing a mutinous chain
By now it became quite apparent that deep inside each hearty weekend warrior is a little boy who really just wants to play in the mud, and that the evidence would be manifest as ear-to-ear grins when the advancing mud troops weren't looking!
Clearing the Brakes of Muddy Glue
Josh riding the ridge
Our Trail Down
Having succeeded in navigating the muddy single track, and finding our way back to some perceivable evidence of a road, we headed back towards the truck. The torrential rain by now having flooded the normally dry stream beds, the road had turned into a secondary means for the water to get downhill. While at first this appeared to make things more difficult, the water had removed most of the mud, leaving behind gravel and rocks. This made it possible then to ride or trusty steads back up the road if willing to ride in the stream of water flowing down the road - though straying from this stream invited another attack from the deep mud silently waiting for us. As we neared the apex of the hill again, we found evidence of someones apparent "theft" of the gravel road we know was formerly in the same location as the muddy stream we now traveled. Though not conclusive, the Muddy Caterpillar (the rather large yellow kind) hiding in the bushes and partial tracks on our stream seemed to point out the nefarious characters who secretly tried to prevent a couple of warriors from fighting a muddy battle, prevailing, and returning as smiling boys.
The lead stead covered in muddy gore!
The borrowed stead having survived the onslaught!
