Spring Into Mud




I have not been riding my bike so much this week. My hammies were getting sore and i decided to back off for a few days. I have a history of doing things until I am exhausted so I do not want to burn out on biking. I have had a crazy project load and I was car pooling with a co-worker.

Sometimes it is nice to take a break and rest up the legs so they can be ready for the long riding season.  I have been thinking about riding off road all week so when I got home I finally decided to go for a fun ride.


Tonight after work I decided to test my Jekyll on some of the open spaces near my home.  Albany Georgia was built on swamp land.  It is so flat that developers dug deep holes and the low water table fills them up and they call them lakes.  Most neighborhoods have drainage channels running behind houses and some dump into large "retention ponds" or lakes.

The ground here is so saturated with the recent rains that there are plenty of soft spots and large muddy puddles to ride through on these back maintenance roads. When I was walking regularly every morning early last year I had wanted to walk down these areas, but I feared the mosquitoes, snakes and deer tics (Lime Disease) so I stayed away. On a mountain bike I feel like I can get through high grass quickly especially if I keep my legs covered.


It felt nice to ride a full suspension bike over soft dirt and grass.  I got to get my heart rate up and spin through some muddy areas and I did not get stuck.  Nothing like the adrenalin and peddling real fast through soft mud to get some thrills in a short ride.  When I had to be on a road I rode on the grass and in the bar ditches   There are no sidewalks in my part of town.  Some folks maybe thought i was crazy as I did zig zags up and down the ditches trying to get some air between the earth and my tires.

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