Getting Dirty

Due to all the riding I did last week (not really, but it sounds good), I blew out the bottom bracket on the Merlin. Coincidentally, S's IF needed to go in for an overhaul. So this morning we found ourselves without road bikes but still wanted to head out for a ride. After hauling out all the trash and recycling (and there's lots of that because apparently one of my other sabbatical activities is basement cleaning), we grabbed the cross bikes and headed for the trails.

Two things: 1) S's "cross bike" isn't really one. While it is a Redline frame, it's been built up to be a commuter bike with a Ultegra triple, straight bars and mountain brakes/shift levers. Also, it has 700x32 smooth tires. This makes it awesome for commuting but not so great for trails. 2) the trails weren't their usual dry dirt paths. They were mud bogs.

We headed up Mass Ave and jumped on the Battle Road Trail on the other side of 128. The Battle Road was perfectly fine except for a few sand pits. It wasn't until we hit the unnamed trail in Concord Center that the fun started. At the first mud pit, I almost got so sucked in that I couldn't clip out and almost went over. The tires churned, my legs burned, mud was thrown everywhere. I made it through. Happiness! Turned around to watch S and saw her to do the super slo-mo-tip-over-sideways into the mud pit. Ew. Not so happy. Apparently, some bad-ass branch grabbed her back wheel. Bastard!

We continued on until we hit the next mud pit. Again, I made it through and fortunately this time so did S. Which is a very good thing because at this point, I was getting flack about the whole ride being a secret ploy to buy mountain bikes.

After getting a bit lost, we finally found our way back to trails we knew and 20 miles later made it back to the center of town where we stopped for some morning coffee at Peet's. I went in to grab the goods while S dripped mud outside. Came back outside to find her peeling slugs off her legs. Honest. I'm really hoping they weren't leaches because that would be just too nasty.

Ride of the day