Where the White Things Are: Mud Mechanics

The Shaina self-school of novice mountain biking is [still] in full force over here, and Tuesday's ride this week added another lesson to my messy self-taught arsenal of understanding. There is something both deeply satisfying and slightly mortifying about learning simple, seemingly-obvious lessons through trial-and-error. Jumping in and trying something without learning the ropes beforehand is generally not how I prefer to learn, but I can't deny the sheer potency of hands-on, figure-it-out-on-the-fly, physical experience as a teacher. Those are the types of lessons that I am unlikely to forget. I'm accumulating quite a list.

Shaina's Biking Lessons, from the School of Experience:

JUST SAY YES to ugly awkward postpartum-esque padded bike shorts.
Behold the power of a breathable windbreaker: it can't be overstated.
Bike helmet visors are worthless for actual sun protection. At least, mine is. It seems to be a choice between effective sun protection or a streamline.
Cold weather riding: protect the fingers and toes with double socks, insulated boots, and windproof gloves during any ride in sub-freezing temps.
Hills equal endorphins: the best way to simulate that "runner's high" feeling is biking up a long, steep hill.
Don't be lulled into over-confidence at a gentle-looking hill: what counts as a steep hill for a biker is much smaller than a steep hill for a runner.
Rear wheel spray-back can soak through to the skin: it's a unique kind of pain to ride in 33 degree weather with a wet numb bum.
Wind is wearisome and sucks the joy (and forward motion) out of pedaling: the only relief comes from a tailwind.
The bonk is real: beware of calorie deficit! Low fuel equals slow trudging agony on the ride home.
MUD is a malicious mechanical mangle-er: avoid the thick sticky stuff, or the bike may break.

Before Tuesday, I had no idea how much power mud could wield over my smooth sleek beautiful mountain bike. Metaphor, anyone?

The scene: It was 38 degrees and cloudy, a lingering gloom from the previous day's rain. I was planning to do a familiar route on my bike ride, but a few miles in I was beguiled by a tempting orchard side road and started exploring. Note to self: don't explore unfamiliar unpaved roads after heavy rains, especially not on a bike.

The road was soft but manageable, until suddenly it wasn't.

As I was pedaling along 4 miles from home, the soaking wet gravel/dirt road suddenly turned into rocky sloppy swamp, caking my tires in sticky heavy mud and rocks. I kept pedaling, but with increasing difficulty. Each rotation of the pedals sounded grittier and grittier. Then my back wheel locked up! In confusion, I pushed the pedal one more time. A grinding sound brought me to a complete halt. I jumped off my bike and hauled it out of the mud.

Bending down, I examined the mud-caked gear-and-chain mechanism. It was hard to see much due to the mud, but after some careful study, I discovered a rock wedged in one of the gears deep in between the pedals. Groaning a little, I removed one of my very warm, very thick-fingered gloves and poked and prodded at the inaccessible area until my hand was coated in frigid sticky mud and the rock fell to the ground. After wiping my hand in some cold wet grass, I tried pushing the bike again. The back wheel was still locked and the chain sagged. Sigh. I was so out of my element. I know nothing about fancy bike parts!

Standing in the cold mud, supporting my filthy, immobilized bike, I accepted defeat and pulled out my phone. First I sent Jeff a text, doing my best not to be overly alarming with the wording: "Hey, are you busy right now?"

While waiting for his response, I opened Google maps to pinpoint my location. Jeff called ten seconds later, and I explained the situation. Thankfully, it was his planning period, so he had time to come rescue me. Where was I exactly? I was on a canal road, but my map showed a road up ahead (with an actual name) that dead-ended into the canal road. Not all dirt roads are reliably marked on Google maps, so I was uncertain if this one could be trusted. Still on the phone with Jeff, I laid my bike down and hiked up the raised canal bank to see if I could get a visual on the alleged road from higher up. I couldn't see anything around the apple tree-lined curvy canal road. So I decided to walk and hope, telling Jeff to meet me on the north end of Lantz Road.

But the back tire of my bike was still locked. Ok, then. Jeff was on his way, so I had to get to that road!

I hoisted my bike up onto the front wheel, propped the underside of the seat onto my shoulder, and wheelie-walked my bike along the canal road, huffing and puffing as the bike's metallic weight dug into my bony shoulder. My entry-level mountain bike is pretty lightweight, but it had close to ten pounds of mud and rocks stuck all over it. This mud was so sticky, I couldn't just kick or wipe it off--I tried, and only succeeded in spreading more mud onto myself.

So I struggled on, stopping every couple of apple tree rows to set the bike down, walk around to the other side, and hoist the bike onto the opposite shoulder. After the fifth or eighth shoulder-shift, something must have been knocked loose because the back tire started rolling again! Gasp-whooping with relief, I walked my bike on two wheels until I saw that the road on the map was right where it was supposed to be, conveniently dead-ending into the canal road.

Turning south (which was also blessedly slightly downhill), I kept talking to Jeff while I rolled my sticky bike down Lantz Road. Somehow the muddy tires were still picking up pebbles and debris from the road while I rolled along, adding to the unwieldy weight of the bike. Up ahead, I spotted an ice-rimmed mud puddle. I paused and rolled my bike back and forth through the puddle, breaking the ice into smaller pieces and sort of washing maybe a third of the mud off the tires. After half a mile of walking, (carrying my bike for a third of that distance), Jeff's little white car rolled up. Relief! He jumped out and examined my bike, his yellow necktie dangling precariously close to the mud-caked frame.

"Yep, it needs a trip to the bike shop," he said, confirming my fears that I had broken my beautiful new bike.

Since Jeff didn't have our bike rack with him, I gently laid the bike in the dead grass on the side of the gravel road by some apple trees and climbed into Jeff's car, kicking as much mud off of my boots as I could before gingerly folding my legs into the passenger side. Jeff drove me home, wished me luck, told me I was a strong woman and a good problem-solver, and then drove back to work.

At home, I gathered supplies. I filled a gallon jug with water and grabbed a few old towels, feeling as though I was preparing to assist the birth of some large livestock. For the whole drive back to my abandoned bike, I worried that someone had seen the beauty through the mud and stolen my bike. Thankfully, my bike was still there, right where I had left it. Climbing out of the van, I flipped open the narrow drinking spout on the water jug and poured water onto the muddy gears. The mud did not move. It was thoroughly, stickily caked. It needed serious water pressure or vigorous scrubbing to unglue it, not the gentle trickle from my water jug. Bracing myself, I removed my warm glove again and rubbed at the chain and gears while gripping the water jug between my knees to help pour it one-handed onto the bike. It kind of worked. Some of the mud washed away--or at least thinned a bit.

A large pickup truck roared loudly past, with a menacing German Shepherd barking in its bed. My heart jumped, my stomach clenched, and I breathed through the sudden anxiety spike, still gripping the water jug. I was tired, I was hungry, and my hands were wet, muddy, and freezing. Make it end!

After the water jug had trickled down to empty, I spread the old towels out in the back of the van preparation to lift the bike in. When I lifted the bike to place it into the van, the back wheel sagged alarmingly. I looked more closely. The wheel was falling off! It had come out of its prongs and was dangling by the chain and gears! What?? I had never heard of mud making a bike wheel come off!

I didn't want to inadvertently do more damage to the gear/chain area that already looked slightly bent, so I crouched down again to see if I could simply remove the back wheel. Nope. While the chain was clearly off, it was still too interwoven back and forth, up and down among complicated gears. Beginner mountain bike this may be, but it was still far more complicated than my childhood bike with the simple oval-shaped chain! I didn't even know what exactly I was looking at.

A small beat-up off-white car roared past me while I worked, and smoke that was definitely not from cigarettes billowed out of its windows to perfume the air. The situation kept getting better and better.

With wet hands stiff with cold and back aching from stooping, I admitted complete defeat.

Resigning myself to more potential structural damage, I heaved my bike into the back of the van, tilting it and getting it stuck several times before it was finally wedged all the way inside. The towels mostly protected the van's interior from the worst of the mud. I was so frazzled and cold, tired, hangry, and defeated from my muddy melodrama that there was really only one thing to do while I drove home.

I called my Mom and told her all about it.

I was not in the mood to take many pictures during this ordeal, so I didn't document the full extent of the mud or the actual mucky section of canal road where I mired down. This was taken once I emerged onto Lentz Road, home free.

After much laborious mud removal, this was what it looked like.

Defeat.

Next stop: Greenies Bike Shop in Richland, WA. I spent half an hour picking and beating as much dried mud off of my bike as possible before heading for the bike shop on Saturday. It was a 45 minute drive to the bike-doctors at Greenies. I brought Rose along for some mother-daughter-bonding-time. And after we dropped my off my bike at the shop, Rose scootered while I ran along the Columbia River. Scootering and running go together surprisingly well. Rose had no trouble keeping up; in fact, she asked if we could go faster! After our exercise, we got takeout Thai food for lunch and ate it in the car together while listening to our audiobook. One-on-one time matters, especially to the middle child. We did the grocery shopping together and Rose used some of her own money to buy three kinds of gum. Barely two hours after I dropped my broken, wounded bike off, it was fixed! The repairman had to completely replace the bent part (he called it a derailleur) and my bike was as good as new.

We covered four miles together. It was fun having Rose scooter along while I ran! Every now and then, her hat started to slip off, so I would reach over and tug it back into place for her. We chatted and bonded.

The river was gray; the sky was gray. I let Rose ride my adult sized scooter, and she reveled in its big smooth wheels. She's such a sweet, enthusiastic companion!