SO has anyone else noticed the first mud of the year being a lot slippier than usual? I was out around Mam tor yesterday and for the first time ever I wished I had mud tyres. I know I haven’t been out for a couple of weeks but I was amazed at just how slippery the trails were, particularly where its all mud and grass.
Now I know there’s been a fair bit of rain lately but I have ridden Mam tor in all conditions and seasons and never wished for mud tyres, yet I did yesterday, has anyone else noticed a similar thing? If so is this caused by a prolonged dry period followed by a sudden wet season that has meant the mud just isn’t bonded together?

It seems okay to me. Perhaps you’re just sensitive? To be fair, the Peak can be odd, the places you expect to be wet sometimes aren’t and vice versa. Hope Brink is a little slippery right now, but you’d expect that.

Yeah I expect it to be wet and slippery but what I haven’t experienced was the number of front wheel wash outs I was getting yesterday, even on the rutted section from mam tor to hollins cross, it seemed that it didn’t matter whether you had weight over the front wheel or not you were just as likely to get a front wheel wash out. I ride with a minion 2.5 at the front throughout the year but yesterday was the first time ever that I’d wished I had a different tyre on.

That’s what I run up front. Are the tread blocks rounded off with use maybe? Or perhaps its just bad at the moment.

possibly rounded off but it seemed like the tyre wasn’t really cutting into the underlying mud, rather just sliding in the loose gloop on top, maybe its fairly firm under the gloop at the moment.

I’ve noticed in the Peak in winter that wet grassy, muddy trails are more slippery than wet grassy muddy sections in the summer, even if you can’t see a layer of ice. I often struggle more to get traction on a climb when it’s a cold winters night, where I would have no problem in the summer, even in wet conditions.

Maybe it was semi-frozen under the gloop. There was a little ice around on Saturday early on. Like Siberian permafrost only less permanent, like tempafrost maybe…