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Yep, wife just got caught in that one...Apparently a lift should have been in order 😳
[i]It'll be a soggy [s]one[/s] dog walk tomorrow then[/i]
FTFY...well fixed for me 😉
Too many wet muddy rides and races for me this year, 2nd drive train in 3months, booked a holiday to Majorca today, was planning on going to Cornwall but not going to risk my week off work with this shonky weather
Ridden almost daily for 2 winters, has not been this bad. Given up and bought a road bike. One mountain bike ride in the last month, spent longer cleaning the bike than riding it.
I just want it to get colder and freeze it, I think that is more likely than sun.
Road biking hasn't been that great recently either!
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Cooper wins!
Bored of mud plugging, i want to go fast and hit gaps, i've been waiting all winter for it.
Riding home in a foot deep of water on the pompino while leffe'd up last weekend was fun.. and today i've been out on the mountain bike in axle deep mud.
It's far more fun at this time of the year as you are not cold.
spent longer cleaning the bike than riding it.
Takes me a couple of minutes to blast mine with the hose pipe & that's it.This removes the worst of the muck from around the drivetrain wheels & bits,leaving just a slight residue on it.Then It's a blast with GT85 to get the water off the bits that need it,lube the chain & parts that move with the relevant oils.Whole task takes less than 10 minutes,admittedly my bikes never really look that clean but with this weather they're filthy again within 10 minutes again anyway....
I still get a childish pleasure from mud, splashing and the like.
My friends ride around/walk the boggy bits whereas I go straight through the middle.
I like cleaning my bike...so that helps 😀
Not too fussed by mud, but riding's definitely easier/more fun if you've got the right rubber on (ooh err)! Sadly, I didn't have for a recent XC race, which made for very heavy going. Nobby Nics definitely no good in thick clag.
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Wattle & daub anybody? 😆
A pair of wetscreams and an IXS Overall, happy days as they say
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Here's my mud bike. Lots of mudguards,cheapo 8 speed,29er wheels and cross tyres.Slices through gloop like it's not there. Forks are 26ers plenty of mud room. I always ride the wettest line it's easiest and saves the trails. Not that the horses won't churn them up anyway.[IMG] 
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I've just bought a new pair of mud tyres for summer 🙁
I think winter was less muddy 🙁
Love it.
Highlands born and bred; Don't get far if you don't get mud.
Or peat. And sheep sheet. And sleet that's so hard and fast it's hot.
Peaty, introduction to "Seasons" sums it up nicely.
A north vs south thing, but IME the moors and and mountains of the north just do not seem to have the claggy slip tastic clay mud we have in our woods and hills down south. It more peaty and gritty up there.
Surrey hills are still fine if you choose your route carefully. I like a bit of mud but this is getting ridiculous.
Mattjg, you should look at PostieRich's SS up there^. It's a beauty
Interesting (and nice) ride Zippykona, pretty much the opposite of my snot bike. Down here the soil's sandy and there's plenty of roots so I've gone for fully rigid and big fat tyres on my Surly 1x1 which, with only ten and a half stone of me on top, float over the worst of it.
I'm lucky in that most of my rides end in my back garden so I can strip off the outer layers and chuck them in a bucket before going inside. When I've driven to a ride then a bin liner for kit and an old pair of tracky bottoms keeps the van clean.
What do you mean this one?
[url= http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6065/6046490737_080ff40be6.jp g" target="_blank">
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/nzrich/6046490737/ ]P8153891[/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/nzrich/ ]Richard Munro[/url], on Flickr
I'm so glad I assembled my SS for last winter, its been used far more than my other bikes over the last 10 months or so and cost so little it really owes me nothing...
One thing that the mud has made me curious about - 29ers. How do those clown-wheeled bikes cope with it? Do they dig in further/deeper and get stuck more quickly or cut through it better, do the wheel clearances tend to be less on them or do they shed mud more easily?
Just curious. I'm sure there must be some advantage to them somewhere 😉
Being out in it doesn't bother me too much but the endless cleaning, traipsing it all through the flat (no matter how hard I try not to), horrendous grinding noises coming from every pivot, soaked through clothes etc do.
I quite like running so it is often just easier to do that instead- back within an hour or two and no fuss.
As others have said being a mtber in the UK means being pretty well aquainted with mud but it does feel like having to deal with it for practically a full 12 months with no respite is a bit much.
Predticably I am planning on buying a road bike, as I just feel like I don't have the time to be constantly cleaning shit, it's depressing and tedious.
ononeorange - Member
One thing that the mud has made me curious about - 29ers. How do those clown-wheeled bikes cope with it?
Mine works really well in mud and any kind of soft going, dry peaty for example. At last year's Mayhem when the Plasticene Woods were just sticky rather than runny some guy I passed called out to me "everyone who's passed me through here is on a 29er".
Cheez, Rich it is. Rich do you know the geometry? I was maybe looking for something smaller. That's lovely tho.
Cleaning doesn't take long if you have a hose and a place to use it. But for people living in a flat with no garage, cleaning and storing a muddy bike must be an enormous PITA.
For me the only thing I don't like about it is that it gets in the drivetrain and crunches around which sounds and feels horrible. Saying that I had a pretty muddy ride at Woburn yesterday and it was awesome! Just the right level of dampness for there I reckon, probably the fastest I've ridden some of the trails as I wasn't too scared of wiping out in the usual summer dust/beach. Could feel the tyres starting to lose a bit of grip in some corners and it was so fun. Put the bike straight back in the shed so I think it's going to be crunchy and gritty for a while now the mud has set!
I don't mind a thin layer of it over a firm base but can't stand thick sticky boggy stuff that stops your wheels turning and gears working.
I live in a flat with no hose access, but I always do a quick jetwash at the local service station before bringing the bike in the apartment.
I'm an Aussie living in Britain ATM and its very much frowned upon to ride in the mud at home, so Ive never been very good at riding the stuff and don't find it much fun either TBH.
As for 29ers I've noticed that the larger wheels gather much more mud than 26ers and become very heavy. I think they are not so good in the stuff personally. I have been running pretty wide tyres though (2.5/2.4 Bonti's) but what I saw at the 24/12 was that most 29ers were running thin aggressive tyres. This may be the secret.
Mud...I loves it me.. 😉
I have this 2 wheel unimog to keep me rolling when things are grim outside
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Only thing that irritates me is getting my gear dry between rides