Mud Dog

The past week or so has been nothing but on and off rain and back and forth warm and cold weather. It really makes for some frustrating times trying to schedule training and balance the road with the trails. I was fortunate enough to get a ride in last Thursday at Patapsco, being sure to stay off of the horse farm loop as it is surely a swampy mess. The trails were either bone dry or a bit tacky, especially on the ridge slopes by the river.

With no chance of hitting the trails over the weekend, I broke out the fixie to get some good spinning work in. After riding around for a few hours on Sunday with Nystrom and Sean P, Gina and I took advantage of the beautiful day and took the dogs over to Patapsco for a hike. Boulder was more than ready, I told him earlier in the day he was getting a surprise and when we got in the car he knew it was something good.

It had rained the past three days so I was expecting the trails to be trashed. Some spots weren't too bad but what I was especially pissed about was the obvious trail widening going on because people were either trying to avoid wet spots or to inept to ride the section of trail so they felt they were entitled to making a new trail around those sections. It's so bad that what used to be tight single track 10-12 years ago is now an 8ft wide highway. Unfortunately this is a pervasive problem everywhere there is public access trail systems.
Boulder says "This is bullshit man, people shouldn't be riding through here, this mud is ankle deep."

After the walk, both Boulder and Riley were toast.