Stark Raving Mud

Like any good Mainer, my Mom has a lot of great expressions. “I’ve never seen luggage on a hearse,” and “It would take a hell of a man to replace no man,” are two classics. One of my favorites has always been “uglier than a mud fence,” which she uses when describing people and objects that are simply too ugly to look at. “That statue is uglier than a mud fence!” she’ll proclaim. I’ve seen a lot of fences in my 38 years, but I have never seen a mud fence, and I’m not sure she has either, but judging from that expression, a mud fence must be pretty darn ugly.

When my time comes to build a fence, I’ll be sure to look into other types—picket, wrought iron, wattle, palisade, split rail, or maybe even chain-link if money is, as Mom would say, “tighter than the skin on a hotdog”—but definitely not mud. Although I have never seen a mud fence, I have seen a lot of mud, especially this spring, which has rolled in on the coattails of one doozy of a winter. Let’s not forget, Old Man Winter has a mom too, and apparently she came to visit this year to show her reprehensible son how they did things back in the day.

When I was a muddy-kneed little kid, I used to make great mud pies. I would fill a pie pan with wet soupy mud and pat the surface with my little hand, maybe sprinkle some grass on top, and it was done. My lovely wife had a different method. She would find thicker mud and shape out a mud pie on the driveway, let it bake in the sun, and then feed it to her little brother.

Imagine the mud pie you could make with the muddy dirt roads that are out there this spring. “Home of the World’s Largest Mud Pie” could become a distinction for your town. I consider myself an exceptionally good driver, but having grown up surrounded by paved roads, I was never taught how to navigate a vehicle on the open sea, or down muddy dirt roads with huge swells and tall waves of mud crashing down, all of it working to swallow my Mazda like a leather boot. We recently went to a dinner party at Uncle Robby’s cabin, which is located on a very muddy dirt road at the bottom of a very long hill. For most of the drive, all was going well, and we were almost there, when suddenly the road came alive. My lovely wife did her best to instruct me, telling me to go that way and that way, but that no matter which way, not to stop! Fortunately, we were going downhill, so we had gravity on our side, and by the skin of our clenched teeth, we made it down. I was convinced, however, that when it was time to go, we’d never make it up.

The image of the Mazda sunken in a muddy ditch, and the prospect of being marooned at Uncle Robby’s cabin preoccupied me throughout the evening. You might say I was a stick in the mud. My lovely wife however, who was born on a muddy dirt road, wasn’t concerned in the least. When it was time to go, she turned the ignition key and put it in drive, pulled out of the driveway, and headed directly into the belly of the beast.

There was no turning back.

The journey up the road was tense, harrowing, and perilous. We were yelling and hooting, “Go! Come on! Yes! No! Yes! Oh no!” At one point she skirted the very edge of the road and it looked like we were doomed, but she held on and never stopped, never gave it too much gas, never kept the steering wheel turning in one direction, never stopped believing, and we made it out. The Mazda came out covered in mud pies, but it was nonetheless a triumphant, exhilarating moment.

Monster truck enthusiasts aside, I can’t think of too many people who particularly like mud. Most people complain about it, make efforts to avoid it, or try to get rid of it. That is, until they get on a mountain bike. Why anyone who generally avoids mud would suddenly aim for it, just because they’re riding a mountain bike, is beyond me. Mud is gritty paste that, like sand at the beach, gets everywhere. Short of tying an anchor to your bike and throwing it into the ocean, or placing it beneath the wheels of a monster truck, riding in mud is the single worst thing you can do to your bicycle. Mud is great for making mud pies or mud fences, but it wreaks havoc on every part of a bicycle: the braking pads and braking surfaces, suspension seals and suspension pivots, bearings and bearing races, chain and chainrings, and cables and cable housings. It drastically decreases the performance of your shifting and braking systems while exponentially enhancing the performance of your creaks, squeaks, and chirps. Riding in mud, of course, has also been shown to promote trail erosion, but that is another argument for another day.

I’m not saying that you can avoid mud entirely, but you can cut back by simply waiting until the trails are dry enough to ride, which around here, is usually not until May. During riding season, if it is still a little wet out there, choose the trails that are the least wet, and when you come upon a giant mud puddle or muddy section, stop and walk around. If what I am saying is as clear as mud, or you just plain can’t stay away from the stuff, at least clean your bike after your ride. If you don’t, so be it, but when your creaky, mud-caked bicycle isn’t working so great on your next ride, please don’t drag your bike shop’s name through the mud.