Dirt Home From Work: Adventure Time

Impromptu wading with bikes here.

I went on another "Dirt Home From Work" ride yesterday. I used my Singular Buzzard and went out to see the old fitness trail that the CVAST guys opened up again. This would be the one that comes off the hard trail right after crossing the Pfieffer Park Bridge. Anyway.....

It's an old trail. I recognized much of the old parts. There used to be a great swoopy connector to the main hard trail back in the day that either is completely lost or that they don't know existed, but either way, that isn't available anymore. Chances are it has been swallowed by nature never to be recovered again. So I went on past the "T" that used to be the main entrance from the hard trail and which may still be, I just never went that way yesterday. I continued Eastward to see how far they had opened the old thing back up. Well, I found out soon enough.

Flooding had introduced a drainage from the low lying area to the North of this trail and with high water it was full again. I had to dismount and pick my way across via some roots that were exposed. Having successfully crossed without getting wet, I was off again. It wasn't long before I realized I was on an island!

So, another water crossing, eh? I waded through some deep weeds to make my way toward a tree fall which had a root ball where I figured I might find some footing. I walked directly behind my bike and the bike acted as a plow of sorts, parting the way through the weeds toward my goal. When I got to the water's edge I found that the logs there were floating and would not provide the best footing. I wedged my bike across the channel and tried a few different steps, none of which were going to keep me dry footed. I tried one more thing and........whoops! 

The rest of the ride was incident free.

 I went down on my right foot, sinking until I reached the bottom with that foot and was up to my hip in water. Only my grip on my Buzzard saved me from going all in. I managed to get out, and edged my way up a steep embankment to dry ground. Now I had both feet soaked and my right shorts leg was dripping wet. Oh well! Advenure time will do that to you!

Getting wet is a bit of a shock, but really...... After that you cannot get wetter. Only my squishy Vans were really annoying. Oh well. A small price to pay for fun times. I mean, it is better than duking it out with cars on my main commute line that I always use. That's pretty boring. So, I made my way through the Geo Wyth Park and out the other side. Then I went on home. No more notable things happened, but it was a good dirt ride with some time away from the normal grind. I hope to do more of this sort of thing now that the "slow" season at the bike shop is at hand.