Lucy Park Enchanted Forest Mountain Bike Mud Bath

I had sheltered in place for almost an entire day, voluntarily, as doing such is not yet mandatory at my location, though mandatory sheltering in place is being discussed today by those in charge of deciding such things for the people who live in Wichita Falls.

So, whilst still being able to exit my abode without fear of being in trouble with the mandatory sheltering special police I drove my bike hauling vehicle to Lucy Park to do some riding in this sudden return to summer-like temperatures.

90 something was the high yesterday, cloudy and not quite so hot today.

I figured, what with the return of extreme heat Lucy Park, would have totally dried out from its most recent flooding event.

I figured wrong.

Lucy Park has a large undeveloped area which I called the Enchanted Forest of Lucy Park. There are trails, un-paved, un-graveled in the Enchanted Forest. The Enchanted Forest pretty much totally floods when the Wichita River is flowing way too much water. You can sort of see the flood level in the above photo, looking at those trees you see my handlebars are aimed at, that reddish brown color is what remained after the water drained away.

So, I was rolling along, having myself a mighty fine time, and then I came to a section of trail which looked like it was still muddy. But, it has to be dry, by now, what with all these heat, I thought to myself.

I was wrong. I soon found myself rolling in thick mud, tires spinning and slipping, me having to struggle hard not to end up on the ground, in the mud.

I got through that first mud trap and could see more ahead. I thought, maybe I should turn around and go back the dry way I came.

But, this is a mountain bike, this is what mountain bikes are made for. And this current mountain bike has never been on an actual mountain or an actual muddy mountain bike trail.

And so I continued on.

I should have gone with my first impulse and turned around.

After multi minutes of spinning on mud I had traveled maybe 200 feet. I was covered with mud spun up from the spinning tires. The bike gears were covered with mud. The brakes were mud covered. The tires were thickened to what looked like double sized. I had trouble keeping the crank turning and the bike moving.

Eventually I reached dry land and soon stopped at a bench, found a stick and began trying to pry off as much of the mud as possible.

All worked out in the end, well, there is that super muddy bike sitting outside on the patio waiting for rain to give it an anti-mud bath...