My poor mountain bike...

muddybaby, originally uploaded by bthemn.

My poor bike! The things that I put it through sometimes are more than I should probably ask of it. I decided that since it was Tuesday, I needed to ride down to church no matter what... call it combating common man syndrom (tm) if you will, but even though it had been raining all day I decided I should head out.

I thought the trails might be wet, but I didn't realize the added rolling resistance that trail would have. Talk about a workout! No coasting or you stopped... pedal, pedal, pedal, pedal, pedal... heh.

Crossing one of the main trail junctions, I ran into some water. This is fine in and of itself, (though it does have a tendency to make my feet freeze) but this time the water was followed by mud that joyously stuck to every willing surface of my mountain bike. Tires, post, derailleur, etc... because I was constantly pedaling, the centrifugal force on the wheels started shooting mud EVERYWHERE. Suddenly I looked like a monochromatic (brown) Jackson Pollock painting.

My baby needs a bath but I wasn't even kind enough to take it off it's rack when I got home... so it spent all day outside my office pining for me to take it for a ride and I didn't give it any satisfaction. I'm a mean bike owner I guess, but then again, it's work.. you can't take off ALL the time.

Moab stories to come. I'm stuck between finishing projects that have to be delivered at work and a mexican youth ministry textbook I agreed to help a friend out with. Muy, muy exciting (and what's been driving me crazy).