A Muddy & Fun Bike Ride

Its been raining a lot here lately, and this past weekend we finally got some sunshine. Romy wanted to go mountain biking, but we were a little suspicious that it might be muddy out. However, we were pretty determined to go and check out a park we've never been to before, so we decided to go for it anyways. At first, we thought of going on some EBMUD trails, but after visiting the website, we learned that they don't allow bikes on any of their trails. That sucks. Also, they require you to purchase a permit to use their trails. It's only $10 a year, and you only need to buy one permit and its good for all immediate family members, plus 3 guests. Once we went on one of the EBMUD trails with out a permit to check it out. I think getting the permit is worth it, but they don't allow bikes, so that's one draw back. Most of their trails are near the water reservoirs, which are really pretty looking, and you can kayak on some of them.

We decided to go to Briones Regional Park because they looked like they had the most bike trails. It also looked hilly, so we would have some good bike routes. When we got there, it was sunny and in the low 60s, perfect for biking. There was a gravel trail which we started riding on, and soon it started to climb through the hills. Then the mud started.



Romy looking at the map in Briones. This was before the mud started.

The mud appeared in weird places, like on the top of a hill, where you would expect the water to run off, not to puddle! Also, Briones had a lot of clay soil, so the mud was like wet cement. My shoe got stuck in the mud and my heel kept popping out of my shoe. The mud made all kinds of squishy sounds. We had to walk the bikes up some of the hills because the mud made the trail so slippery that the back wheel would just spin! But we soon got to the top. I lost balance while riding towards the top of the hill once, which would've been no big deal if the ground was dry, but my foot kept slipping away from me instead of catching my fall. I then proceeded to fall over in slow motion! It was soooo funny!

Almost immediately, our bike tires were caked in mud, and so were our shoes, so we gave up trying to save them from the mud. Instead, we were like little kids, getting all happy from playing in the mud! Sometimes I was laughing so hard, people thought I was crying. A hiker passing me by asked me if I was "okay." Seriously?

Once we got up the hilly terrain, we unknowingly picked the steepest trail to go back down. It was soooo fun biking down a muddy trail, with the tire going all over the place. There were free range cows which we sitting right in the middle of the trail at one point. They slowly moved out of the way when they saw us coming, but two of them just stood there with the 'deer in the headlights' look. We got really close, and then they finally started trotting off. You don't realize how big cows really are until you have to pass close by one for some reason.