Mountain Biking and Cows

A few weeks ago, we spent a day cleaning and tuning up our mountain bikes.  Since then, we've been taking them around to the East Bay Regional Parks in our area as much as possible.  The only drawback I've found to the parks is grazing-- most of the parks are located in oak woodlands, which is apparently the good life for the Bay Area's cattle (remember those "Good cheese comes from happy cows.  Happy cows come from California" commercials?  Yeah.).  When it rains, those cows really like to use the same dirt roads and trails that bikers and hikers do, and the cattle herds turn the trails into veritable swampland, which then dries up to become a massive study of bovine hoofwear.

Usually, I'm perfectly happy to rumble over the dried hoofprints, but yesterday we managed to find a still-mucky area, with one little dry path through it on one side.  Josh lead the way through, emerged on the other side unscathed and continued to plow on up the hill at hand.  I, on the other hand, somehow managed to hit a hidden fresh cow pie.  I never even saw it.  It churned up under my wheels and bits and pieces went flying all over.  And landed on my knee.  GROSS.  I stopped to try to wipe as much of it off as possible in the grass, and it quickly became apparent that my knee wasn't the only victim of the cows-- my shiny white bike now had smelly greenish-brown spots with grass sticking out of them all over.... Yuck.

Needless to say, my bike and I both got hosed down after the ride, and I'm definitely not the bovine population's biggest fan.  They are, however, fun to chase around with a camera....

Have a hopefully clean and dry Wednesday, folks!