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From Puddlin to Snow Bustin: Over A Decade of Manic Biking

When I was a kid, I used to go out on my bike right after a big rain – sometimes during.  I especially loved those psychotic thunderstorms with huge drops that somehow fall faster and harder than normal rain. 

I would go out and ride my bike and play this sport I called puddlin, which has really simple rules and appeals to a more-or-less universal audience.  In this sport, I would peddle my bike as fast as I could through the biggest puddles I could find, and there would be this huge splash and it would fly away from my tires like a speedboat wake and I would get soaked and have clumps of mud stuck to my face.  This activity triggers the purest, earthy-est adrenaline rush you can hope to ride.  I suggest trying it. 

There’s a lot of puddles on the ground around Brookings right now - and a lot of piles of slushy snow, and big ice patches, too.  If I thought puddlin was extreme, the game I now play every time I have to go to work or school is far more intense.  I call this sport snow bustin – it combines deep puddles of a February semi-thaw with the above-mentioned nasty winter riding habitat.  Although I only infrequently splash myself on purpose with mud and cold water these days, I still find the bike an ideal vehicle for navigating the sloppy conditions one encounters this time of year – especially big puddles.  I still think it’s fun to peddle through a puddle (just say it out loud), but I go slowly so I don’t get my jeans too wet if I have to be somewhere civilized, with normal people, later.  I still love watching the rungs on my wheels throw that distinct wake in the dirty water with a tight, rhythmic, wet flipping sound as the aluminum spokes splash down and up through the surface plane. 

Puddlin is an extreme sport.  One never knows what’s in a puddle that will create some excitement - a curb, a pothole, a stick.  Often as a kid I would find myself ripped out of a triumphant puddle-blast and thrown over the handlebars of my Wal-Mart brand mountain bike – skinning elbows and breaking fingers, having to endure the agonized, post-crash breathlessness rolling in a cold mud puddle, gasping painfully and looking back at my bike lying in similar condition, asking, “What the fuck was that?”  Recently I acquainted myself with this delightful nuance while snow bustin.  I jumped off a curb into a puddle, not realizing that it contained a beastly deep specimen of Brookings’ “innovative” storm drainage system.  I literally landed, and slid forward a foot or two, on my face, taking the full impact of the crash on my forehead.  This happened while I was biking with my dog; he laughs at me when I crash. 

Although this gritty biking style is fun and can really help navigating terrain that would require tedious, careful stepping and soaked shoes, obviously it presents some unique challenges.  During the current season, puddles can hold another, even trickier hidden obstacle – ice patches.  Water and ice combine in treacherous micro-geology with deep piles and ruts of slushy, heavy snow that can send you into a fishtail faster than a Blazer will pull out in front of you from a stop sign even though you have the unmarked intersection.  This weather doesn’t just present static challenges to dynamic activity; snow bustin is hard on a bike’s mechanics.  I find myself knocking crap off my gear cassette and oiling the chain almost every other day, and stopping in the middle of a ride to fix my brakes – either they won’t engage or won’t relax their grip on my back tire.  I’ve wrestled and played football and rugby  - with this background, I can honestly say this activity is the second must extreme sport I’ve played.  (Rugby’s still gotta take first place – but then again, I never have to manage the mechanical interface between water, ice, and moving metal parts when I play rugby.)    

I hope you take some time to practice this sport.  It enables a rider in very utilitarian ways to efficiently navigate hazardous pedestrian and road surfaces.  Not only will it make your trip from the library to the bar a lot faster, it’s a huge rush if you’re crazy enough to get on the ride. 

Read (6.b) for the story of the perfect vehicle for this kind of riding, and significant thematic development of the vibe in this game.

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