Mountain biking is something that has become increasingly popular for a number of reasons, but if you live in an area that sees a lot of rainfall then you might be more inclined to think that this is something that you can’t do.
Mountain biking is perfectly safe to do in the rain if you take a few precautions, depending in part on the severity of the downpour. It would never be safe to mountain bike in the rain if there was a danger of tornados forming or anything like that.
There are a few important factors like this that you can think on when you are considering going mountain biking in the rain, and knowing what these factors are, in addition to being prepared for the rain, can make mountain biking in bad weather that much safer for you to try.
How Much Is It Raining?
There is a very wide range of possibilities that it could mean when someone says it is raining. Raining can count as anything from a light drizzle in spots to a full on downpour with sheets of rain that you cannot see through at all even to see a tree trunk a few feet in front of you.
Of course, a light drizzle of rain is not something that it will be hard to ride through at all when compared to a downpour of rain. Mountain biking through light rain is also much safer for you do to, and it might be a wise idea if you plan on doing much mountain biking in the rain to have your first ride in this kind of weather so that it is not too bad and yet will give you a good idea of what to expect from future rides.
Even a light drizzling of rain will still make the trail slick and slippery, and this means that you will need to give yourself longer for things like braking and you should go at a slightly more moderate pace just like you do when you are driving a car in the rain. While a drizzle of rain is not likely to affect your vision too much in terms of distance, if it is drizzling long enough then the water can fall down into your eyes.
One thing that you can do to help prevent the water from getting into your eyes is wearing a helmet that pokes out a little over your forehead and to lean your head further forward so that your eyes are shielded.
On the other side of the spectrum, even if there is not a tornado warning, if the rain is coming down so hard that you cannot see the trail a few feet in front of you then you should probably not be out on the trail. It is quite dangerous if you cannot see where you are going.
Not only do you stand a chance of missing a sharp turn in the trail which can cause you to end up crashing straight into a tree, but you can also crash into another person who is coming from the opposite direction if you cannot see them coming in time enough to stop or change course.
Finally, another part of this that you should consider is how long it has been raining. If it has already been raining for two days straight then you should know that there will be a lot of mud and everything will be extra slippery on the trail.
Riding it at this point would not only be dangerous, as you will have no way of knowing if there are downed trees or anything at any point of the trail, but it is also something that would be bad for the trail itself since you will leave deep ruts in places if you ride on the trail with the soil in the state that it is in.
Also, if there are any streams or anything near or across any part of the trail then these may have washed away at those parts of the trail if it has been raining for a while. The streams will most likely be swollen at least a little, making them potentially dangerous for you to try to cross them until they have gone down at least some. This brings me to the next thing that you should consider before riding in the rain.
What Kind Of Trail Will You Be On?
When thinking about the kind of the trail that you will be on, there are actually two main parts to this that you should consider if you are going to be riding in the rain. The first one of these is if there are any ups and downs in the trail and how steep these are, while the second is what the trail is made of if it is rock, dirt, raised wood or something else.
For the first one, some mountain biking trails are not anywhere near a mountain, nor do they go up or down much at all. Other trails are on a mountain and, such being the case, these can have places in them that are steep both in going up and sometimes even more so in going back down again.
The steeper that the trail is when you are trying to bike up a hill, the harder it will be to make it up to the top. It is always hard to bike up a steep hill even when it is not raining, however doing so when the rain is landing on and coming down the side of the hill is even harder.
The steeper that the trail is when you are trying to bike down a hill, the harder it will be to keep control of your bike and the more likely you are to slip and possibly worse. If you lose control of your bike here you can sometimes not catch yourself until both you and your bike are all of the way down at the bottom.
For the second part, which is what you are actually riding on, this can play a part in how hard the first one is or is not. What I mean by this is that slick rock is going to make it a lot harder to come to a stop in rainy weather, as can mud too which you will likely see a lot of, and this fact will make going either downhill or uphill even worse.
Finally, if the weather is bad enough for there to be lightning and thunder then you also want to take into consideration what tree cover there might be in the area of the trail. You do not want to be on a trail that has no trees and on which you would be the tallest thing on the trail when there is lightning.
If you decide when on the trail that the weather is getting worse and you feel the need to take shelter, it is for this same reason that you should not go for shelter under a tree or something that is the tallest thing around and that will me more likely to attract the lighting to it.
Is Your Mountain Bike Ready For A Ride In The Rain?
While this one may or may not be something that you would think about on your own, this is a very important thing to think about when it comes to mountain biking safely in the rain. If your brake pads are a bit worn, for example, then they will have an even harder time working in the rain when they are wet.
Since brakes are something that it is even more important to have in working order when it is raining than when the weather is fine, these should be in extra good condition when you plan on riding in the rain. Also, another thing that you can think about is what kind of brakes that you have on your bike.
If you plan on doing a lot of mountain biking in rainy weather then you should consider going with hydraulic brakes instead of going with the mechanical kind. The other factor that you should consider is if disk brakes or rim brakes work better in the muddy conditions that you will be sure to face.
Making sure that you have the right brakes in one part, and the other part is that you need to keep in mind out on the trail that it will take longer for you to come to a stop. Therefore, just like riding in rainy conditions in your car on the road, you should always slow down much sooner than you otherwise would need to and you should not go at the fast pace that you might usually have on the trails in order to stay safe. Keep in mind that the rain will prevent you from seeing as far ahead in the trail as well.
After your brakes, then next part of your bike is going to be your tires. If you have the right kind of tires on your mountain bike, these can really help your brakes out by helping your tires to have better grip on the ground. This is very useful not only for coming to a stop, but also for turning faster and without as much skidding to the side in the slippery mud of the trail.
Tires that are better for riding through mud will have large, long spikes on the tread and can even be wider than other tires are so that they have more of an area on them that they can use to help grip the trail. Riding on tires that have a low psi is also a good thing to do here for this same reason.
Tires that you have worn the tread out on will not be able to get any grip on the trail at all sometimes and are not as safe to ride with since they will make your bike slip, slide and have no traction, which is certainly not safe.
Having no traction means that even when you turn your handles to make a turn in the trail that your momentum going forward will keep you sliding forward if your front wheel cannot grip the ground to turn the rest of your bike. This is obviously not something that you want to experience on the tail, nor is it something that would be safe at all.
Other than your brakes and your tires, there are a few other things that you can do in order to get your mountain bike ready for a ride in the rain. One thing is to install mud guards on your bike since these will help prevent as much of the mud from slinging up and onto you.
While having mud slung onto you might not seem like something that would be very dangerous, if there is anything in the mud then it actually can be hazardous to some extent. For example, you would certainly not want small pieces of glass from a broken bottle to get on you if there happens to be any in the mud.
If you do not even know that it is on you. then this glass could really cut you when you go to change clothes at the end of your ride – assuming that you are covered up enough for the glass to not cut you the moment it gets on you, and that it does not work its way through your clothes as you continue to move around and pedal on your bike.
Do You Have What You Need For Mountain Biking In The Rain?
There are a number of preparations that you can take besides the ones you make on your mountain bike in order to make it safer to ride on your mountain bike in the rain, and the more of these preparations that you make the safer mountain biking will be for you.
The first of these preparations is that you should get yourself a good pair of goggles and remember to wear them when you are riding in rainy conditions even if you never wear them at any other time. These are a vital part of riding in the rain and it is not at all safe to ride in the rain without them.
This is in a small part because you don’t want your focus distracted by having to wipe water out of your eyes, even less do you want to have to take one of your hands off of the wheel in order to do so or to shift your weight on your bike to use your shoulder if you go with that route.
The bigger reason why you should be wearing goggles in the rain is to prevent mud from getting slung into your eyes. This would be infinitely worse that getting water in your eyes and will be much harder to get out as well as much more distracting to you when you should have all of your attention on the trail in front of you.
Then there is also the fact that the mud that is slung into your eyes can have something in it. Just as bad is the bacteria that can be in the mud that you do not want to end up getting into your eyes. Simply put, goggles are something that you should never mountain bike in the rain without.
These should of course be able to do their job and keep both the mud and water out of your eyes, but they should also be designed in such a way so that they do not fog over. It is also a good idea to get a pair that you can see though even when the other side is wet and muddy, and they will need to be at least reasonable comfortable.
The next thing that you should do to prepare for mountain biking in the rain as safely as possible is to have some means of reliably keeping up with the weather, especially the weather near the trail that you plan on riding in the rain.
The main reason why this is very important is because you do not want to end up riding on the trail if the weather is bad enough to warrant a tornado warning or anything close to that. Most mountain bikers who ride frequently in all kinds of weathers pay close attention to what the weather is supposed to be like.
While the weather can be quite a fickle thing and the weather stations sometimes seem to be wrong just as much of the time as they are right, if you look around and pay attention then you just might find one or two that seem to be more reliable than the rest.
Not only will this help you to determine if there might be a chance at something like a tornado forming, but it will also let you see when it might be raining heavier and when the rain might be raining more lightly for a while so that you can try to fit in that ride when it is not pouring so hard.