Oh, I guess I'm not used to soft-edged ruts. Out where we ride, the ruts might as well be made of cement. Run afoul of one of those bastards and you'll just go down, but not before it tries to tear all the knobs of your wheel first. A lot of the time, it's easier to just abandon the road and sail across a field. That old, too-soft-for-evel-knievel-style-jumps suspension just loves a nice rough field, sometimes. You just have to watch out for barbed wire.
Rider Safety Announcement Time!
If ever you're riding in an area where there might be livestock like cattle or whatever, always watch for barbed wire. In World War II, it was not uncommon for piano wire to be strung across a road at neck-level to nab some unsuspecting Jeep drivers. Similarly, some roads in the wilderness have barbed-wire gates to keep the cows from escaping their designated ranges via the road you might be using. Barbed wire is just piano wire with a built-in saw-blade and probably a bit of rust; you do not want to hit that at 55. It doesn't have to be strung up, either. Sometimes, a bit of it gets torn away and some idiot cow drags it around for five miles before dropping it in some random location. The stuff gets everywhere. In winter, it can sink into the mud, which in summer of course becomes concrete. That can leave you with a nice convenient loop of the stuff connected to the planet to firmly that an Abrams tank would probably have trouble pulling it out. Your bike is no Abrams tank. If that little loop happens to snag your foot, it's over. Your helmet probably won't even survive the encounter.
So yeah, be careful, guys.
