Self-Soiling?

Shadowfax's Shadowy Secret?


I clean Shadowfax most every week. Each ride I also wipe down his lights, mirrors, and reflective baboon's bottom. Each ride through the weeks he gets more and more grotty.

Sure, this is to be expected; it's difficult to stay out of other vehicles' spray when you need to overtake everything and I know there's a shit load of badger pooh, salty residue, and brake dust in the wet surface mix of late but I'm beginning to suspect it's not all others' fault.

The splash patterns don't lend to their being blamed on splashing or splattering by Nissan Micras driven at 20mph by the Blue-Rinse mob or by trucks over-laden with illegal immigrants and dead prostitutes slaloming cyclists in the outer suburbs. In fact, I'm beginning to suspect the bastard is soiling himself!

Dirty bugger

THEORY

Muck collects on the front wheel and heavy deposit collects on his belly-pan's centre seam and in his lower cowl, lighter liquefied crap bounces around inside his mud guard (front fender) and finer residue gets expelled at speed into the oncoming air, which is then atomised into a fine mist that comes back to settle on his nose.

Forensic examination of the splatter origins

I had thought the fender-extender would help a little, but to be honest the main stay of muck seems to be ejected forward from the top of the advancing front wheel and then "blown" back into us at about wheel-top height: exactly the level of the exposed leather of my boots and the velcro bottom fastening (lowest - they're not Harleyesque seat-less pants, not from the initial splash at the contact point between tyre and road surface.

Admittedly, while chasing down old nags in the outback yesterday I was forced to traverse some serious detritus and biological by-products but just look at the state of him!

Natural behaviour? Those dirt patterns look familiar...

If I hadn't more sense I'd believe the bugger really was taking himself off for a spin in the fields and rolling in some mare's estrogen-stained manure like his name-sake steed might do.

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