Mountain Biking - Riding across deep water

I'm looking for some advice on how to better tackle long (as in 20+ feet wide) and deep (between ankle and knee) water crossings. Riding while submerged is not my strong point.
I hit the trail the day after a day/nite long rain and hit a creek x3 that was deeper and with a much stronger current then normal. Safety is of first priority, so I finally changed directions and chose an alternate route when the current seemed to strong and particularly when the underwater surface appeared to be too slick to ride. Anyone have advise on how to attack the long stretches of water that is hub-high?

if you can make it into or over the 70+mph range you should have no problems. just skip skip zoom.

Creeks that are running at high discharge are usually carrying a lot of new junk along their beds, so it's probably best to walk through them- the bottom you remember from riding through at low flows will have totally changed.

I wouldn't ride it. Deep water is fun, but for that distance and with a lot of depth/flow, it seems like it would be way to easy to misjudge depth or current and end up underwater under your bike.


If it was all like 8-10 inches or less, then it could be doable, but more than a foot for any amount of time takes a fair bit of effort and really doesn't give you a lot of visibility in any of the creeks i've been through.

Not worth the risk, especially if the water gets deeper in the middle.

Yeh. Thanx for the feedback, all of it. The 'better to be safe than sorry' position was my gut feeling too, although I've seen videos of some seemingly knock this kinda stuff out with less water current.

If the water is clear and you can feel confident of the bottom (a crossing you've done in the past in lower-water times?) - - and you have a wide enough area to work in - - you can turn oblique to the current and ride angled downstream some. That way you are working with the current some rather than having to ride completely cross-current.

Bluntly...this is dumb. Hub high I can see, but up to my knees? My poor bike would drown:lol: