Artkansas 

My commute has a short section on an MUP between an industrial district and a local park. Because of the rains of last month, there is one spot on the MUP where sewage was oozing out of the ground and flowing across the path. The city has a lot of other spots where it needs to fix rain damage, so this wasn't on the scope yet. It wouldn't be so bad, except that the rains and sewage had washed a lot of rocks and a log onto the path, so that the only way was to ride onto the grass bordering the path. That was bad because it too was soaked, and clayey. So to detour around the path, you had to put the bike into low and pedal fast and hard because the bike was up to the derailleur in sewage impregnated clay and the ruts from previous cyclists made it hard to steer, so there was very real potential of losing traction or having to put a foot down, ewwww! My wheels got encrusted with this gook.

This morning the leak had subsided enough that the puddle had shrunk a bit and I could at least remove the rocks on the border and make a safe route through the puddle as long as I avoided the log. So now I still have to ride through the flow, but at least I get to do it on asphalt.

I'm so easy to make happy.

Oh, why not do an alternate route? Because that required about a mile detour and ran me down a narrow, hilly, potholed heavily trafficed road that I consider potentially lethal. Even pedestrians have to walk in the road to get along that section, and there is no shoulder and the lanes are barely wide enough for a car.

dwr1961

Cycle commuting... (Almost) never a dull moment. The cagers miss all the excitement that we have: Dealing with sewage, lethal roadways, pedestrians...

Mr. Underbridge

When you say sewage...do you mean storm drain runoff? Or floaters?

dynodonn 

There's several spots on my commute that I would like to avoid and that make me want to hold my breath, but they're in no way a comparison to the time I was downwind from a holding yard with 20,000 head of cattle on a 120 degree summer day.

degnaw

I was about to say, if I caught a whiff of sewage I'd be out of there in a second.

BA Commuter

Bring a couple of planks and make a path across the muck!

JoeyBike

Since my bikes live inside my house, I guess I would have to be terrorizing the pedestrians on the alternate "death road" mentioned by the OP.

I consider myself a pretty tough rider and God only knows what bodily fluids splash up from my tires in the French Quarter (we learn to bike with our mouths closed her in New Orleans) but raw toilet juice...

I assume the OP has full fenders!

Artkansas 

The water looked clear, but there were sewage notices posted up at the spot. I didn't bring my microscope along to do a bacterial count though.

Artkansas 

In the Central Valley? I've driven by a spot like that on a summer's day, that was bad enough.

Tude 

My bad spots on the commute are mainly expressway entrances and exits, once I get past them I feel better - and then just have to be vigilant on not being clotheslined by the cars parked or get a side mirror in my arm ... ahhh city travel at it's finest!

Ka_Jun

Please tell me you have fenders.