Snapped

Two days.  Two shitty rides.  Probably my fault.

Could have been the brain cloud.  20% of craft beer sales will do that.

Maybe it's the lack of attention to the Dickstickel Meatplow V.6.  Although I replaced a "beyond limit" worn-out chain last week, it was not soon enough to save the chain ring.  It was groaning like a pirate ship riding out a seven day storm. Could have been the rubbing rear brake or the sticky piston in the front or the levers that were coming close to bottoming out just trying to scrub speed.  Quite possibly it was the squishy fork that has never had its pressure checked since I got it back in March or maybe the flipped-to-negative-rise stem that I left flipped for the fast racing of the past two weeks.

Dunno, but I felt like a moron on the bike.

Less than ten miles on Saturday with Zac and Kangalangamangus.  They both extended their rides further.  I went home.
Sunday I headed out for trailwork in the morning with Fajita.

First project: sink a light pole into the ground with Brian, in a manner that would make it useless as a light pole.

25+ feet from end to end, 8" wide at the start, 3" wide at the end, bailout option halfway across.  Terrible photo that does nothing to show the height... looks like it's just laying on the ground.

Second job?  Clean up the rugged approach to the recently created Mini-Farlow.

A lot of work went into creating this steep pile of rocks.  The current approach offered no momentum.  I would not ride down this pitch unless I was rolling into it.

So we spent way too much time building this:

Fajita's job was to check out our work from high above.

While we toiled away at our forty feet of trail, there were 15-20 other guys doing some big stuff with large rocks, machines, huge chunks of concrete, lumber...  I couldn't wait to ride it.

So I took Fajita home, swapped her out for my bike, and headed back to the trail.

Just so I could continue riding in my funk.

Brakes rubbing and grabbing late, position all askew, 1,800 grams of prototype rubber I was meaning to take off my spare wheels but hadn't, drive train groaning...

I got to the new stuff and there were still guys working out there.  I rolled up to the rock garden with a nice amount of momentum (meaning our efforts bore tasty fruit)...

but I didn't roll down the rock garden.

Peer pressure ensued.  Mockery followed.

Some guy came along looking as XC as one can get, aside from a fresh set of scrapes and cuts on his arms and legs.  With some encouragement, he rolled the rock garden.

I still did not.

I ended up bailing out a few miles short of the full loop... a little over a ten mile full loop.  Meh.

I have definitely lost some mojo recently.  I fell asleep before 9:30 last night.  I might just be cooked.

Before I fell asleep, I did manage to do about 3/4 of the work that needed done to get my bike back to a happy place.  I just need to get to myself back to a happy place before the weekend.