My biorhythms must be way down today because my brain is mushy and and slow, my temper in on a hair trigger, and I feel literally furious with rage and frustration. Oh yeah, and hopelessly despondent. Never a dull moment.

Can you say "new rim"?	The proud papa	Ride the night

All on an absolutely beautiful, warm, clear February day.

CrankenFine to the rescue. After some tele-logistics, I met up with CrankenFine in Mountain View after work for some Baylands action. This area was my home track when JB and I lived in Los Altos. The Baylands offers a great network of singletrack, footpaths, and bike paths that run right along the water from Moffett Field to East Palo Alto. The ride is almost completely flat with the exception of two minor hills near Shoreline Amphitheater. It doesn't offer much of a climbing challenge, but there are lots of technical testers and it's a great speed course. I've only ridden here in the dark once, and it was pretty creepy. It's nice to ride with company after dark, I'll admit it.

It's been a couple of years since I've ridden here; I was wondering if I'd be able to remember the trails and find my way around in the dark. Turned out to be no problem. After a slow start, it was like I had never been away.

We started at the northern terminus of Shoreline Park around 7:00. We might have started earlier, but Cranken was too amped up on MTB juice to see the offramp signs for San Antonio and blew down the 101 all the way to San Jose before he realized his mistake.

We headed south towards Moffett and stopped for a safety meeting at the end of the Stevens Creek levee just east of the Moffett hangars. Pretty far out into the bay as we were, the surrounding city lights offered a dramatic panorama.

From the levee, we rode up Stevens Creek and noodled around Shoreline. We did all sorts of interesting technical obstacles, including lots of bunnyhopping. I made a nice little obstacle along Stevens Creek that included traversing a slope of cement sandbags and then clearing an awkwardly placed crevasse to complete a hillside singletrack detour around a water obstacle in the main trail. I totally biffed it crossing the crevasse on the way out and tumbled off the bike. But I nailed that bee-atch on the way back!.

Turned out to be one too many bunnyhops for CrankenFine though. Trying to clean a rather formidable curb without the proper speed, Cranken landed his rear rim dead center into the curb and waffled it. The rim, not the curb. It wasn't a total taco -- the wheel basically held its true -- but the rim is clearly dust.

The temperature was perfect, the clear sky full of stars, and there was just the faintest sliver of a moon. Under these conditions, 20 miles and 2 hours rolled back by quickly. We might have kept going, but Cranken's light failed just as we were about to hit a patch of particularly tasty singletrack. Save it for next time.

The Hoo-E felt great tonight and I felt A-LOT better mentally after the ride. Thanks CrankenFine, for getting my ass out there tonight.

Spotted two burrowing owls and one barn owl tonight.