I couldn't wait to get out on the trails today. There were packed and firm, the sky was cornflower blue, and there was a warm, gentle breeze blowing out of the southwest. And no work for 10 days, thus allowing me to really enjoy the ride proactively instead of just using it as a psychological, after-work brain cleanser.

The lost BMX pyramids	Pillar Point and Maverick's break	Cannonball afoot

As with many things in the last month, so ends 2004 much like it began. Today, it was spills and thrills on the Hoo-E (See also January 22, 2004: Hoo-Koo-e Koo boo-boos). For starters, I was unable to pull the Crack. I mean, it happens occasionally, especially after the rains have reconfigured the immense erosion channels that long ago turned what once was an intact fire road into a fractured series of obstacles. The Crack isn't as hard as a trials course, but it does the require a perfect line, which is almost possible to find on the first passage after a rain. After the first tap down, I thought I'd be able to get back on and finish it without another, but I just couldn't get my feet clipped in fast enough. I have to work on that because I need to be able to quickly do those steep, uphill restarts.

And what would a ride on the Hoo-E be without a spill. Yup. Going over the root obstacle at the entrance to the lost pyramids of the BMX (the BMX/MX jump complex off of backside EG), I used a little too much downhill front brake and Sergei Bubka'ed myself right over the bars. The flight was very artistically done with Art Deco lines and a fluidity reminiscent of Frank Lloyd Wright -- very high marks for artistic impression. My return to earth culminated in a very practiced tucked-shoulder contact-and-roll move that would have made James Kirk proud. Other than some scratches to my left arm, there was no damage done.

With the obligatory Hoo-E tumble under my belt, I made my way out to the Maverick's break. The tide was way out, exposing the tidepool ecosystem of the massive reef and the townhouse-size rocks that looked like a herd of elephants playing out in the massive surf. Scale is massively distorted with the ocean as a backdrop, but I guestimate the waves at the break were about 15 feet. On the way back from Maverick's I noted that whoever maintains the trail and the parking lot smoothed out the nice little jumps that had formed along the trail. Not to get too bunched up, they'll be back after a few more rains bring some more debris down from the top of Pillar Point.

Without the jumps, I had attention band left to notice the full moon just peeping over the coastal ridge behind EG. It's always cool to see the full moon when the sun it still up. It's like we're on Ceti Alpha Seven or something.

I buzzed up into the Fitz and made my way towards Moss Beach County Park. The wind was blowing pretty heavily, so I wasn't making very good headway. Somewhere along the way, my enthusiasm had mysteriously disappeared, and now I was just pedaling around in an uninspired stupor watching the odometer numbers inch along. Suddenly, SNAP! POING! HISSssss. My tire was instantly flat. I pulled up and set about getting out my tools to make the repair and get back in the race. Uh-oh. The last time I used my pack was for a road ride and I had forgotten to replace the road tube with a MTB one. Not the end of the world, I'll just try to patch it. Hmm. Seems a twig or something had snapped the valve stem off at the rim! D'ohh!

Though I am mostly a technophobe, I do carry my mobile phone with me for photographic reasons. Today, it came in handy as a salvage device. I called JB and she cruised over with the sweep vehicle to consummate my DQ for this ride.

Later, I swapped out the tube and figured the wheel was good to go. But when I put it back on the Hoo-E I couldn't get the wheel to spin with the pedals. I was cranking the cranks and nothing was happening -- I had a freewheel going in both directions. I took the wheel off again and then took the cassette of the hub, taking each plate out and cleaning it, then cleaning the base stem. Nope. The base stem itself spun freely in my hand in both directions. It seems that somehow the freewheel got stripped. I don't know if it's related to the flat tire or just coincidence, but I do know that the Hoo-E is down until I either get a new rear wheel or have Rich cobble something together for me from the various hubs and rims I have lying around.

This is probably the last ride of the year, and let's hope that this was just a last-minute purge heading into the fresh, new year. I saw a bunch of pelicans down in the harbor frolicking with some seals. Up in the Fitz, I watched a kestrel snap off the top of a stalk of pampas grass and fly away with it.