After a horrible few days that had me hiding under the covers with depression-like symptoms, Beckie forced me to get my ass outside.   My mind wasn’t feeling it, my body wasn’t feeling it, and I generally went through the motions on Pass Mountain.   What a difference from my last ride just 2 weeks ago.

Rolling through one of the canyons on the front side, I let my back wheel take a bad line over a boulder and got dumped on my ass, no carnage to body but a very bent brake rotor.   I made a pretty darn good trail repair, got the whole trial after about 4 tries, but the tone for the ride…if not set enough already…was thoroughly institutionalized.

Somehow sessioning the long rocky stretch on the north side, this happened:

I’ve never seen cable-housing explode like that.   The cable and ferules were due for changing with some of the parts stocked in the ManCave, but that wouldn’t help me now.   The chain went wherever it damn well pleased on the rear cassette, and if it wasn’t in too tall a gear to climb, it skipped under pressure in the smaller gears.   I was about 5 minutes from the saddle, so rode\pushed to the top and tried to make the best of the descent that I had worked so hard for.   It was ok, the rest of the ride was survival-mode, with a minor spill and just a spot of blood to cap off the afternoon.

Kinda like life sometimes, when you think you can’t possibly mess something up, there is always a new way to grossly fail.