Patient Update

Well, I've had the bike thoroughly checked out, and it will probably be fixed by the end of the week. The broken shifter just needs a replacement main plastic body, to the tune of about $50 including labor to rebuild it. That's one of the nice things about Campagnolo shifters, they ARE rebuildable, unlike Shimanos.
The front wheel also need to have a spoke replaced and be trued. One spoke had a nasty bend in it, looking like a greater-than sign >. The large side was facing forward. This gives me a little more info about what probably happened. I clearly remember my front wheel making contact with the other bike's drive side rear wheel. I think I must have caught his rear derailleur or frame in my front spokes and turning me into (as one coworker put it) a yard dart. That is the only thing that explains the bent spoke and the severity of the hit I took when no one else went down.
The end result is that the bike will be fully functional again for under a C note, and I'm healing fine. I was never as sore as I expected to be, although I did call in Friday and force myself to stay stationary and heal. By yesterday, I was feeling fine and we put away all the Christmas decorations.

Then today, I woke up puking my guts out. I went to work and tried to tuff it out, but after two episodes hugging the work toilet ( I DON"T reccommend it) I was homeward bound by 9:30. I've spent all day asleep, and I'm feeling much better other than a lingering headache and some wicked body aches. I can't tell if the aches are a sign of a lingering virus, or the post effect of dry heaves following a bike wreck. Life is so not fair sometimes.

Touching Tarmac (or, The Price We Pay)

Yesterday was New Year's Day, ad therefore time for the annual new years ride from The Bike Store in Warner Robins. This was my second year braving the cold temps to take the road bike out with the group. The ride usually draws a good number of people that don't normally ride with the organized groups, and this year was no exception. We had a GREAT turn out, almost 50 riders. There were a lot of new faces, which is exactly what we need.
We had made it about 10 miles out when I had a little...incident. I was hanging at the very back of the pack to keep an eye out for one of our regulars who was having an off day and had fallen a ways back. I felt good and was having a good day, riding mid pack until we took an unexplained lap around a shopping center where I ended up at the back. On the next hill, our guy (we'll call him Roger) started to fall back, so I stayed on the back so he'd have a friendly face nearby. We had turned onto Hwy 96, one of the busiest roads on the ride, and I was riding the white line and drafting behind the next rider to miss some of the cold wind. With no warning, several people ahead of me braked, and the guy directly in front of me (who we'll call Bob) had to lock up his brakes, actually hitting the next rider up. I had no time to react and grabbed a big handfull of brake just as I connected with his back wheel. Looking back, I think he dodged right as I dodged right, sweeping my front wheel. This resulted in a godawful faceplant on the blacktop at around 14 mph. The actual mechanics are only speculation, but the result was fact. It rung my chimes hard.
I immediately got up and started checking for broken bones. The first thing I noticed was that my sunglasses were skewed horribly. I was bummed, thinking I broke my shades, until I felt my face and realized they were skewed because my cheek was swollen to ridiculous size. Then I was scared. I apparently took the brunt of the hit on my left cheekbone and helmet. Luckily, I didn't break anything(like my skull or part thereof), though I'm not sure how I avoided it. Drink your milk, kiddies, calcium is good for you.
A quick shakedown revealed no broken bones or gaping wounds, just some hardcore bumps and scrapes. A slightly sprained wrist and a case of full body whiplash. The bike was a little less lucky, breaking the left shift lever, shredding the bar tape and bending the handlebar drop slightly.
Bob was nice enough to wait with me while another friend rode back to the store and truck-flighted me back to my car. If the broken lever hadn't left me with out front brakes, I probably would have tried to ride back to the store. It would have been painful, but I probably could have made it if the bike was okay.

Hell of a way to start the new year, but I've had worse.







So, since this was my first time "touching the floor" as the pros say, what have I learned?

1. Don't draft behind people who are not intimately familiar with close pack riding.
The group directly in front of me was fairly inexperienced with group riding. There was no reason for anyone to stop that quickly on flat road without cross streets or stop signs, BUT.... I KNEW they were inexperienced and I NEVER should have been that close. I may have been distracted, or glanced back at Roger, I don't remember, but I should have been further back than I was. Building the skills for riding calmly and safely in close proximity takes a lot of time, and I should have given them the room to learn. Besides that, even in pro groups, sometimes bad things happen for no reason. That's why they're called accidents.

2. Pavement hurts a hell of a lot worse than dirt.
Maybe it's the speed you travel on the road bike that makes it hurt, but I think the hard surface takes most of the blame. The last time I looked at my speedometer, we were cruising a just over 16 mph. If I braked at all, I probably hit the ground going about 13-14mph. I have no concept of how bad the pros hurt when they go down at 35-40.

3. All the gear we ride with is there for a reason.
If I hadn't had on a helmet, I would probably by drinking soup through a straw and getting sponge baths. With a good helmet, I don't even have a concussion (at least, I'm pretty sure I don't.) The helmet is cracked, but after a hit like that, I'd replace it even with no visible damage. The winter tights I had on are shredded a little, but saved me several square inches of skin, I'm sure. The leather palms of my gloves are rashed pretty good, but not torn through. If I hadn't been wearing them, ouch. Gear is expensive, but I will remind myself it's cheaper than a hospital.

4.Everything has a price.
Falling hurts, and it can permanently damage you. Riding on the road is dangerous. Riding on trails is dangerous. Every time one of us gets on a bike, we need to be aware that we are VOLUNTARILY risking injury, maybe death. That's the way it works. Will it keep me from riding? Hell no. If you want to be safe, sit your fat arse on the couch and lift nothing heavier than the remote. I'll take the risk. Pain is temporary.

I Quit

CAUTION - NEW POST AHEAD



That's it, I quit. I'm resigning from our society. Maybe seceding is a better term. I'm going to form my own separate society. Want to know why? I'll tell you...here's a list

1. Monopoly Electronic Banking Edition - This new battery powered wonder replaces the beloved rainbow of paper Monopoly money with...DEBIT CARDS! I shit you not, it comes with a little mini card reader and debit cards. The "banker" simply key in the property amount (now in the tens of millions - inflation, ya know) and swipe your card. No muss, no fuss, no MATH, no THOUGHT. Who didn't practice making change by being the family banker? Anyone not secretly treasure those orange big-money bills? No wonder every pimply fast-food cashier needs an online toush screen register to make change and our banking system is in ruins. For GOD'S SAKE people, don't rob the next generation of ANY CHANCE to master simple math! Oh, and just so you can pick ahead of time, the player pieces now include a dog in a handbag, a Segway, and a flat screen TV.

2. The Decline of Western Education. The generation currently graduating high school is the FIRST EVER to have a smaller percentage earn diplomas than the preceding generation. I don't want to scare you off by turning this into a word problem, so I'll summarize. For the first time in American history, we are measurably (in the scientific sense) getting DUMBER. You can skip all the granola-munching "a diploma doesn't equal intelligence" crap. It's bullshit, and deep down, you know it.
Secondly on this point, since 1997 there has been a 20% decrease in the number of BS degrees awarded in hard sciences (engineering, chemistry, physics,etc.) This means that we as a society have decided that warm, fuzzy learning like pet psychology and history, are more important than knowledge that allows you to MAKE things. Making things is fairly central in advancing as humans and having a stable economy. And that puts us at a distinct disadvantage against other societies that are working hard to teach all their little rug rats math and chemistry. Think about that. I'm sure I'm going to get some hate mail from all my liberal arts friends. Sorry, you guys are the exception. Really.

3. Paris Hilton. Okay, I really have nothing against her personally, hell, I've never even seen her video. But she has come to stand for our current obsession with status and image in place of substance and value. You can go ahead and add American Idol, Survivor, and almost every other reality show to that list. At some point, we gave up on really working on any sort of base value, and just settled for a quick paintjob and some chrome plating. Worse yet, we've begun to wear our stupidity and lack of any ability with PRIDE. Suddenly, it's okay to be inept and useless. Think about Paris's reality show and tell me I'm wrong. Look, people, if you can't do something useful here on Earth, QUIT BREATHING MY FREAKING AIR.

4. Politics. Despite my outlook on the new president-elect, I think the state of American politics is deplorable. It would qualify as laughable if it wasn't costing us the country. Look, if any executive had screwed up as bad as the people we put in charge over the last decade, we would have fired them and probably arrested them. At best, they would have gone out of business and ended up making incorrect change at a fast food restaurant. We trusted them to be educated and make the right choices for us all, but instead they've made choices that made quick-kill profits but turned a blind eye to the long term investment. Now there's lots of argument about how to fix everything, but nobody wants to talk about the road we took to get here. Seriously, when the Russians and the Canadians are pointing and laughing, how bad have we screwed the pooch?


Okay, that's the top four. I'll give you the others when I catch my breath.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Back in the Saddle Again

due to weather and work, I had been off the bike for over a week when I finally found time for a ride last Thursday night. As a matter of fact, I had been off the ROAD bike for almost 2 weeks before we headed out into a beautiful, warm evening on our velocipedes. I wasn't sure if I could make it around the full 25 mile Perry lap, or if they'd have to leave me hunched in a ditch somewhere quietly crying and rocking myself gently. Luckily, I found my groove and avoided all but a little crying and rocking. Really, half of my mental malaise was just being off-bike, I think. Somehow things always look rosier perched on a good bike. My dear wife even commented that it was plain sickening how quickly my mood improved once I started pedaling. I countered that she therefore assumed I was in a BAD mood to start, which wasn't the case. Of course looking back, it was the case.

As it usually does when I've been bikeless for a while, the peculiar grace of our hobby struck me solidly about two miles into the ride. Here we are, bipedal creatures, whose limbs have evolved (or were created) for piston-like resistance to the anchor of gravity, whirling along whilst straddling an ungainly contraption that, if left to its own devices, would topple resolutely to the tarmac and lie like so much scrap. There is nothing obligitorily natural between the motion of a cyclist and the motion of a walking man. Having one leg on each side of a solid rail is usually not the way to get somewhere. Small rubber tires that hold less air than one swimmer's lung are generally not what you want for covering distance.

And yet,
Here we are. With the open fields of soybeans slipping by in near silence, save the rush of the breeze, pouring ourselves over the asphalt into the cool shade of the pecan grove. Not for some short distance that can be seen or grasped, but over miles and miles, ending where we began in geography but leagues away in experience. Having surveyed the usual countryside, we return by circuitous route, to the place where we first mounted the odd contraption, and we are all - slightly - changed by the journey. As peculiar as the motion and the form of the cyclist might be, more peculiar still is the change wrought on the cyclist. How differently does a wren exist having jumped the nest and flown? Can a robin, back in the safety of a nest, still smell the high air currents that sift occasionally from a ruffled wing? we are cyclists not by the ownership of a bike, or spandex, or any other item. We are not cyclists because we think bikes are the great white hope of alternative transportation. We are cyclists because of the miles and leagues and centuries of wind blown past our forearms, through our helmet vents and spun crazily out through the whirling spokes of our driving wheel. We are cyclists because now matter how clean, the smell of the wild breeze and open path cling to us.

time flies...

Man, it's been over a month since I posted to the blog. Sorry for not updating. Work has hit high gear, like it usually does about this time. With implementation of the new MIS system looming, I have even more to do at work, so I seem to have fewer hours to accomplish it. Lots of projects. Lots of stress.
Combine that with the never-ending tropical storm Fay keeping me off my bike, and you have one grumpy puppy.
Suddenly, my birthday is right around the corner. As a kid, this was a great thing. as an adult, it means I have to pay lots of money to the state for car tags. Great, now on top of work-stress and no-bike stress, I've got no-money stress.
Beautiful.
At least it looks like the remains of tropical storm Fay is moving off, so maybe we can get back outdoors. We'll go walk Thomson tomorrow to check for storm damage, and hopefully we'll be out on the road bikes Thursday night. Maybe that will ratchet down the stress-o-meter.

Foiled Again

I started the day today at our Oconee office in Greensboro (GA), which meant leaving the house at 5:45 AM, at which time I'm usually in my birthday suit sleepily rummaging through my underwear drawer wondering what color drawers complement khakis and the clean-shirt-of-the-day. Oooh, sorry for that image.
Anyway, I had to meet a tech guy there to finish up the hardware install for the network in the new office. He was an hour late, so I sat like a lump for a while, then I sat for a while longer while he set up the equipment. I dashed back to Macon and picked up my road bike from the shop. I had to have a spoke replaced on the rear wheel that let go on the ride Saturday. I also had them face the bottom bracket shell. When I installed the bottom bracket and torqued it to the recommended spec, it developed a bind in the rotation. The included instructions (where English was the fourth language down the line) told me that if a bind developed from an out of true shell the proper procedure was to back the piece out, add some lock tite and tighten to 30 Nm. I did that. Well, all except the LockTite part. Hmmm..that detail might have kept the bottom bracket from unscrewing...which it had. It was unscrewed about an eighth of an inch. EEK.
Anyhoo, I picked the bike up and hauled back to work, only to run into some network issues that jumped on my ass like angry beavers on the last sugar maple. I really wanted to ride tonight, for no other reason than to test the terry saddle on the road, but the angry beavers got the best of me. I had to bail on my ride buddy and work late. It sucked, but I did manage to trap the angry beavers and back them into a corner. At least if I had to work late, I came home wearing a nice beaver pelt cap.

But I still didn't get to ride. Bummer.

Going the Distance

Yesterday we rode from Perry to Montezuma for ice cream. On our road bikes, I mean.



No, really, we rode from Perry to Marshallville and then to Montezuma so we could get some ice cream at William Brown's Farm market. We left at 8 AM so we would hopefully be back before the real heat of the day. The mileage totaled a little over 50 miles of *fairly* flat roads with *fairly* light traffic. We put together the ride as a social ride, keeping a slow pace so we could ride together and talk. This also made the ride more approachable to newer riders like Carrie.
I think everyone had a good time. I drifted around in the pack and could hear conversations on all kinds of topics throughout the ride. It's nice to have rides like this because it gives us the chance to really build friendships and a sense of community. Fast rides are great for training, but when the pack is running 20+ mph, no one has much of a chance to talk about the movie they saw last night or the great car they just test drove. Hell, most of us are too busy trying to suck in more oxygen than a human should need to bother talking. Social interaction isn't the point of a training ride. A training pace ride is meant to make you a faster rider, and talking doesn't write that check. Talking is necessary, however, to make a stronger community. People who are only concerned with being faster are missing out on half the reason to ride. Some people join gangs, pledge fraternities, or pay country club dues just to find some sense of belonging. It's human nature to go to almost any length to be part of.....something. Locally and all around the world, there's a huge clan of people who pedal, and all it takes to be a part of it is to show up. It's a damn shame that some people miss out.

Okay, enough soap-boxing. The ride went well. I've managed to convert the road bike to an all-Campy drive train with a shimano rear wheel and cassette, and thanks to the Jtek Shiftmate, it's working pretty well. It hangs between gears once in a while, but no more than the all-cheap-shimano drive train I was running. The shorter crank arms feel worlds better, and the aero drop bars are really comfortable. In general, I'm feeling better than ever on the bike. I did find that after about 30 miles my saddle is near insufferable. Now, at some point, even the best saddle starts to feel like glued down shards of glass, but I think mine could be better. I swapped the Terry Fly onto the road bike today, so we'll see if it's any better. Several of the guys have offered the use of their box-of-rejected-saddles so I can try a few and find what works. Looks like more product testing.

Diana and I had said at one time that we would do our first Century ride this fall at Albany's nut roll, but after riding 52 miles, I must say that 100 seems like a stretch.

Of course, I would have said that about 50 miles not long ago.

Better find that saddle.....