Money maker

Since I can't ride or run right now, I have some spare time on my hand. Plus, the only mail that I get these days is medical bills, so I decided to make some extra money by inventing something that the world desperately needs. I now present the Ed CaM.



We have only had one trial run so far.




Order information will be available soon.

What are Friends For?

The following post is dedicated to my ski buddies.

My initial intent of this blog, as I have stated before, was to write about bicycling, in particular, commuting, as well as skiing and other assorted activities. Unfortunately, as you well know, my active life has been interrupted by my knee injury. Now, I know that the best way to get people to continue reading a blog, is to write on it often. However, and trust me on this one, rehab ain't exactly an exciting topic. Let's see, Monday I had 123 degrees of knee flexion, today I had 128 degrees. Today, I stood on one leg (the surgically repaired one) on a soft mat for 2 minutes. Now, that is gripping stuff. I bet you are glued to your lap top.

Things are going pretty good. My rehab has progressed enough that I am able to go to the gym 6 days a week. I alternate between swimming and hamster work (see last post). It's not as much fun as riding, but it is not bad. My evil friend, Rebecca (not her real name), wants me to tell my Doctor that he should allow me to start riding my bike, because my over all health and mental well being is every bit as important as the condition of my knee. I promised Rebecca (I swear that is not her real name) that I would, but that's only because I'm a little, ok, a lot scared of her. But, in the end, I am going to do it by Doctor King's protocol. I am as frustrated as I have ever been with my body, but I am going to do this right. I want my knee to be healthy, I want to climb cave trail on my mountain bike, I want to run a marathon, and next winter, I want to make my ski buddies, Rebecca (I'm not even sure what her real name is) and Banana, suffer, just a little, in the "Sweet Cedars."

A Hamster's Life

Today marks one month since my ACL surgery, and according to Dr King's protocol for post surgery rehab, I can start adding a few things to my routine. So far, I have basically been doing some pretty simple leg exercises, as well as riding an exercise bike, all to increase my range of motion. The only real cardiovascular exercise I have been getting has been the swimming. Today though, four weeks after surgery, I added the Elliptical Machine, and the Treadmill. Woo-hoo!

I have never been much of a gym rat, but if you live in northern Idaho and want to swim more than 4 months of the year, you have to find an indoor pool. So, last fall, I joined the Coeur d'Alene Fitness Center to use their pool. However, now that I am a full on rehab candidate, I will be making full use of all of their facilities, including, for now, the elliptical machine and treadmill, and later the weight machines.

Anywho, as I was mentioning, today I started my new program. I began last night by downloading some appropriate music onto my iPod (Flogging Molly, Kings of Leon, Placebo; fast and loud). Then, today after taking G to the Pain Clinic, I was off to the gym. I started out on the Elliptical Machine. My PT had told me to be careful, that it might take a few minutes to get my balance on it, but I didn't have any problems. So there I was, on my machine, next to a pregnant chic, well... ellipticalling. It kinda simulates..hmm..., nothing that I have ever really done in real life. It's not like walking, or running. Maybe more like frolicking. Yeah, that's it. It's like frolicking on a cloud, or something.

And then that feeling hit. The same feeling I always get on "cardio" machines in a gym. I am a friggin hamster running in my wheel. I am getting nowhere, but I can't not do it. If I don't keep turning my wheel, I'll go crazy, so I just keep going, and going and going. I pay no attention to the other hamsters around me, and they pay no attention to me. We are all going nowhere fast.

I rode(?) the Elliptical for twenty minutes. I figured that would be good for the first time, see how the knee does. I then got on a treadmill and practiced walking. It felt pretty damn good to be walking without by brace, without a limp. About 5 minutes into it, I thought, man this is rehab. I am getting my knee stronger. If I work hard enough, I just might make a comeback. Somewhere, a hamster smiled.

AA

I need help; serious, serious help. I am afraid that I am in deep trouble. As you know, I am unable to ride a bicycle right now. As a result, I seem to be completely obsessed with my bicycles. The end result, is that I have begun to accessorize them. My road bike, the Fuso, now has orange cork handlebar wrap with a matching orange seat bag. Admittedly, it looks pretty good, but I didn't stop there. I bought blue Time pedals for my blue and white Kona mountain bike, and tore the really cool Rasta wrap off the bar ends, and re-wrapped them with matching blue wrap. Oh, my God! What is next? Contrasting tires? A blue handlebar bell? Where will it stop? Help me!

The Simple Life

I swear, those are tomato plants. I went to the downtown Farmer's Market this afternoon, and bought tomato starters, a couple of pepper plants, and 3 types of basil from Kilarney Farms. Between G and me, we might be able to get them in the ground this weekend. Last year, because of G's health, I took over the garden. Actually, I became the laborer. She had already done all the work over the last several years to give us a nice organic garden, but, unfortunately, she just couldn't do the work anymore. G even talked about plowing it under and planting grass, but I had just read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, and really felt the need to continue the garden. It did well, and we got beans, peppers, tomatoes, blueberries, raspberries, and grapes. This year I had planned to do more, but the knee thing has kind of screwed that up. So this year will probably be about the same. I put garlic in in November, but besides the stuff I bought at the market, I doubt we will get too much more that that in the ground. Luckily, with the quality of veggies that Paul grows out at Kilarney, we shant go without.

It's All About the Bike

Back in the early 90's, the woman that I had been married to for a decade decided that I was not providing the lifestyle that she wanted to live. It took a few years, but eventually the marriage dissolved, and we went our separate ways. I was alone for the first time in many years, and I needed a way to deal with it. So many times in my life, I had turned to various methods of overcoming loneliness, most of which were not that healthy. But fortunately, I had learned how to use more positive addictions to heal myself. This time I turned to my bike; a 1989 Fuso FRX, built by a framebuilder named Dave Moulton. When I bought it, I was working at a Fuso dealership, so even though the FRX is not a custom built frame, I had the opportunity to call Dave and have some features added, including a Cinelli bottom bracket shell with above bottom bracket cable guides, and a Fuso head tube badge (he had gone to decals a few years earlier). I wanted the bike to be bright yellow, but Dave suggested that I add gold pearl, a very nice touch. I built the frame with all Suntour Superbe components, because I didn't want any Shimano, and I couldn't afford Campy. Today, this bike is a dinosaur, but in its day, it was beautiful.

Anyway, enough porn. I started riding. A lot. Tuesday night North Gwinnett Club ride, Wednesday night the Chicken City Cyclist club ride, Thursdays, another N. Gwinnett club ride, and then Friday nights a small ring only ride with some Chicken City guys, followed by pizza at the Monkey Barrell. Saturdays were usually an organized long ride, and then Sunday morning a solo time trial. Same thing, every week. It kept me sane, it kept me somewhat sober. It was the best rehab I could have found.

Time went on. I met G (a Chicken City Cyclist), got married, moved to Idaho. I hooked up with some mountain bikers at Vertical Earth, a local bike shop, and kept riding. I started upgrading my mountain bike, till I finally ended up with my current one, A 4" travel dual squishy that is worth more than my truck. It is a sweet ride, and I love it. Northern Idaho is an amazing place to mountain bike, and I hate that I am going to lose a season due to my knee.

The Fuso is an old bike now. I drool over a Scott carbon fiber bike every time I go into the bike shop. It's lighter (5 lbs), stiffer, faster, newer. It is also out of my price range in my current financial situation. But at this point, that is not a bad thing. After I hurt my knee, I spent some time on eBay, found some good deals, and upgraded the Fuso. It now has a 9 speed drive train with Shimano (yes, Terry, I know) STI shifting. I got one short ride on it before my surgery to make sure everything worked. Everyday, I go down and look at it. I know that it is going to be 12 more weeks before I can ride it, but I just like looking at it. It is still a beautiful piece of craftsmanship, a totally utilitarion machine, a piece of art.

The title of this post, of course, is playing off of Lance's book. And I understand what he meant about it not being about the bike. Rebuilding your life, whether it is a major rebuild, such as recovering from cancer, or from the death of a marriage, or if it is a smaller overhaul, as from knee surgery, it is about how you handle yourself and your priorities. It is making sure that when you recover, you are stronger and deeper.

But it is also about the bike. I know that in a few weeks, I am going to climb on the Fuso and ride, and I know how that bike will feel. I have thousands of miles on that bike, and at times, it has been a part of me. I am looking forward to the ride.

I'm Back

Dude!!! Feeling much better; beginning to think that maybe I'll live. I quit taking the heavy duty pain medicine, and that has made a big difference. I would rather be in pain, than feel like that shit makes me feel, so I'm just using Tylenol to take the edge off. I even was able to deal with a somewhat major plumbing issue today. G went downstairs to the studio this afternoon to get something off the printer for me, and when she returned, the conversation started with those words that I never like to hear; "now I don't want you to panic, but..." The carpet in the computer section of the studio was saturated with water. To make a long storyshort, with the help of our neighbor, Mike, they were able to move all the furniture, equipment, and shelving, so that we could pull down the paneling and find the leak. There is never a good time to have a water leak, and a week after knee surgery seems especially bad, but we were lucky to have help from the neighbor, and it was a relatively easy location to get to, so I was able to repair it myself. If it had been somewhere requiring a lot of crawling to get to, I would have had to call a plumber on a holiday weekend. That would have sucked!

Oh well. like I said, I'm feeling better. I'm even starting to look at some events to focus on after rehab. There is an Xterra triathlon at Farragut State Park in 2 weeks. I am going to assume that they will have it again next year, and if not, then I will find another one. It looks pretty doable. An .8 of a mile swim, followed by an 18 mile mountain bike ride, then a 6 mile trail run. As usual, the swim is my biggest obstacle, but I can actually see myself being able to swim this distance. The ride would be long, especially if there is a lot of single track, and a 6 mile run is a long run for me, but like I said, It all seems doable. Something to focus on.

There has been some positive notes to the last week. My Occupational Therapy staff sent me some adaptive equipment, including a very useful reacher/grabber. Designed to pick things up without having to bend over, or to reach things without having to get up, it also has enabled me to pull the dogs tails from across the room, cop a feel from G while remaining out of reach from her backhand, and to generally annoy all those that get within 4 to 5 feet of me. Quite entertaining.