Soreness

When you ride a lot over an extended period of time, you begin to have unreasonable expectation of pain. Meaning, ehen I go out on a long, hard ride I expect (and look forward to) the pain that follows.

This can become a problem when you embrace the pain to the point of not listening to it. Pain means that your muscles are a) tired, b) recovering, and c) getting stronger. Too much pain means more a and less b and c. I think I have finally pushed into this area.

Which is not good considering that on Sunday Jared and I will be racing in the Black Bear Rampage, a 44 mile mountain bike race. So, for the rest of the week I need to focus on letting my legs recover. Which needless to say I suck at and won't enjoy. Because who wants to ride slow? Reall?

Onto other things...

I am sorry that I haven't posted lately. Since the accident I really haven't been in the mood to post. Mainly I h ave been in the mood to work, ride, eat, and sleep. Which is good for my cycling shap, but sucks for everything else. I am going to try and spice things up a bit after the Rampage. Anyone with ideas should let them be heard.

Roadie Steve (aka Stumpie)

Fouth of July Weekend

Fourth of July weekend is a vacation for most people, but for those of us who eat thanks to the tourism industry, it's a pretty crazy weekend. Despite some rather hectic, crazy, and upsetting moments over the course of the weekend there were fireworks, and I did have my camera.

Review

I've now ridden the SL2 for about 200 miles and now I feel that I can give an honest review on the bike. I'm going to have to break it down into sections (like the top gear fiesta review) in order to cover all the parts of this amazing machine.

How does it feel?
It feels amazing.

How does it accelerate?
Like a bullet.

How does it handle?
Better than anything I've ever ridden. I took it down US 58 without touching the brakes... and never got to the performance limit. I'm actually worried about how fast you need to turn this thing to have to fight to hold the line, because I wasn't even close coming down the mountain.

How does it climb?
Well, it climbs so well that it makes me a better climber. This bike got me to the top of the climb only a second behind Greg... Greg raced pro for 10 years. This bike is great.

Is it pretty?
Yes!

How are the wheels?
They make the bike better. They're not featherweights, but they're stiff, fast, and have ceramic bearings and carbon parts to make them look really pretty.

How do you like Red?
I'm sold. It's lighter than anything on the market, shifts with sniper-like precision, and feels great at the same time. Pulling the lever back into sprint mode gives you the ability to shift by simply tensing your hand. It would be hard for me to imagine a better set up than Red for me. The brakes stop really quickly, the cranks are stiff, and even shifting up front is quick and responsive.

What if the Royal Marines ask you to take part in a beach assault?
I'm not getting salt water on this bike.

Speed

I have a new bike.
This bike is too pretty for words, so I'm just going to put up some pictures... maybe in a couple of days I'll write a real review of it, trust me, it's going to be really good.

The only thing worse than getting my finger cut off...

The only thing worse than getting my finger cut off was having stitches removed. That is what the PA and the nurse (great women with a lot of patience) from 10 am until 1 pm today. It hurt like $#&* and kept on coming. And guess what? 4 stitches refused to pull out after being snipped. Just great! Hopefully these will work out on their own during one of my hand soaks.

Anyways... Chipotle once again served its purpose as a post-trauma comfort food/distraction. And tomorrow I get to start therapy. And stop at a cool bike shop on the way home.

On Monday I will start the conversation as to what to do about my bike situation.

Enjoy.

"Do you mind if I'm sarcastic?"

Wow, I really thought that someone else would have finished up this story by now, but since nobody else is going to do it I guess it's up to me to conclude Steve's story.

When we got to the ER for the first time since the accident I headed in a different direction than the injured party. I had to wait in the waiting room while they got Steve admitted, but a nurse assured me that she would come and get me as soon as he was all checked in.
While I was standing there in the middle of the room the Trials Dude and my dad walked in, looking very concerned and all business. It was at this point that I was asked how I was doing and lied.

Since I don't know what Roadie Steve was up to during this time I'm going to take you on a scary journey through my head during the next few hours of excitement.

I lied, Trials Dude asked me how I was doing and I said I was fine, physically this was true, I couldn't have told you about any of my injuries at this point other than my scraped knee, so I didn't really think that I was lying. Emotionally at this point though I was a complete wreck. I couldn't get over the fact that Steve had gotten a disfiguring injury doing something that we do almost every day. Trials dude went to make a phone call and my dad asked me how I was doing.
I came within an inch of loosing it. My friend had just cut his finger off, lost his best bike, I didn't know how mine was, one of my favorite parts of our rides had just become more dangerous than all that crazy descending I do... I wanted to cry. For the first time since junior high I wanted to break down into tears and have somebody tell me that everything would be OK.

Lucky for me before I lost face (I guess I should have admitted my weakness here) the nurse came in to say that one of us could go back. Since I had been next to him when it happened, I got to go be with him while the Dr. tried to figure out how to fix it.

I got back to Roadie Steve right before they injected the stub. I guess I always knew that Steve was afraid of needles, but this was insane, they don't really hurt Steve.

Apparently whatever they were injecting was pretty painful though, because he squeezed the heck out of my hand as they did it, then he apologized for putting me through that.

I had to try not to laugh. I'm sure that Steve will read this as some point so let me say now what I wanted to then, but was interruped by a nurses arrival, and you asking if she minded you being sarcastic.

Idiot, you showed me how dangerous my favorite activity is. You made me crash my favorite (at the time) bike. You cost me a rotor and my favorite gloves. You showed me how dangerous my favorite activity is. You broke a bike so pretty that even with a big C on it I still though it was amazing. You CUT OFF YOUR FINGER, and you're apologizing for leaning on me for a little support in the ER. You need to seriously evaluate what you need to appologise for, cause it's certainly not that.

Anyway, we were in the ER for a long time after that. Lots of phone calls were made, none of them went particularly well. Nurses switched out, docs switched out, the orthopod made an apperarance and announced that he would have to finish the amputation to make it clean. It was all a bit of a blur. All I really rember clearly was every time someone new would introduce themselves to Steve he asked very politely, "do you mind if I'm sarcastic." None of them did.


I have to thank some people for making my most traumatic vacation every more berable.
Johney and Kendra for not believing us when we said we didn't need anything.
Trials Dude for telling me to stop being an asshole when I said I was find, I was physically.
Anastasia for driving 3 hours just to sit on the couch for a while and talk, I promis that next time you're in town we will make it to Shadowbox
The staff at McCulla-Hyde hospital
My mom for trying to make us all comfortable in the after effects
My dad for once again coming to the hospital with a friend of mine after a biking accident and thinking more clearly than any of us were through this, making the call to Steve's parents, and generally being amazing- I'm not sure we would have made it through without you.


PS... I joust bought a new bike, details when it arrives.

And then he picked up my finger

So I'm going to start this post part way through last Saturday's crash.



As soon as I was launched forwards off my bike I had three distinct thoughts.

1. This is gonna hurt.

2. I've had this coming a long time.

3. Oh, shit, I just took the Breaker out.



Pretty soon all three of these had come true.



I tumbled a bit along the pavement and came to rest in the middle of the road. I than had one of the most brilliant ideas of my life: I should get out of the road because there was a car behind us. As soon as I got off the road I checked my helmet (this is apparent by the blood spot on my white helmet). Feeling that my hand didn't completely touch my helmet I looked at my hand. This leaves us where the Breaker wrote last post, "I think I lost my finger." It was at this point when the motorcyclist who had kindly moved the Breaker and mine's bikes off the road, stopped a car to pick my finger out from in front of its tire. That's right, I got to watch the guy pick up my finger.

Shortly after finding my way to the grass, some people had me role onto my back. Two passing women tied a tourniquet around the stump of my right ring-finger. The kept my hand on ice and elevated and orchestrated the use of the Trials Dude as shade for my head. About 30 minutes later the ambulance arrived. Two awesome paramedics got me into the ambulance and answered my annoying questions ( Is there AC in this thing?... Nope.)



Now I will jump to where Jared left us off, at the hospital.



At this point I am about as sarcastic as I have ever been. Evidently two very attractive nurses gave me shots in the hand for the pain and an IV drip of morphine. I don't remember either of them much to the Breaker, the Trials Dude, and the Breaker's Jared's dad's amusement. After a trip to X-ray, the doctor decided that it would be best if we left my right ring-finger off from just below my second knuckle. I said ok, it will make me lighter. As we all know some people pay thousands of dollars to lose the few grams that I lost in a simple accident. (Note to self, it is far cheaper and a lot less painful to loose that weight off the bike.) Shortly I was off to anesthesiology where the doctor had me preform my first left-handed signature. What a hoo... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

The next thing I remember is waking up in recovery and being carted off to my room, where everyone was waiting. I don't remember much from here on out, so I will leave it to everyone's vast imaginations as to what took place.

Now for some owed thank yous...

To the two women who attended to my hand: thank you for doing what no one else wanted to do.
To the motorcyclist: thank you for cleaning up after me... I'll pass it on.
To the EMTs: thanks fore the ride and entertainment.
To the nurses and doctors at the hospital: thanks for understanding my sarcasm and patching me back together again.
To Paul: thanks for being the coolest boss ever.
To Rex: thanks for helping me type this post.
To the Trials Dude: thank you for the late night pep talk.
To the Breaker's family: thank you putting up with my antics, tending to my flesh wounds, putting my hair up, keeping my glass full, driving me everywhere, letting me crash on you couch, and for being great friends.
To the Breaker: thank you for everything and sorry for ruining a beautiful bike and one of you favorite activities.

Let's sprint.