Back again!

I finally went to a pulmonologist to get to the bottom of my breathing. I have post-viral bronchitis [can't remember this word] disease. Yes. "disease." There are two fixes to this disease: time or drugs. I opted for the drugs. It's a twice-a-day-puffer. It's been 4 days and my lungs are working again. No more wheeze.

Now the reason I can't climb hills is just because I've been sitting around drinking beer for the last 2 months. No more blaming the lungs. Alas, I've gained nearly 10 pounds. I'm just out of shape now. But I got lungs baby!

And the Midnight Century is a month or so away, so I have a goal too. I'd love to give a run in under 8 hours. Best I've done is 8:15.

In the old days, when I was a youngster, I'd go on a strict no-beer diet. That's not wise. My beer intake will need to be reduced a bit, but the lynch pin to any good fitness plans is obvious to any cyclist: hills.

More hills. (Bill, if you're reading this, do not take this as an invitation for Tuesday mornings torture sessions. Give me a month, at least.)

So: start by waking up and riding the trails. I did that this morning and I was embarrassed for myself in my lame slow panting painful crappiness.

Ramp up the commute: take the long way home every day. Just add a couple miles and make sure there's a good climb in there. I'm looking for slow-steady climbing here. Maybe swing through downtown and take Cedar/Highdrive to Bernard.

Throw in a couple trail rides during the week: short, fast, hard.

At least one mileage ride per week. Start with 50 this week, ramp it up over the month to 120 or so by the end of the month.

This should also mean, maybe, that I'll actually do some blog posts about riding! Yow!

Kicking it down a notch

A week from this coming weekend I'm flying to Alex-land for a bike-hang camping weekend. There will be much riding and frivolity.

But I'm still battling bronchitis. Yesterday's commute home sucked, not just because it was snowing, but also because I was running late to pick up Maddie, so I pushed harder than I probably should have.

The fact is: I need to chill.

Glen's advice: wrap up in a blanket and don't move for 3 days.

Liza's advice: rest and no beers(!! as-if!)

Aside from yesterday and a particularly crappy ride on Saturday, I've been taking it easy for the last week or two: just commuting and the occasional trail ride. But riding is hard and breathing is pretty labored.

So now, it's time to get serious if I want to enjoy my weekend with Alex.

Liza says she'll drive me to work too. I'm so soft.

Rad wipe out!

The best spill of my life happened to me on the way to work this morning. I went through Manito Park on the Rawland. I was being all fast and dorky. Turns out watery grass is pretty slick.

Check out that skid! The fat part is where I slid on my side through the watery-mud. Just ahead of the fat skid you can see where my wheels started to slide. Dude! All up, it looks like I slid about 25 feet or so. Rad.

No injuries. No broken bike bits. I wish I could say the same for the turf at Manito Park. Sorry 'bout that.


Lot of mud on my pants. Thankfully, Gnat and Steph dropped off some pants at the P2P shop the night previous, so I didn't sit in mud all day. What luck!

Not a good day

On the way to work I nearly got hit. Closest I've come in a long time. Totally my fault. I was taking heading west on Second Ave. My target was the new coffee shop, Taste, which is on the west side of the street. After I turned right onto Howard, I proceeded to U-turn to lock up in front of the restaurant. I didn't check before I U'd. Of course, a car had also taken a right onto Howard right behind me, and he was now gunning it to overtake me on the left. yowsa. Close call.  

Good lesson for me. I think I'm a pretty good and safe rider. That's a new scenario for me to be aware of.

On the way home, I approached a curb that I bunny hop about 4 times a week. I do it so often that I've apparently stopped thinking about it. I apparently think the bike is going to jump on its own. Because today I totally shanked my rear wheel on the curb. Lame. Lame. F'ing Lame. 

There's a huge honkin dent in my rim and it's totally out of round and it sucks and I'm mad at my lazy self for being so out of it. I was able true it up to ride it home, but there's a huge bump in the ride. 

And of course not a single bike shop in Spokane stocks the Velocity Synergy rim. Errg.

Regrets

Click picture to go to johndogfood.com and read about this legend.

For some reason, I've gotten a bit grumpy and sad about two bikes that I've let go in the past. The most likely explanation is that Liza and Maddie have been gone for nearly a week now and their absence is no longer novel and fun. It's just lame.

Anyway. I was at Wheelsport Central last week picking up some donated parts for Pedals 2 People when I saw my favorite Stumpjumper: the 1985 orange one... with canti brakes on the rear (instead of U-brakes). My heart skipped a beat when I saw it because I thought it was mine. Mike (Sully to those that know him) assured me that the customer that brought it in was the original owner and decent guy, so I didn't want to insult him by taking down the serial number -- after all he's donating a bunch of stuff.

(btw: I know this bike is on craigslist now... that's part of the painful deal. no need to point it out)

But it stuck with me and I've been thinking of that damn bike for the last couple days and how stupid I was to leave it in my parent's back yard and how lame bike thieves are and what kind of jackass would steal such a weird looking bike and if the jackass did know how special the bike was and still stole it what a king of jackasses that person must be.

Click pic for big. Or click here or here for more pics.

The other bike is the Bridgestone Atlantis. My buddy Joe found it at Goodwill a couple years ago. If you know the Bridgestone Atlantis story (only made in Japan, only 300 made, etc etc), then you know how special this bike is.

We flipped it online the same day we bought it. The lady who bought it was nice, but new to great bikes and ended up taking her LBS's advice to kit it out with a bunch of carbon bits. That sort of broke my heart then, but now, with time the fact that we let it go and its ultimate build out makes me sort of barfy feeling. Really.

What's ironic and crappy about the Bridgestone Atlantis is that it fit Liza perfectly but she just wasn't there yet. We've just spent a bunch of fussing and money building up essentially the same bike with Liza's RB-1.

Oh well.