Well I can't say it went off without a hitch but it was pretty close. We did have one rider fall off the pace a bit and we didn't manage regroups well enough early and he ended up calling it a day within the first few miles. I feel bad about it and I learned some lessons in how to try and manage that better, I guess that's all you can hope for.
I'm very excited about this year though. We've got a good group of people that all look pretty motivated and ready to go. I've even finally got two riders who are committed to riding/racing a bunch of Enduro this year and are willing to help me lay the groundwork for a full Enduro team as part of the program next year.
Meet and Greet was part of the agenda and the other part for me was additional testing of body and gear under trail riding conditions. Believe it or not this was my first time back on dirt and I had no idea how wrists would behave under actual off road riding conditions. My EVS WB01 wrists braces and my new X-Fusion Slide29 fork were getting their first go-round of paceline decently paced riding. Make or break time.
I've already had a pretty good idea that the braces were going to work pretty well based on my initial commuting and road experiments. And they are geared more towards an MTB riding hand position so I was fairly certain they were going to work great as far as support. What I wasn't sure about was comfort deeper into a longer/bumpier ride. Happy to report I didn't have any issues with hotspots or circulation getting cut off. They stayed put and support on the axis they were designed for was great.
One thing I did notice was I'm still a bit vulnerable side to side with those little wiggle moves you have to do sometimes in fast twisty stuff. I had a bit of pain and weakness at times that bumped me from my line or had me adjusting speed to make sure I didn't lose control. Not sure there is going to be much I can do about that, just one of the concessions I'm going to need to make. Good thing is tight and twisty is one of my fortes so even at 3/4 I'm just as fast/good as a lot of other riders. And interestingly enough about 6-7mi into the ride things started to loosen up a bit (probably just due to adrenaline and endorphins) and that pain/weakness went away and I was shredding at just about full speed without issue.
Going along hand in hand with my ability to shred is my new fork. WHICH I LOVE. In all aspects. I was probably most surprised with the steering accuracy. Absolutely no issues holding true lines. The action was incredibly smooth, forgot it was there for a majority of the ride. Their suggested 70psi seems to be ideal for my weight and with the rebound set at about halfway I couldn't be happier with its trail qualities. The lockout behaved great, although I didn't need it much. Pretty amazed I could get a fork this good for just north of $300.
So long story short my body and gear held up surprisingly well and I would say 6-7mi into the ride I was riding just as fast as a 'pre all these issues' me would have been riding this time of year. Lots of enjoyment was had. BUT...
I woke up this morning to some pretty thrashed wrists. I think I could have avoided this a bit with a better more aggressive post ride ice routine instead I went straight to beer and burgers. I'm going to have to experiment with just how far and diligent I need to be about that but I think I'm going to have to do what it takes to always have access to copious amounts of ice post ride no matter what. I need to develop a full post ride anti-inflammation attack plan and implement it with extreme prejudice.
Monday, April 28, 2014
Monday, April 21, 2014
What Have I Learned This Week
Bunch of stuff.
1. Cortisone shots can hurt pretty good but that is one hell of a drug.
2. On One Midge bars aren't great if you have #shittywrists (at least that is my experience)
3. EVS makes some sweet wrist braces
4. My new 'road' bike is seriously kick ass
5. I won't be able to shred singletrack with complete abandon but I will be able to shred
Saw the foot Doc this past Wed. He was a bit confused as to the amount of swelling I still had around the joints in question. I told him about some of my other diagnoses I had received and he explained that it could be arthritis and that rheumatoid can very frequently present in the small toe joints. He wanted me to get tested for the full slew of auto-immune stuff again that I already got and tested negative for. So its still a guessing game. Symptoms say one thing, tests say the other. Somebody get me Dr. House.
I did end up getting a cortisone shot in the foot to deal with the symptoms and man do those things hurt. It wasn't all that bad in the grand scheme but for some reason I was expecting no worse than a tetanus shot so it snuck up on me a bit. But once that stuff kicked in...Magic. We'll see how long it holds.
Tried commuting on Friday. Ended up being a bit colder in the morning than forecast and I didn't layer all that well so that was awesome. I also realized fairly quickly that my wrists didn't really like any of my available hand positions with the Midge bars. Something about the flare and the brake levers being slightly off axis just doesn't work. The reach to the levers was always a bit far and now with reduced grip strength my braking power isn't awesome. Throw in numb fingers and you've got yourself an exciting ride.
I think I'm going to need to make some changes, first to the bars and possible even to a set of brifters. The bar end shifters were a bit hard to work with at the angle they are at and they aren't indexed which also makes them a bit harder to work with when you don't have the best dexterity. Gonna swap the bars to a pair of standard road drops I have in the parts bin to see what I get and go from there.
Got my first experience with the EVS wrist braces this weekend both with my road bike and on a quick MTB shakedown ride down the road. I'm going to save the official review for a bit more ride time but so far I am very pleased and its looking like my ability to continue riding is all but assured.
Speaking of my 'road' bike I love it a real lot. Did a nice little mixed 70/30 pavement/dirt ride around the neighborhood and while my fitness is god awful right now I really enjoyed being able to just go wherever I want and have a bike that is more than capable. I am sticking by the Macho Man being one of my best build decisions ever.
Also had a few minutes to kill Sunday and I really wanted to see how my fork rides and the braces feel on the MTB before the team meet and greet ride this coming Sunday so I threw on my shoes, helmet and braces and took off down the road. Granted it was a half mile down the road but Sanbornton roads are not buff by any means so I got to see the fork in action and I'm liking what I see. Action was smooth, didn't even know it was there in most cases and the lockout worked great on the climb back up.
Braces held strong and the pain was minimal. I was particularly pleased with the lack of pain while pulling up on the bars. I was worried that was going to be my downfall but I think its going to work out ok. That said I took a few more jarring jolts and I definitely feel it up through my wrists so I'm going to have to ride clean. Luckily years of riding rigid has cleaned up my line selection pretty well.
I'm far less concerned about the season (and the rest of my riding career) than I was a few weeks ago. But if there is one thing I've learned about arthritis, things can change hour to hour so I've got to stay diligent and be smart.
1. Cortisone shots can hurt pretty good but that is one hell of a drug.
2. On One Midge bars aren't great if you have #shittywrists (at least that is my experience)
3. EVS makes some sweet wrist braces
4. My new 'road' bike is seriously kick ass
5. I won't be able to shred singletrack with complete abandon but I will be able to shred
Saw the foot Doc this past Wed. He was a bit confused as to the amount of swelling I still had around the joints in question. I told him about some of my other diagnoses I had received and he explained that it could be arthritis and that rheumatoid can very frequently present in the small toe joints. He wanted me to get tested for the full slew of auto-immune stuff again that I already got and tested negative for. So its still a guessing game. Symptoms say one thing, tests say the other. Somebody get me Dr. House.
I did end up getting a cortisone shot in the foot to deal with the symptoms and man do those things hurt. It wasn't all that bad in the grand scheme but for some reason I was expecting no worse than a tetanus shot so it snuck up on me a bit. But once that stuff kicked in...Magic. We'll see how long it holds.
Tried commuting on Friday. Ended up being a bit colder in the morning than forecast and I didn't layer all that well so that was awesome. I also realized fairly quickly that my wrists didn't really like any of my available hand positions with the Midge bars. Something about the flare and the brake levers being slightly off axis just doesn't work. The reach to the levers was always a bit far and now with reduced grip strength my braking power isn't awesome. Throw in numb fingers and you've got yourself an exciting ride.
I think I'm going to need to make some changes, first to the bars and possible even to a set of brifters. The bar end shifters were a bit hard to work with at the angle they are at and they aren't indexed which also makes them a bit harder to work with when you don't have the best dexterity. Gonna swap the bars to a pair of standard road drops I have in the parts bin to see what I get and go from there.
Got my first experience with the EVS wrist braces this weekend both with my road bike and on a quick MTB shakedown ride down the road. I'm going to save the official review for a bit more ride time but so far I am very pleased and its looking like my ability to continue riding is all but assured.
Speaking of my 'road' bike I love it a real lot. Did a nice little mixed 70/30 pavement/dirt ride around the neighborhood and while my fitness is god awful right now I really enjoyed being able to just go wherever I want and have a bike that is more than capable. I am sticking by the Macho Man being one of my best build decisions ever.
Also had a few minutes to kill Sunday and I really wanted to see how my fork rides and the braces feel on the MTB before the team meet and greet ride this coming Sunday so I threw on my shoes, helmet and braces and took off down the road. Granted it was a half mile down the road but Sanbornton roads are not buff by any means so I got to see the fork in action and I'm liking what I see. Action was smooth, didn't even know it was there in most cases and the lockout worked great on the climb back up.
Braces held strong and the pain was minimal. I was particularly pleased with the lack of pain while pulling up on the bars. I was worried that was going to be my downfall but I think its going to work out ok. That said I took a few more jarring jolts and I definitely feel it up through my wrists so I'm going to have to ride clean. Luckily years of riding rigid has cleaned up my line selection pretty well.
I'm far less concerned about the season (and the rest of my riding career) than I was a few weeks ago. But if there is one thing I've learned about arthritis, things can change hour to hour so I've got to stay diligent and be smart.
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Where's My Health At?
It's official. I made a new category of 'Health' here at Manarea because mine is probably going to become something I get to deal with from here on out. I'll probably be learning a lot about whatever it is I actually have and I'll probably need to vent from time to time. Your welcome.
So here's where I'm at currently:
Wrists - Just finally wrapped up my diagnosis with the Ortho Doc this past week. After some X-Rays and MRIs his take is I am suffering from some sort of arthritis. My carpal bones are all very upset, more so in the left than the right. This was both good and really bad news. Good in that all my other soft tissue appears to be intact so I don't have to worry about doing any permanent damage to anything in that realm with any activity that I want to do. Really bad in that the damage has already been done and I'm probably looking at a life sentence of dealing with my #shittywrists.
So right now there are three main possibilities:
Osteoarthritis - This is just the 'wear and tear' form of arthritis and is more common to appear when you are older after a 'lifetime of use'. But if you jam a lifetime of use into 1/3 of a lifetime...voila! This is what I'm hoping it is because that would limit my issue to just my wrists.
Rheumatoid Arthritis - This is the auto-immune kind. I was tested for this last summer when I was all messed up and it felt like every joint in my body was off the rails. That has since calmed down and my blood tests were negative but the ortho Doc told me about 'seronegative' forms of RA that don't show up on tests. So that is still in play and I'm going to have to wait a bit to see what my symptoms do.
Lyme - One of the most common symptoms of Lyme is joint pain that mimics arthritis. I was also tested for this (twice) and both times it came back negative. But both times they did the most common Lyme titer blood test which I've read is basically crap and very commonly gives false negatives so that is also still technically in play. Again, going to have to wait to see what my symptoms do.
So its into pain management mode. Therapeutic dose of Advil basically around the clock. Lots of ice. Recently did some research on wrist support specifically made for riding and luckily motocross and DH has all kinds of options that don't limit the range of motion you need for riding but provide a good amount of support. I went with the EVS WB01 due to stellar reviews on MTBR.
They have rigid foam pads you can mix and match to get just the amount of support you want and people seem to love them. They seem a bit bulky but they are designed so you can still wear gloves and grip bars without issue. Should have them in about a week. Fingers crossed they work well for me. Review post coming after some use...
Foot - Been in 'The Boot' now for almost 3 weeks. Made a bunch of progress so far. Swelling on the top of the foot is down and I am basically pain free. I had always thought this came about due to walking on the ball of my foot a lot due to urchin spines but I guess now there is an off chance that the issues with my metatarsal joints is also arthritic in nature so I'm going to have to keep an eye on this as well. WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.
So it looks like my joke from last year that 80% is the new 100% is now permanent. Which sucks but I can at least work with that. I'll eventually figure this out and get to making my 80% as good as my 100% used to be. Onward and Upward.
So here's where I'm at currently:
Wrists - Just finally wrapped up my diagnosis with the Ortho Doc this past week. After some X-Rays and MRIs his take is I am suffering from some sort of arthritis. My carpal bones are all very upset, more so in the left than the right. This was both good and really bad news. Good in that all my other soft tissue appears to be intact so I don't have to worry about doing any permanent damage to anything in that realm with any activity that I want to do. Really bad in that the damage has already been done and I'm probably looking at a life sentence of dealing with my #shittywrists.
So right now there are three main possibilities:
Osteoarthritis - This is just the 'wear and tear' form of arthritis and is more common to appear when you are older after a 'lifetime of use'. But if you jam a lifetime of use into 1/3 of a lifetime...voila! This is what I'm hoping it is because that would limit my issue to just my wrists.
Rheumatoid Arthritis - This is the auto-immune kind. I was tested for this last summer when I was all messed up and it felt like every joint in my body was off the rails. That has since calmed down and my blood tests were negative but the ortho Doc told me about 'seronegative' forms of RA that don't show up on tests. So that is still in play and I'm going to have to wait a bit to see what my symptoms do.
Lyme - One of the most common symptoms of Lyme is joint pain that mimics arthritis. I was also tested for this (twice) and both times it came back negative. But both times they did the most common Lyme titer blood test which I've read is basically crap and very commonly gives false negatives so that is also still technically in play. Again, going to have to wait to see what my symptoms do.
So its into pain management mode. Therapeutic dose of Advil basically around the clock. Lots of ice. Recently did some research on wrist support specifically made for riding and luckily motocross and DH has all kinds of options that don't limit the range of motion you need for riding but provide a good amount of support. I went with the EVS WB01 due to stellar reviews on MTBR.
They have rigid foam pads you can mix and match to get just the amount of support you want and people seem to love them. They seem a bit bulky but they are designed so you can still wear gloves and grip bars without issue. Should have them in about a week. Fingers crossed they work well for me. Review post coming after some use...
Foot - Been in 'The Boot' now for almost 3 weeks. Made a bunch of progress so far. Swelling on the top of the foot is down and I am basically pain free. I had always thought this came about due to walking on the ball of my foot a lot due to urchin spines but I guess now there is an off chance that the issues with my metatarsal joints is also arthritic in nature so I'm going to have to keep an eye on this as well. WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.
So it looks like my joke from last year that 80% is the new 100% is now permanent. Which sucks but I can at least work with that. I'll eventually figure this out and get to making my 80% as good as my 100% used to be. Onward and Upward.
Saturday, March 8, 2014
Macho Man Disc: Initial Ride and Review
Filth Prophylactics!
Ok this ride was a tad forced and very messy and it probably would have been a way nicer day to go skiing but I was REALLY wanting to ride a bike and this one in particular and getting my foot into a bike shoe is currently way easier than getting it into a ski boot and cycling is way less impact on my foot as well.
This was a full fledged shakedown ride on just about every front. New bike build, questionable wrists and foot. Legs that have been completely dormant for a month and for good measure just coming off a stomach bug. BIKES!
I was lucky enough to remember that years ago I had bought some clip on fenders for one of my early commuter builds back when we lived in Ashland. I somehow managed to find them in the shed and slapped them on. They didn't work as well as full fenders but it was a good thing I put them on or things would have been ridiculous.
I tried to time the ride so that it warmed up a bit so it was a bit more comfortable on the bike but not too much so that our road got soft. I did an ok job, heading out wasn't too bad but it was getting pretty soft trying to climb back up to the house (which was awesome).
This initial dirt section of the ride was a big part of the test. To date if I have wanted to ride road I would drive down to Tony's place and park and ride from there on all pavement. I've really wanted to just be able to leave from the house and do longer rides but never really had an ideal bike for that...UNTIL NOW. The 25c tires did just fine and the bike handles beautifully. Stable and comfy even on Sanbornton's 'finest roadways'.
I think I nailed the fit just about perfectly. Nothing felt out of place and I felt like I had ridden the bike 100 times before. It felt pretty responsive climbing although I could feel the extra weight (or was that just my horrible legs? hard tellin'). There was a bit more racket from the discs than I would have liked but I think that was due mostly to all the mud and grit early in the ride.
I had no other qualms with the ride. I've always been a big believer and lover of steel's ride quality and this frame is no different. Stable but lively. I really hope I get completely clear of my various joint issues because I really want to ride this bike a lot this year.
Sunday, March 2, 2014
2014 Race Schedule
Lets assume I get my health fully on terms for this year. The race season in New England gets more and more stacked every year. Nowadays you can easily race every weekend (and burn yourself out by July) if you wanted to and could afford all those reg fees and travel expenses.
It's taken me a while to try and settle on what the hell I'm going to do this year. Partially because I still don't really know what I'll be physically capable of yet and because I'm trying to balance my own personal goals and schedule with trying to also make sure the team has a good presence at a good amount of races and you really need to lead that charge by example.
I think I do a bit better at the endurance stuff but I'm probably going to be doing a bit more of the XC stuff this year as well because a larger percentage of our racers can/will go to those races so I want to try and coordinate a strong team showing at the summer series races this year.
I'm thinking I'll try and do some XC stuff early on to try and build my fitness back up. I'll be starting a bit behind due to my lack of doing much of anything this winter. Then I'll hopefully try a few new (to me) endurance stuff later in the year.
Here is what I'm thinking for 2014:
May 4th - Battle at Burlingame
May 10th - Treasure Valley Rally
May 18th - Willowdale
May 25th - Gnar Weasals or Coyote Hill (haven't decided yet)
June 8th - The Pinnacle
June 20th-22nd - NEMBAfest
July 19th - Carrabassett BC Challenge
July 26th - Meadow View Farm
July 27th - Moody Park
Aug 3rd - VT Ski & Snowboard Epic
Aug 17th - Millstone Grind (Marathon)
Sept 7th - Landmine (Marathon)
Sept 14th - Freetown 50 (Marathon)
This is pretty ambitious as it is but I've purposefully left some gaps for recovery but also hopefully for some epic (non race) rides and maybe some team racing here and there. Great Glen is a possibility this year as well as Bradbury but I'm only really interested in those if I can get on at least a 3-4 man team.
But who knows I may only be able to handle half of this or maybe I'll want or need some time to just relax this summer. But as of right now I'm feeling pretty ambitious and if I can get my body working again I'm going to be pretty anxious to get back at it.
It's taken me a while to try and settle on what the hell I'm going to do this year. Partially because I still don't really know what I'll be physically capable of yet and because I'm trying to balance my own personal goals and schedule with trying to also make sure the team has a good presence at a good amount of races and you really need to lead that charge by example.
I think I do a bit better at the endurance stuff but I'm probably going to be doing a bit more of the XC stuff this year as well because a larger percentage of our racers can/will go to those races so I want to try and coordinate a strong team showing at the summer series races this year.
I'm thinking I'll try and do some XC stuff early on to try and build my fitness back up. I'll be starting a bit behind due to my lack of doing much of anything this winter. Then I'll hopefully try a few new (to me) endurance stuff later in the year.
Here is what I'm thinking for 2014:
May 4th - Battle at Burlingame
May 10th - Treasure Valley Rally
May 18th - Willowdale
May 25th - Gnar Weasals or Coyote Hill (haven't decided yet)
June 8th - The Pinnacle
June 20th-22nd - NEMBAfest
July 19th - Carrabassett BC Challenge
July 26th - Meadow View Farm
July 27th - Moody Park
Aug 3rd - VT Ski & Snowboard Epic
Aug 17th - Millstone Grind (Marathon)
Sept 7th - Landmine (Marathon)
Sept 14th - Freetown 50 (Marathon)
This is pretty ambitious as it is but I've purposefully left some gaps for recovery but also hopefully for some epic (non race) rides and maybe some team racing here and there. Great Glen is a possibility this year as well as Bradbury but I'm only really interested in those if I can get on at least a 3-4 man team.
But who knows I may only be able to handle half of this or maybe I'll want or need some time to just relax this summer. But as of right now I'm feeling pretty ambitious and if I can get my body working again I'm going to be pretty anxious to get back at it.
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