Effed up my ankle

So this weekend I was gonna do...something. I don't think I was ever seriously going to do a 50 mile plus ride, but I was certainly going to do something longer than my normal commute. Then I went to go play racquetball on Saturday, lunged after an 18 mph bullet launched by my friend's fiancee, and landed on the side of my ankle. Seriously. My foot didn't even hit the ground.

I heard a crunch, immediately got up, and limped around for a bit. It honestly seemed fine. A bit sore, but nothing extreme. I was even able to finish out that game AND do another one. When I woke up this morning though, it was still swollen and was turning some fairly interesting colors.



So no biking for me today. It still doesn't feel awful, and once I got up and was walking around for a bit it felt much better, so I don't think this'll be a serious problem, but I do seem to be getting banged up a lot lately. I've never thought of myself as particularly fragile (don't confuse that statement with me being stoic or anything though, if I get hurt I will do nothing but bitch and moan for days) so it's a bit disconcerting that I'm feeling constantly banged up somewhere.

So I spent today doing some home bike repair 101 type stuff. Currently I know how to change/patch a flat tire, do a quick-fix for a slashed or otherwise destroyed tire, kinda-sorta adjust a front and rear derailleur, and fudge with the brake and shifter cable tension. Friday however, I noticed my old Trek 7.3 had a busted rear spoke.

I don't really understand how it broke, the bike hasn't been ridden in over a week. Maybe it tried to kill itself out of shame. Maybe it was killed by ninjas for knowing too much, a la David Carradine. (I know it's way too early for that joke, but it's not really a joke. Ninjas are no laughing matter, young people.)

So I learned how to replace a spoke today (fairly difficult) and also did some futzing about with my saddle. The saddle's been a sore spot on the new bike thus far (GET IT!?!?!?!?) but the initial effort seems worth it. For those not in the know, i.e. anyone with normal societal tendencies, Brooks saddles are formed from a complex process that binds high quality leather with pure liquid pretentiousness. Want to see the box it comes in?



It's a fucking BICYCLE SADDLE. My favorite part was the faux-1880's style newspaper that explains in detail all the of the various ways people have changed the world for the better with Brooks Saddles. I shit you not. Because I already have my camera handy:




No but seriously, the Brooks Bugle is a great newspaper. It's informative, edgy, and isn't afraid to get the tough stories. I'm not sure about their journalistic integrity, it seems like maybe Brooks Saddles, Inc. in particular seems to get positive coverage most of the time, but I still found it less slanted than Fox News.*

Where was I? Oh yeah, so it takes a lot of adjustments and finagling to get a Brooks saddle to feel good, because it's made of leather. Not leather like a leather car seat though, or like a leather baseball glove. It's the hardest leather ever. You rap it with your fingers and it sounds like plastic. And the first 30 or so miles on it were horrible. It felt like I was sitting on Anne Coulter's face.

However after some tilt adjustments, and some indentations finally being made, it's already 1000% more comfortable. It's now got about 150 miles on it, and it's perfectly comfortable, comprable to my old squishy saddle. What makes Brooks saddles great, and is why I'm willing to completely embrace the dark side of bicyclist douchebaggery, is that it never gets UNcomfortable.

The knock against squishy saddles is that they're great for short trips, but after a long time in them with your jubblies all sunk in, stuff starts to go numb and cramp up. What you want is something that comforms to your shape like a squishy saddle, but ALSO is firm and supporting. That's what leather saddles do. People who I've spoken with that tour all swear by this thing. They say it's virtually the only way to stay comfortable in a bike saddle for 6-8 hours a day. I wasn't sure about all of that (and God dammit this paragraph reads like that time I was explaining the difference between solid top guitars vs laminate tops and FUCK YOU for not stopping me back then, Stew) but I DID know I'd tried two different normal saddles and they were definitely starting to make certain anatomical bits start to feel a bit cramped and oxygen-starved after an hour or two, and with this thing that's not the case. Instead of gradually progressing from "ah this is comfortable" to "Oh shit it's turning purple" to "Oh SHIT it turned black and fell off" over the course of 3 hours, the Brooks saddle simply starts at "Hmm, not bad" and stays that way. So I'm sold.





* It's okay Conservatives, I voted for McCain in the primaries before he tapped that shrill, disagreeable retard as his running mate.. Also HELL YEAH asterisks are back!!!


edit:

I think Jill must've stolen my camera at some point, because I certainly don't remember shooting this. Man that thing's a beast! And by "that thing" I mean Asaf, he's totally spooning on that bed.

Oops

Hey so it's been awhile. Frankly, I'm not sure how many more times I could post "Gee whiz biking is hard" or "I sure do think redheads are hot" before it got grating. Besides, while updates here will be an every day type thing while I'm out on the road, you're just not missing much on a day to day basis here. It's been three weeks though, so here, let's take a journey together to discover what has usurped (editor's note: Douchebag "I read books which makes me smart" vocab useage alert!!) my time lately.

#1. If you're wanting to date an immature, catty 23 year old, then by all means do it (if she's cute enough). I mean, who're we kidding, right? We're all human. When the wheels fall off though, shrug your shoulders, make a mental note, and move on quickly. I think this is my roundabout way of saying it's hard to update a blog when you're spending 2-3 hours a day constructing elaborate theories to explain away giant gaping logic holes instead of admitting the chick you're seeing is a pathological liar.

#2. On the opposite end of the fun scale, it's also hard to update a blog when you're spending prime bike-riding weekends in Colorado, getting hammered on absolutely disgusting black licorice liquor. Bet you didn't know that kind of hell even existed, did you? I don't know why I segued from "not fun" into "fun" with drinking malted battery acid as an example, but... I dunno. Hey look here's Brett!



(I'd like to say that was a completely random, out-of-character "That's what she said!" comment at the end, but alas. We still think that's funny and use it as substitute for punctuation.)

#3. New bike hotness!!

Okay so if you'll recall, the beast of burden I chose for this trip is a Trek 7.3fx. A fine bike, a real man's bike. I think I also mentioned I was about to blow 4-5 hundred bucks swapping out various components to make it tour-worthy. It needed drop handlebars, a new drivetrain, a new saddle, blah blah blah.

I was already torn about spending the money to upgrade my current bike, or just getting a different one. My Trek is a great commuter, looks sharp, and let's not forget the awesome black on black color scheme. It matches my dark soul perfectly, like those edgy lyrics the goth kids used to write inside their Steino notebooks in high school before they went home to sniff glue and burn things.

On the other hand, it just wasn't built for this kind of thing. I mean it COULD work. Sure I COULD pay for 3 million dollars worth of plastic surgery to return Debrah Messing to her previous levels of hotness, or I could just throw 20 bucks at her younger, hotter protege Isla Fisher. And never doubt it, Isla Fisher would throw me a bone for 20 dollars. She's currently getting pounded by the same guy who dressed up as an angel and teabagged Eminem, and 69ed a 500 pound Latvian guy. This isn't someone with preposterously high standards.

So where was I? Oh yeah, I ditched the Trek and bought a Surly. BOO YEAH!!! (As always click on the picture for a decent view. Blogger, post-2004 thumbnail technology, have you two met?)







The Surly Long Haul Trucker is the Honda Civic of the Touring world. They're dull, conventional, and about as stylish as one of those giant Australian termite nests, but God damn they're built well, and even if you look like a tool on it, you'll be in good company because like 80% of everyone touring uses one. They are NOT cheap, but I actually got a discount from a local bike shop, in exchange for the humane society pimping them out, so I could kind of sort of afford it. It's hard to explain why they're perfect for touring without getting into horrible topics like "chainstay length" and "fork rake" so you'll just have to take my word for it: I am in way better position now than I was before.

Also, check out the GPS unit attached to my handlebars! It's like being in the glass cockpit of a fighter jet!! I'm still keeping my Trek for the time being, because I'm petrified of the new being stolen, but I'll obvously jettison it to some worthy individual before I leave.

So all that in mind, what's my current situation? We'll divide my end of May report card into bite sized segments I like to call Training, Planning, and Equipment Obtainment.

Training: F

There's no other grade I can reasonably give myself now. I've upped my weekly mileage from 100 miles per week to about 120-30, but that's still not really the point. Even 100 miles per week would be fine, IF I was knocking out the occasional 50-60 mile ride as part of it. Sadly I just haven't had a day lately where I was like "I've got 6-8 hours to kill, I might as well spend them on my bike!" I think I could do it without a problem, but I just can't be sure. There's a big difference between spending an hour in the saddle straight, and spending 6. It's similar to the difference between Eric Wolpert's penis size, and that of a normal human being. An ignorant girl with Eric might think he's all right, but as soon as anyone bigger than Vern Troyer comes along she's gonna be worried they'll shatter her spine with it.

My analogies are definitely getting worse. :(

Planning: B-

So far so good here. I've got places to stay lined up in Tempe, Fort Collins, New York City, and Boston, if I can find one place in Missouri or Illinois somewhere I think I'll be golden. My route's all firmly mapped and I'm starting to peruse Garmin's City Navigator 2010 maps to pinpoint camps, cafes, and other essentials along the way. Somehow, someway, my budget is still holding up as well. I still need to find a place to live for when I get back, and sell the remainder of my worldly possesions, but most of the big stuff has been taken care of.

Equipment: A-

I'm doing really well here. I'm basically done. A few eagle eyed readers pointed out my list of stuff to pack was more complete than the picture of it, and using a small tupperware container to stand in for "tool kit comprehensive enough to fix any bike problem that is the size of a very small paperback book" is easier than actually making said tool kit.

However, there's really not much I need now. There's a few random one-off things I still need, like 5mm socket cap bolts, bailing wire, and spare cyclocomputer batteries, but I daresay every major, difficult purchase has been made.

Updates! News! Excitement!

So here's what's been going on since I last posted:

#1. Star Trek pretty much sucked. There, I said it. Why does a Romulan mining vessel have advanced weaponry? Why didn't Spock just go to the Federation Outpost to warn them about Vulcan? Also, Uhura and Spock? Seriously, what the fuck.

#2. I finally found a large United States road map, so I have a graphical representation of my route. My map, please enjoy it:



I bought two maps, this one is my planned route, I'll also mark the other one with the actual route I end up taking. That one will get laminated and probably stuck on the refrigerator, along with everything else I've done that no one will ever, ever care about.

#3. My rides have been sucking ASS. I started kicking up the intensity right around the same time as my accident, and I'm worried at this point I might be overtraining. I'm puking after about half my rides, I feel sore all over, sometimes my legs just turn completely into jelly. I'm sure the 95-100 degree heat isn't helping things, but I might have to give up and take a week off or something in the near future. It's getting pretty bad.

#4. Speaking of my accident, everything fine there. I'm cleared to continue.

#5. After many months of trying to determine whether or not the Humane Society is actually with me on this or not, I've actually had some face to face meeting time with them and they are DEFINITELY on board. We're talking a feature story in their newsletter, pimping a local bike shop to possibly get me a decent discount on a new bike, appearances on the radio and local TV stations, and all that jazz. 1000 dollars is now the VERY low end of what I could conceivably scrape together with them for this.

Of course we ran into the slight problem of this blog being completely, utterly unsuitable for the vast majority of their constituency, but they're going to set up a different web site for me that their followers can, um, follow. That'll mean I'll have to update two places every day, but honestly the other site I can probably get away with posting a picture of a sunrise or an attractive moose and just write something like

When you push your body to the limit, you find the true measure of yourself as a man. This is what I believe, and it has made me a better person.

while I'm posting

Holy shit I just got raped up the ass by this 4,000 foot climb today but it was worth it because some chicks taking pictures at the top had awesome boobs and a tank top that was struggling mightily to hold those warlocks back.

here on this blog. Something for everyone, you know? Anyways, it is fun knowing I've got the support of the organization I'm trying to help, but the bottom line is I'm going to be able to raise a ton more money this way and that's what it's all about.

That was fun part 2

First of all THANK YOU everyone for checking up on me. It was really nice of ya'll. I can assure you all I'm not nearly as bad off as most of you seemed to think. So to sum up today:

I woke up really early this morning, and there was a low throbbing pain in my back, right underneath my right shoulder blade. This was kind of ignored though, in favor of the boiling cauldron of hell that I was experiencing in my, you know, area. I also noticed I had been drooling a LOT while I was asleep, which I was pretty much going to chalk up to the percocet, but then I noticed there was a lot of blood on my pillow near my mouth as well. I was also having some trouble breathing

I decided it was time to give up and go see the doctor, and went to go take a leak real quick. Oops, tons of blood in my urine too. Now I was back to panicking a bit. I debated calling an ambulance but settled on a cab. I took the cab to the hospital, got admitted pretty much straight away, and the first thing they do: Morphine.

UMC is like the most morphine happy place I've ever been to. "Oops I stubbed my toe" "10 mikes morphine, STAT!!!" Unlike the phantom side pains I had back in June though, I was pretty okay with it this time. So I wait for like an hour with the resident, the doctor comes in and asks me to rate my pain, tell where it hurts, whatever. He doesn't seem too impressed, and is writing something in those infernal notebooks I'm convinced they write "Patient is a little girl and came in to whine about his owie" in, when I started coughing badly and hacked up another decent amount of blood.

That kind of got them going, so they gave me a CT scan and an echocardiagram. The diagnosis was cryptogenic hemoptysis, which sounded like an awesome House disease, but it turns out that it just means they don't know why I'm coughing up blood. The peeing blood was caused by a badly bruised kidney, apparently NOT by the shot I took to the sensitive bits by the nose of my saddle. The doc assumed it was a bruised lung causing the mouth bleeding but admitted it seemed like a bit too much blood for that. They offered to do a lung biopsy, but honestly if they're not worried I'm not.

They then told me I wasn't to use the bike for at least a month, because the bouncing and stuff was going to fuck up my kidneys worse. I'm going to level with you folks, I've been trying reallllly hard to just give the facts without trying to inject any drama into the proceedings, but at that point I laid back down and while I didn't start bawling or anything, I did start crying a bit. I was exhausted, frustrated, scared shitless of the fact that various parts of me are bleeding, and now some guy is basically blowing up my whole trip by saying I've gotta take a month off. There's just no way i could get back in shape in time if I did that, I'd be done.

So I plead my case, told him it didn't hurt that badly anymore (not that he was worried about that) and that I could just stand in the pedals for any large bumps. It's not like I'm taking it down a cliffside or anything, I'm on improved streets. I could deflate the tires a bunch to soften the ride, I'd come in for checkups, whatever he wanted. He asked why it was such a big deal and I explained it, and i gotta admit, the guy was really cool.

I have to come in for another CT scan and some other tests later this week, to make sure the bruising isn't getting worse, but he said I could keep riding and probably be okay. They released me later, I took a test ride, and it's really not that bad. I even made it into work later on. I can walk fine, it still kind of hurts to sit, and I'm not gonna lie it doesn't feel particularly good on the saddle, but it's certainly doable. All the bike needed was a new wheel and stem, didn't even bend the fork.

I'll be peeing blood for a few more days apparently, and taking deep breaths isn't really an option for awhile, but otherwise all things considered I'm pretty damn lucky. I took another look at where I fell and I have no idea how I convinced myself I landed on grass, the other side of that curb is straight sidewalk. I got all these bruises because I went end-over my handlebars and landed flat on my back on the sidewalk going about 20. Could have been a lot worse, so I'm looking at the bright side.

Again, thanks for all the well wishes and stuff, but it ended up not being a big deal. All's good.

Hey that was fun

I've been hit by cars twice before, and honestly, it doesn't bother me as much as you'd think it would. When push comes to shove, I'm a bike on a street with cars. I mean, yes they're supposed to give me 5 feet, and yes I technically have the same rights as them, but they're supposed to come to complete stops at stop signs and put on their headlights 30 minutes after sunset too. Cars drive the way they do.

Tonight I wasn't actually HIT by a car, but I'm more annoyed this time than the other ones. So I'm biking down Campbell, on the short section where there's no bike path. So I'm more vulnerable than usual. But it's not usually a big deal. I'm cruising along, most of the way home and my head's, well, not where it should be when I'm the road. I tent to drift. Another point against me.

Suddenly I realize I'm hearing a car engine over my headphones. And it's VERY bright ahead of me. I sneak a glance back and see I'm being born down upon by a fucking huge truck. It's literally 5 feet behind me. And christ, the engine is loud.

The lights, sound, and all of it kind of made me panic. I was all the way to the right so I couldn't really bail out. Luckily there was a driveway right in front of me. I turned into going about 20, but didn't exactly make a full turn, I just merged over a bit. Unfortunately, this wasn't a crosswalk or anything, so the curb isn't on the side of the intersecting road, it's just a curb. Maybe 4 inches high.

I then proceeded to do absolutely everything wrong. I freaked out and tensed up (you're supposed to relax so your arms and legs take some of the shock) and I also stood up in the peddles a bit (didn't know you're not supposed to do this, but trust me, you're not)

So I hit the curb. The front wheel jumps up, then the seat immediately follows. The nose of the seat then rams up HARD into...well. I want to be delicate here. It hit me somewhere in between where it would've kicked me in the nuts, or anally violated me as badly as Michael Clark Duncan would. Still a pretty sensitive area.

I fall off (into some dirt luckily) and immediately hop back up, walk over to the idling truck in front of me, rip the driver out of his seat and proceed to administer a beatdown of Old Testament proportions. Nah, just kidding, that would've been nice to do. I writhed around on the ground like a fish for about 20 seconds, then spit up a fair amount of blood. Probably somewhere between Neo in the Matrix where Agent Smith kicks his ass for the first time, and Jubei from Ninja Scroll. As far as I can tell I'm not cut and didn't bite my tongue, so that's a bit worrisome, but I'm also concerned for my poor nether regions.

I did eventually get up (the truck was long gone) and thank goodness I was close to home, so I managed to walk the bike the rest of the way. The front rim is WRECKED, and maybe the fork or stem, but other than that it seems okay. Those can all be replaced easily.

As I got home I coughed up blood a few more times, but less each time. I vaguely considered going to the ER, but it was pretty far away and I don't think it was serious enough to warrant an ambulance. I got the bike home, went in the house, found the last two Percocet from my phantom side pains back in June, and swallowed those about 20 minutes ago.

I'm gonna try to get some sleep and see how I feel in the morning. I almost certainly have to go to the hospital, but I don't want to be all melodramatic and call an ambulance or call someone to come get me. If I still feel like shit in the morning, I'll go. If no one's around, I guess I might call a cab. I don't think anything's seriously wrong. It hurts to breathe, but I hit the ground pretty hard so I probably just had the wind knocked out of me. I stopped coughing up blood about half an hour ago. I still taste it, but my mouth was kind of full of it for awhile so I'll probably taste it for awhile to come.

I certainly can't sit, I'm curled up in bed with my laptop as I write this. It actually doesn't even hurt that much down there, it's more kind of numb and throbbing. Also Percocet is pretty awesome stuff. I guess I should probably start worrying about how to get to work and around for the forseeable future, but I highly doubt anyone's going to question it if I call out of work tomorrow and spend the day figuring all that stuff out.

I swear to God if I ever find the dude that came up behind me I'm going to break his fucking neck.

Mechanical Problems

You know, I'd always assumed a bike is a reasonably simple machine. 2 wheels, a frame basically consisting of two connected triangles, some gears. This past week has disabused me of that thought process.

About two weeks ago, a bit less, I ran over some caltrops. Caltrops basically look like the metal things in a game of jacks, except without the little balls on the end. They were invented to stop cavalry charges about 3000 years ago, you'd seed the field with them and the horses would get their feet messed up by running over them. In the ensuing 3 millenia, however, apparently their purpose has changed somewhat, in that they are now designed solely to piss me off.

So I ran over the caltrops, which didn't just fuck up the tubes in my tires, but the tires themselves. I didn't realize that at first, naturally, so I just replaced the tube and it kept blowing up within 3 seconds. The tube was poking out of a gash in the tire, and popping from being under too much pressure. At this point a reasonable person would've simply replaced the tire too.

"Nonsense" I declared (to my cat), "I'm not going to spend TWENTY DOLLARS on some new tire when all this needs is a bit of clever monkey wrenching!" First I tried just inflating the tube to 40 PSI, instead of 110. This worked for a little while, but the extra heat that created (I don't know why underinflated tires heat up more than fully inflated ones, ask someone smarter than me. They just do) caused the rubber to start to fail even worse around the gash, so the tube started popping out again and blowing up.

So then I decided to use some tire patches on the inside of the tire, which would prevent the tube from sticking out. "Genius!" I cried (to my cat, who gave me a look of deep disdain and wandered over to the corner to lick her own crotch somehow) and figured all was well. Except I still had a small tube graveyard, and no new tire tubes to replace it with. I decided that it would be foolish to buy new tubes, because if I did that I'd spend as much as I would've on a new tire, and then this whole sequence of events would've seemed stupid because if I'd just bought the tire in the first place I wouldn't need new tubes and I'd have a shiny new tire. With me so far? Yeah neither am I.

So I figured I'd find the least damaged tube, patch it up, and use that for awhile. I'm not sure what my end game was at this point. Eventually tubes (and even tires) wear out, so I guess my thought was that if I somehow coaxed another, oh I don't know, 1000 miles out of this horrible configuration, then I'd have vindicated myself somehow and could claim I'd have needed new tubes and tires anyway. But to my dismay, I'd used all of my patching equipment for the busted tire.

"Curses!" I exclaimed, causing my cat to jerk awake, look at me with contempt, and finally don a miniature fedora and suitcase and leave the house, slamming the door behind her. Now I was in a pickle, because a patch kit costs about 8 dollars at the good bike store (which is far away), but to get there I'd have to go buy a tube from the much closer, crappier bike store that doesn't sell decent patch kits. I was stuck!

But then true inspiration occurred. What if I put glue on the back side of the patch I put inside the tire, and put the damaged part of the tube inside the tire at that exact spot? Fantastic! So I spent, honest to God, three hours setting that up, then inflated the tire and rushed to the good bike store. By the time I got there, the tire was basically flat again. Apparently the tire didn't seal up right against the patch.

So now I've got the tube glued to the inside of the tire. I can't get it out without ripping off the original patch and starting from square one. Except I'm at worse than square one because now I have a ruined tire, ruined tube, AND I'm 10 miles from home. When the bike store guy saw the corpse of my tube dangling from inside the tire, he said "Dude, what are you DOING?". Suddenly I realized: I'm an idiot. With a sense of deep shame, I bought a new tire, new tubes, and a new patch kit. Grand total: 75 bucks. For those of you keeping score (editor's note: Fuck you) that's 55 bucks more than if I'd just bought the new tire to start with.

The lesson to be learned here is that A) Seriously, I'm retarded and B) you can't mickey mouse repairs on a bike. I'm going to have to radically rethink my packing list in terms of spare parts, because I CANNOT be going through this shit when I'm stranded in the middle of black bear country or something.

Let's just see how many people read this damn thing

Hey you. Yes you. I need your help. I need you to pick out what movies I'll bring with me on this trip.

You see, I already have the music all planned out*, now I need to get the movies taken care of. The only problem is because I'm cheap, my Ipod Touch is only the 8 gig version, which means I have to be choosy about what I bring with me. I can fit 4 movies, so I've compiled the following list and you all are going to vote for which ones to bring. Voting ends at midnight on August 15th, so I'll have long enough to download them illegally off Limewire purchase them lawfully from Apple before I head out.

Vote for THREE movies please. I know I said I can fit 4, but one of them is going to be Planet Terror. This is not up for negotiation.

Without further ado, here's the list.


What Movies Should I bring with me?




* Select Qkumba Zoo's "The Child Inside", set to repeat, listen until the sun explodes.