I haven't blogged since last winter (see Mon Avis blog at http://bicycliste.blogspot.com/ if you are really bored), and since blogs about a year-old trip to Paris may strike some as a little stale, I decided to start a new blog. I didn't take any trips to Paris (or anywhere else) this year, so the gentle reader is stuck with tales of glory and heroism (or at least a couple decent crashes) from my summer of racing.News flash: my wife and I are waiting to hear from the Chinese government regarding travel plans to adopt a little girl. We applied in the summer of 2005, our dossier was accepted January 12, 2006, and we have been waiting ever since to hear from China. According to the best estimates of our adoption agency, IAS http://www.ias-ww.com/, we are within a couple of months of getting our referral (which is a picture and medical report of the infant selected for us, and a paper to sign accepting the adoption). Once we get our referral, it's usually just a matter of 4 to 6 weeks before we travel to receive our little girl. DOC'S ADVICE: Keep your dial tuned to this station for ongoing updates.
Here's my road racing season in fast forward: bought a Scott Addict, trained with some really fast guys on the GrandStay Hotels team (the Swansons, Mean Dawg, Micah, Matt, Bell, Bagley, Coyle, Casper, BK, and Chia), got better and faster almost every race, took 2nd overall at the omnium race in the Master 35+ group (the hometown boys went 1-2), narrowly missed the podium for Rider of the Year for the M35+ category, and moved up to cat 2 with 28 points. Not bad for my second year of serious racing. The road has been berry berry good to me.
The MTB, on the other hand, has not been particularly good to me. Last December I fell really hard while riding a borrowed single speed on icy trails, and screwed up my left shoulder pretty badly. It still hurts to sleep on that side. Then in Chequamegon last month, I was in the top 50 or so on the asphalt before Rosie's field when some poor sucker went down just in front of me in the middle of the peloton. We were elbow to elbow, so I had to roll right over top of him, and I launched pretty good, landing on my left shoulder and ribs. I didn't hurt my shoulder much, but I managed to break my 9th rib. I went ahead and rode the other 39 miles of the race, and took 5 minutes off last year's time, but didn't break the top 100 like I wanted to. After that it really hurt to sleep on my left side.
Then last Saturday I took a sweet Giant Anthem Advanced out for a spin around the North Loop, and after getting cocky on a fully suspended MTB for the first time, I caught a pedal on a turn and flew off just like I did at Chequamegon, except that I landed on my right shoulder this time. Now I have two mildly separated shoulders (but I can still ride just fine--the only thing I can't do is lift heavy stuff that my wife wants me to move). Only now it hurts to sleep on either side. DOC'S ADVICE: don't pretend you can ride fast on a MTB when you really can't.
Maybe when I die and go to heaven (which may not be long if I keep crashing my MTB), God will let me ride really fast like Doug Swanson or Jim Bell. For now, I've hung up my CX bike for the fall and decided to order one of those Anthems so I can injure more body parts. No, I'm not going to the orthopod, and I'm not going to get anything x-rayed. DOC'S ADVICE: try to take more of your own good advice sometimes, and don't be so pig-headed.
At least I'm smart enough to stay far, far away from these LUNATICS!!!!>>>>>>>>Stay tuned and see if I post any more updates from the disabled list.
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