Legs had a day off today----so hence Hand-Cycle night. It's fun rode out to Sageville on Heritage Trail
Tuesday, August 11, 2015
Monday, August 10, 2015
Sunday, August 9, 2015
Fat bike travels.
A nice lady named Carolyn informed me via Email that she enjoyed reading my blog and enjoyed the 'fun stories.' So that being said I thought let's start a posting, I think writing is good way to clean out and sort some of your thoughts.
Yesterday was just a day of play for me. Those days are needed at times. Some have relationship, family, work, house, and life responsibilities to keep up with. Busier then is sometimes good for us. So take time to play. I don't think we get old and stop playing, I think we stop playing and then get old.
Started the day out cruising down to Farmers Market along with visiting the Food Co-Op on my FAT Bike to fill up my knapsack and obtain some good food, hear good music, and chat with others a bit.
Yesterday was just a day of play for me. Those days are needed at times. Some have relationship, family, work, house, and life responsibilities to keep up with. Busier then is sometimes good for us. So take time to play. I don't think we get old and stop playing, I think we stop playing and then get old.
Started the day out cruising down to Farmers Market along with visiting the Food Co-Op on my FAT Bike to fill up my knapsack and obtain some good food, hear good music, and chat with others a bit.
Never take a FAT bike to the grocery store. They tend to want to eat everything.
After riding back home and stocking food in the shelves the plan was to spend the rest of the day out in the country riding FAT bike and thus we did.
Wasn't planning on riding 70 miles but my legs felt good, the day was beautiful, and we rode.
My excitement for the day was to find a new bench on Heritage trail, I must lead a simple life.
Saw the herd out cooling down in the creek. Was wondering if they would share. I ponder if the good Lord did not want us to eat them creatures why did he make them out of hamburger????
Afterwards desperately needing a shower coated with a mix of sweat and gravel dust. But heck the Brewers were on. ;-)
So we were both starved and had a nice dinner...... ;-)
So it was a good day. I couldn't help but notice the days are getting shorter, had me thinking about Fall riding. Seems there is beauty in every season, including the seasons of our life's.
Cheers...thanks for stopping.
Dave
Sunday, January 4, 2015
It was beautiful.....
What my daughter said about me after winning Tuscobia 35 yesterday that is. She's relatively quite a newbie in cycling. She works hard, gets her homework done, and comes ready to push herself. I sure look forward to getting back on my feet, and riding/racing with her, that is if I can even hold her wheel.
Melissa's Face Book post.
"I did it, I wanted to make my dad proud today and I did - I won the woman's 35 mile Tuscobia fat bike race. My first snow bike race and longest snow ride to date, I was dutifully chased for almost the whole thing after flailing at the start.
When I struggled, it was very comforting to look down at the old cycling computer that my dad gave me when I first started biking. I didn't reset the odometer, as it has travelled over 9000 miles with him and I thought it to be good luck. He's an inspiration - we've both made come backs from some dark places. He's currently in one while recovering from knee replacement. I rode for him today since he cannot. "
On the recovery side things are going well. At first setbacks were more common than gains. However now at a little over 5 weeks out from knee replacement I can ride the stationary bike for 40 minutes with some resistance and that is improving daily. Walking on the Treadmill for 30 minutes at 3.5 miles an hour.
None the less it takes work, the knee is going to hurt, swelling is common, but my goal, my target of getting back to long distance cycling as soon as possible makes it all worthwhile.
Melissa's Face Book post.
"I did it, I wanted to make my dad proud today and I did - I won the woman's 35 mile Tuscobia fat bike race. My first snow bike race and longest snow ride to date, I was dutifully chased for almost the whole thing after flailing at the start.
When I struggled, it was very comforting to look down at the old cycling computer that my dad gave me when I first started biking. I didn't reset the odometer, as it has travelled over 9000 miles with him and I thought it to be good luck. He's an inspiration - we've both made come backs from some dark places. He's currently in one while recovering from knee replacement. I rode for him today since he cannot. "
On the recovery side things are going well. At first setbacks were more common than gains. However now at a little over 5 weeks out from knee replacement I can ride the stationary bike for 40 minutes with some resistance and that is improving daily. Walking on the Treadmill for 30 minutes at 3.5 miles an hour.
None the less it takes work, the knee is going to hurt, swelling is common, but my goal, my target of getting back to long distance cycling as soon as possible makes it all worthwhile.
Friday, December 19, 2014
The Beginning...it is finished.
This was going to be my 5th and I hope final
surgery on my left knee since a major injury way back in 1974. With much nervousness
I waited in the pre-surgery room. Waiting,
listening to every sound, wondering when
the party was going to start. The worry made every minute seem like 10 the
clock wasn’t moving. It was time to get this over with. Finally nurses entered
my room and wheeled me out and down the hallway.
The last recollection of consciousness that I have before my
knee replacement surgery was being wheeled into what looked like a large room
full of tools, lights, machines, and parts on tables. There were people moving
about totally covered in masks, goggles, gloves, and surgical garb. I was
looking for my doctor. Dr. David Field. I trusted him, I picked him to be the
one to cut my old knee out today and replace it with a mixture of alloys and
synthetic parts. He was nowhere to be seen. Was he here?
I could tell they must have put some sort of a sedative into my
IV drip. Everything became a dream in dream there was nothing to be worried
about any longer. The last thing I remember was a man leaned over and
introduced himself as my anesthetist and helped me up to sit and lean over some
device and place my chin into a cup to help support my leaning position. I knew
what he was going to do, he was going insert a syringe between two of my lower
vertebras and inject a solution into my lower spine that would totally deaden
everything on my body from that point down.
I felt his fingers pushing very hard against my lower vertebras or was
it a syringe?
Then all lights, all consciousness left, the butchery started, the saws, drills, scalpels, and trained hands went to work.
Then all lights, all consciousness left, the butchery started, the saws, drills, scalpels, and trained hands went to work.
There was no time gap from that point to now. It seems
instantaneous I was laying in the recovery room. It is like waking up from a
strange dream, and then going in out of it for the next couple of hours. Slowly
the ‘outside world’ becomes the denominate reality. Now I remembered I had knee
replacement surgery.
I was wondering how it went as I watched blurry people walk
back and forth and talked to each other in words I could not quite understand
or could not quite hear. I closed my eyes again and left the room in my mind as
somebody shook my arm and called my name. “David” and said “Surgery went well
you are in the recovery room.”
I was now starting to think more then I was sleeping.
Looking around I could see digital readings on devices around my bed. There
were sensors attached to my body letting the medical staff know what was going
on inside of me. There was an IV bag dripping fluids into my body through a
needle that was taped to my left wrist. I had a catheter in place letting the
IV fluids drip back out.
I saw my two feet sticking out of the sheets, no matter how
hard I tried to move them, wiggle my toes, nothing moved.
I saw my lady, sitting next to me, that helped comfort me.
I reached under the covers and it felt like I was touching
somebody else, it wasn’t me there was no feelings to be felt.
Somehow the day drifted into the evening and evening drifted
into the night, I was now alone with my thoughts, listening to hospital sounds,
as I drifted in and out of sleep.
I was starting to feel restless, distressful, a spinal tap
stops pain totally, but unlike narcotic pain control does not give that calming
effect that has become a national addiction dilemma. I still could not move my legs much and I kept
trying to pull myself up, using my arms to try and sit up. Feelings and pain
started to show up in my left leg. My leg felt warm and sweaty I thought.
My automated Blood Pressure check started. It automatically
starts cuffing my arm every 15 minutes so if I did dose off it wakes me. My
blood pressure had been running alarming high, and I was told it was due the
pain and trauma involved with surgery.
This time it topped the charts with the high end being 175
which triggered an alarm at the nurse’s station. A nurse quickly arrives and
alarmingly notices there is blood on the edges of the mattress and pulls back
the covers we both see I am lying on a blood soaked mattress and my leg gauze
is also soaked in blood. A second nurse arrives and my leg wraps are rapidly
stripped off. Now we see the source of bleeding. In my moving around the two
tubes that were left inside my leg and attached to a pump to help drain excess
blood and fluids were pulled out. Blood was burping and one of the nurses
applied pressure again the holes in my leg to stop the bleeding.
Wednesday, November 26, 2014
ZERO TO 100 (DAY 1)
IT IS FINISHED
Today was the day. Today was the day I thought about 1000s of times over and over again through the years. Today was the day I had my knee replaced after being told 40 years ago after a traumatic injury that this day would arrive.
Most of what happens next I don’t remember, besides power pain medication I was also given a shot of an amnesia drug.
GOOD NIGHT
Tuesday, November 25, 2014
Zero to One Hundred day zero.
I moved all my bikes out of my basement and into the garage. It will be months before I ride them again and they are just crowding and overcrowded basement. Tomorrow I say goodbye to my left knee. It has served me well in spite of a severe injury in 1974 and four repair surgeries over the years. After ripping out ligaments and cartilage I still was able to spend 1000s of hours powerlifting, swimming, running, and cycling over the years. But now the time has come, the last four years my knee has told me when I can ride, how far and how hard I can ride. Yes I did have 126 mile days, grueling hill climbs and 350 mile weeks on the bike this year but I also had weeks and weeks when I could not ride, cortisone shots, days walking with a cane, and hours on the couch with ice bags.
I am compulsive. I have been making notes for weeks in
preparation of everything I need to do to get everything ready to make a house
livable when walking is difficult,
stairs hurt, and high powered pain killers race through my bloodstream.
My indoor bike waits in the dining room for my return from the hospital for rehab.
My indoor bike waits in the dining room for my return from the hospital for rehab.
So tomorrow morning a team of medical professionals will
remove what remains of my damaged left knee and replace with titanium alloy and
polyethylene parts. I am going into this as strong as I can be; I’ve kept
bicycling up to this weekend. I am scheduled for 6 weeks of therapy afterwards and
my goal is to conquer every challenge my therapists throw at me.
I plan to chronicle my journey, the ups, downs, and
everything in between of a cyclist whose goal is to work hard and get back on his
bike and ride, one mile at a time until the day I can ride 100 miles again. Hence the title “0 to 100”
Friday, September 12, 2014
RUNNING SUCKS BUMPER STICKER
https://www.etsy.com/shop/MrDaveyGie?ref=search_shop_redirect
Saturday, September 6, 2014
Saturday, April 12, 2014
"The Hill"
I am climbing this hill and somehow I feel more alive than I have in a long time. MY heart rate has maxed there is no more, I am peaked, this is my limit. There is no room for any mishap, I must ride perfect or I will be off the bike and pushing it up the hill. My thighs are pounding, I am looking straight down now, not knowing how much of this climb is left I don’t want to know, only the moment is important . I will give everything I have to make it to the top and no one will know but me. That is cycling
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