King!

The new wheel is complete! King hub and Stan's ZTR 355 rim. I'm hesitant to even take it outside until the weather decides to break a bit. I know what you're thinking: "It's a mountain bike wheel. Stop being such a ____". Ok, point taken. I guess the next best excuse that I have is that I don't have any tires yet.

Over the edge

What I still like

So as you know from some recent posts, I will succumb to my mid-life semi-crisis by freeing myself from the station wagon and getting into something sporty and fun. (Life's too short, you know). I'm back to looking at MINI Coopers. They're fast, happy, and get 35mpg. And as you can see from the picture I found floating in the Googlesphere, I can get a bike rack on the roof easily.

One week later

Seriosly, I never thought that knee surgery would go so well. I used crutches to get from the car to the house on the day of surgery and havn't looked at them since.

See, it's practical!

My biggest concern with going from a big honkin' station wagon to a swift and nimble (and small) GTI is the ability to carry bicycles.

Looks like this is a non-issue as there are many options that will allow the use of a fancy hitch-mounted bike rack.

The best part? I'll never have to put a dirty MTB wheel in my uber-clean GTI!

So, it's looking more and more like I'll be test-driving a VW this weekend!

Is this my fast?

I am not a station wagon type of guy, yet I've been driving a Subaru Outback wagon just like this one since 2007. Don't get me wrong, it's a really great car...

But I really miss our VW. There are currently 2 of these Fahrenheit edition GTIs for sale within a couple hours of Roanoke. Both are reasonably priced. Perhaps one will become mine and I can make peace with my fast again. (You VeeDub folks know what I'm talking about!)

My knee is fixed, time to shave my head

This story starts about a year ago, I think. I had just completed a successful rehab of a dislocated shoulder and was having a nice frigid mountain bike ride with Gordon and Laura. Suddenly the 1 inch of fresh powder that I was barreling over at about 20 mph turned into a solid sheet of ice. Being a hockey player, I actually like sheets of ice, just not on a mountain bike. And especially not at speed. So, as you could imagine, body met ice instantly and violently. Laura slid into me, and Gordon into her. Luckily they were both uninjured. I was writhing in pain. Every joint hurt. It was as if something yanked my bike from beneath me from the left side like there was a rope tied to the frame. Upon impact, every appendage was bent in a direction in opposition to the way God had attached them. However, my newly-strengthened shoulder was perfect! I was happy. Adrenaline (along with a pinch of stupidity and stubbornness) kept me out on that ride for about another hour.

Days went by and most of the pain(s) subsided. Along into the "off-season" I pushed. P90X is my weapon of choice for building winter strength. Push ups, pull ups, Yoga X, and lots and lots of plyometrics. Very high-impact stuff. My left knee reminded me of the twisted crash the more I jumped on it with reckless abandon. I had pain it that same knee almost every year prior after doing P90X for a few months, but it always went away when I moved from high-impact back to pedaling.

That did not happen in 2010. The pain continued and worsened the more I trained. I'd back off a bit, driving myself mentally crazy, and try to make up for the lull on the other side once the pain subsided. Train, race, hurt like hell, rest, repeat.

Off to the ortho I go...

The swelling in my knee was an obvious indication that something was brewing in there that wasn't going away on it's own. Long story short, the progression went something like this over the next few months: Prescribed anti-inflammatory drugs, followed by reduced pain & swelling, followed by my stupidity, followed by more pain & swelling, followed by Paula telling me to rest a bit, repeat.

The MRI was ordered a month back or so and revealed (surprise!) a torn medial meniscus. Surgery was scheduled for yesterday Jan 7th, and went down without issue. I have to thank the great folks at Roanoke Ambulatory Surgery for taking care of me in such an awesome manner. Everyone there made the experience extremely easy on me. An extra-special thanks goes to Dr. George Henning for his professionalism! Kudos Doc!

So now the 2011 season begins. The base miles start to accumulate as soon as Dr. Henning says they can. I gotta tell ya this much, dislocating a shoulder is infinitely more painful than having a knee scoped!

The shaving my head part in the title was just to get your attention!

The countdown starts

Surgery to repair my torn medial meniscus is this Friday the 7th. Hard to believe that such a small injury could cause so much pain. Hopefully I can put that all behind me in about a week or two and be back to my normal self. Well OK, I've never really been entirely normal...