Neglect

Neglect seems to be a theme in my life lately and this blog is no exception - time to dust out the corners, vacuum up the spider webs and get back to spinning my life story.

Though I haven't been writing much lately, I have been doing a lot of thinking and cogitating.  The tour is one of those watershed moments where "before" and "after" are rather sharply demarcated.  So re-evaluating and readjusting my life were very much on my mind and it has been a quagmire of sorts, trying to figure out what I need to do, what I want to do and how much of it is under my control.

Some parts of my life were rather neglected in the intensity of my preparations for the bike tour - I almost forgot how to knit a sock, the spinning wheels and spindles have collected dust, and while Kim the Magnificent has kept my house in spit and polish order, the outside of the house and the yard were really deteriorating fast.

So.  The demolished carport was replaced by a shiny new one, a deck has been added to make going in and out of the back door easier and safer (standing on icy concrete steps while trying to open the door, hang on to grocery sacks and maneuver around the dog was a scary proposition).  The trim and soffits have been repaired and replaced with vinyl and aluminum without losing any of the details or charm of the original wood trim - I was holding my breath, but my contractor did a great job.  The yard has been cleaned up - bushes trimmed, stumps removed, pruning done.  Looks like someone who cares lives here now.

My fiber pursuits have been asserting themselves again, with two baby blankets and three pairs of socks off the needles recently and two sweaters waiting in line.  I haven't fully integrated spinning back into the rotation yet, but it's coming.  And sometime in the next couple of weeks, Kim and I are going to tackle the attic and finallyfinallyfinally get it organized so I can move around and work efficiently.  Once the looms are set up, my friend Jane has promised to come help me relearn how to weave - anyone want a dish towel?

The last thing I need to do is take myself in hand and take care of my health.  Weeks of heat, followed by weeks of rain have slowed down my biking to almost nothing. I need/want to get back to the kinds of miles I was doing before the tour, whether I have riding companions or not, whether this is my preferred kind of riding or not.  Just DO it.  I've also gotten caught up on all those not fun, but necessary screenings and treatments that make sure I don't die of something preventable or treatable.   Flu shot, shingles vaccine, blood pressure maintenance and screening tests are all done now.  I am in good health but I could be in excellent health if I worked at it a bit, so that is what I plan to do.

And just to get things kicked off in the right direction, tomorrow morning I will be sending in  my registration to WomanTours for the Atlantic Coast tour in spring of 2015.

Fall in Missouri, Maple trees on fire.

New Trim - bird proof/wasp proof

New deck, to be painted when the wood cures.

Moving into Fall - finally.

The deck is done.

 And I'll be able to paint it as soon as the wood cures.

The trim is done.

And should be maintenance free for like, EVER.

My allergic reaction/asthma flare is over.

My husband's burns are healing rapidly.

So.  I am on my way to New Mexico and Texas to visit family.  I'm hoping for a nice trip, maybe a little cycling, a lot of hugs and good times.  By the time I get back it should be perfect cycling weather in Missouri.

More Fun on a Bike

In spite of blistering heat and one week of non-stop rain, the Fun on a Bike program continues.  It's small, but keeps adding members one at a time.  It is such a thrill for me to be able to share what I know and what I love about cycling.

After the rains stopped

It's also fun to make new friends who enrich my life, widen my experience and reward me with smiles because they are having Fun on a Bike.

Back in business - the long version

After the tour, my fingertips were quite numb.  All my fingers and just the tips.  My instinct was to blame it on injuries from a head on car collision more than 20 years ago.  In the crash ( I was driving) I was kind of wrapped around the seat belt with my left side receiving most of the forward momentum.  My neck and shoulder were painful for a loooong time and triggered many a severe migraine.  I did everything I could to prevent/ameliorate that pain - mostly by trying to prevent any movement that made it feel like my neck was going to simply break in half and my head would fall off.  Stiff neck?  I had it.  I cultivated it.

Over the years I learned many ways to stretch and massage my neck and shoulder to make it somewhat more flexible and relieve the tension.  And when I started riding a bike, I was very very careful to find ways that would keep my neck and shoulder from tightening up and causing pain and/or immobility.  My whole bike setup was geared toward that and I thought I had been pretty successful.

But one day as the tour crossed into Arizona, not just my neck and superficial shoulder muscles were tightening up, but also the muscles that ran underneath my shoulder blades.  The whole left side of my chest was tight and getting tighter, making it difficult and painful to ride.  And that's when Carla the Wonderful entered my life.  Carla was a fellow rider and is a physical therapist from Brazil.  As I joined a group of riders under an underpass on the shoulder of I-10, I asked Carla if she could help me.  Her magical fingers worked their magic and I was able to ride another 30 miles or so that day.  A few days later, after another aborted ride, we were roommates and she showed me ways to stretch the tight muscles and then get them moving into better positions.  She saved my trip.



When I got home, I asked my doctor for a referral to a physical therapist who specialized in geriatric sports medicine.  He checked my medication list for side effects, sent some blood for B vitamin levels and referred me to a sports medicine doctor.  The sports medicine doc checked for carpal tunnel, elbow issues and thoracic outlet syndrome, and since I didn't appear to have any of those, HE sent me to physical therapy.

I have been going for about 8 weeks now and I have most of the sensation back in my fingertips.  We have worked on stretching out all those muscles I had put into "protect the neck at all costs mode', and strengthening the opposing muscles.  I have gained strength and fexibility in my shoulders and a wider range of motion - my posture is better and I think I might even be taller.

So, back to the handle bars.  The trekking (butterfly) handlebars were chosen specifically to give me a more upright posture and more hand positions on the bike.  They worked to a point, but my hands were usually flat on the bars with thumbs pointing at each other.  Getting a different hand position meant moving them out to a width wider than my shoulders.  Clearly, they weren't the final solution, but what was?

I'll spare you the details and frustrations, but finally I have gotten a setup that I think will improve my postion on the bike and preserve all the progress I have made with my international crew of physical therapists. 

This is how the handlebars look now.  Bullhorn bars upside down and flipped backward with bar end shifters modified to be thumb shifters.







And this is the new hand position.  Hands at shoulder width, elbows flexed, shoulders and neck relaxed.  I did have some hand numbness on my 20 mile ride this morning, and I will probably fiddle around with the positions of the components, but I think this is going to work.

Proof of concept

Now that my physical therapy is making such improvements in my form and function, I am back to rearranging the bike in earnest.

I got the idea of using a bullhorn bar after seeing Judi Soule's bike on the tour.  This is her setup.

Turns out that my components won't fit on this diameter bar, and no matter how many places I searched and how persistent I was, I couldn't find a handlebar the right diameter.  Enter consultation with machinists and my husband was able to grind out the center diameter of my components to fit the new handlebar.  This is the current setup - just put in place to figure out if this riding position was really going to be better for me.  

This puts my hands at no more than shoulder width apart, gives me a neutral wrist position, and doesn't put stress on my elbows or shoulders.  I haven't been able to ride very far this way because of weather, but it feels very natural and comfortable.  Because of the shape of the shifters I can't get the components in the very best positions - we'll solve that problem by using bar-end shifters mounted on Paul Thumbies.  That combination should give me almost unlimited possiblities for shifter and brake positions.  It will also be a lot cheaper and easier than starting over with a new bike.

Pictures of the final configuration as soon as the parts come in.

Fun on a Bike

Last night was the second installment of Fun on a Bike.  This time three people showed up, along with my friend Sally, who is piling up the miles since starting to ride a bike in April.

We started with "do you know how much air your tires need?" and "do you know how to get air into the tire?" and went on from there.  There were two "mature" women and one younger guy on a 22" fixie.  I am hoping that the group will grow and that everyone will be able to find someone to ride with.

Because it was a small group, I was able to address many of their concerns - "what kind of bike", "what makes one bike different from another",  "how do I stop without falling over?"  It was fun for all of us and we will meet again in the same place next week for further exciting adventures.

Note to self - "you have a camera on your phone ---- USE it."

Progress is slow, but it IS progress

While I was on the tour, I had some problems with my hands going numb.  My friend, Carla the Wonderful, was able to help me make some position/posture changes that helped with that, but when I got back home, my fingertips were still numb.  All of the fingers and only the fingertips, left hand more than right.

My primary care doctor ruled out medication side effects and Vit B deficiencies and referred me to a sports medicine doctor who ruled out carpal tunnel, elbow problems and thoracic outlet syndrome.  He referred me to physical therapy and I have been seen there twice a week for about three weeks now.

So I was right.  The problem is in my neck/shoulder and is probably a result of the head-on collision I was in some 20+ years ago.  And now, what to do about it.  As therapy progressed, a lot of the tight muscles stretched and lengthened, but when they did, it put me back to where I was after the accident - my neck felt very fragile and my head seemed very heavy.  I felt like I had to balance my head on top of my neck or it would just fall off.  That was the feeling I had all those years ago and it made me feel insecure.  

My physical therapy assistant, a very nice young man fresh out of school, hit the nail on the head.  He said "You traded flexibility and function for stability" - give the man a gold star!  That is exactly what I did.  I worked very hard at keeping my neck and shoulder positioned in such a way that I didn't get the nerves all riled up and develop a migraine.  The headaches were debilitating and I did everything I could to avoid them, because at the time there wasn't much available to treat them.

So we've gone from about a 50/50 split between stretching/relaxing the tight muscles and developing their antagonists to more of a 25/75 split.  It seems to be working very well.  As my muscles develop and my posture/position improve, I feel less insecure and the stretching/relaxing goes better too.  Annnnnnnnd, this week I am starting to get sensation back in my fingertips.  Big sigh of relief.

I am trying to make some changes to my bike too, but that isn't going quite as well - stay tuned for further developments.  But there WILL be more bike tours in my future, count on it.

Gratuitous wildflower pictures from my Sunday morning ride.