LifestyleHQ bike

I bought a new bike. A commuter bike, which is TOTALLY different from all of the other bikes I have. This bike is to be used in commuting across Cambridge, MA, which has the stated goal of maintaining their roads at 3rd world country levels. This is what they mean when they say they are 'citizens of the world', you can have the experience of driving through Mogadishu without ever leaving MA.

An add on Craigslist for LifestyleHQ bikes caught my attention. They are selling a single-speed aluminum bike for $300. The specs on the web page are a bit vague, but look promising. I called the number and spoke to a representative of the company who was super helpful! He filled in the missing pieces and is an enthusiastic advocate for the bikes, I like that!

Sight unseen, I ordered a bike to be delivered to my house. It was already late Tuesday, but the bike arrived Thursday. Nice!

What can you expect for $300? If you are even a semi-serious cyclist that doesn't even buy you a decent wheel.

First, the box is neat and appears intact.

Using a utility knife to show how it is packed, I'm super impressed. Although the rep told me they do a great job packing, basically everyone says that and we all have a standard for what that means. This exceeds expectations:

Unpacking is easy, everything is carefully laid out and nothing will scratch anything else.

I threw it on the stand to assemble. There isn't much to do: put on the front wheel, attach the handlebars, and give it the once-over.

This is a small thing, but I am impressed that the bolts come with Locktite on them. I usually add it to bolts that are static, it's really nice to see someone thought about this small detail.

I put the front wheel on the truing stand just to check out the build: super impressed now, the wheel looks good and is spot on.

 Air up the tires and it's ready to ride.

The only adjustment I made was to the brakes: the cable was a bit loose in back and the barrel adjuster for the front had to let out a couple turns, but that's it.

Time lapsed from the time I put the box in the workshop until I took it for a spin is less than 15 minutes! I've built a lot of bikes over the years and never had anything this easy!

I'm impressed with the way it rides. Weight is in a good range so it isn't too heavy. It rides well and isn't too bad at soaking up the bumps, but it is an aluminum bike and is a bit more harsh than carbon or even steel. I haven't ridden fixie yet, just single-speed, but at some point I'll flip the rear wheel around and give it a go.

There is some oversteer if you try to ride without hands that forces me to compensate a goodly amount. I suspect the headset is a bit tight, which I can feel, and that's the classic cause of this. I don't have a good way to check the dish in the rear wheel, which might be the #2 cause. Haven't had a chance to play with this yet as it isn't a big deal.

The tires don't have a name on them, I have no idea what brand they are but they appear sturdy and will do the job. I suspect they are heavier than they need to be, but I'm not going to check. I've already ran over a fair amount of broken glass and explored some pot holes up close, and so far no issues.

 The seat isn't something I would chose and may be the first upgrade, but it works well enough. It's finished with something like suede, so it catches the seams on my shorts. A smooth finish allows material to slip a bit and is more comfortable. Seats are HIGHLY subjective, your mileage will vary.

Again, I am super impressed with the bike and at this price point there is NOTHING that comes close! I'm seriously thinking of buying a second and shipping it to my kids on the West coast so I have a bike to ride when I visit!

Chris went back to The Log and took some pictures, which helps visualize what happened. I included a picture of the log in the other post, but you can't see the end where the crash took place:

Usually I just you ride off the end. There should be a print of my face in roughly the center of the large slab of granite! You can clearly see the rock and tree that caught my wheel, starting a catapult actions.

Fortunately, a nights rain washed away the uh, accident detritus.

Last night we rode in the Mt Pisgah Conservation Area starting in Berlin. It was a warm day and both Chris and I lamented that we only had long sleeve jerseys. I put leg warmers on as I thought it would get cold later, but they were unnecessary.

Riding in the woods this time of year is both magical and challenging. We started just before sundown and everything under the trees was bathed in golden light, somehow thick and infusing the forest floor with magic. Yet the same forest floor is covered in leaves and pine needles, making tire traction an elusive quantity and hiding rocks and roots. This makes for interesting riding.

The first part of Mt Pisgah includes a hill that just keeps going. It's hard to maintain wheel contact on a steep trail covered in leaves, but tonight my nemesis was slick roots that my tires continually spun on. Chris fared better than I did, I think it's his new square tire pattern with extra wide tread. Still, it was ridable with only the occasional slip.

This area is a lot of fun to ride, lots of twisty trails and obstacles. But after a while the rocks get tedious, every trail has lots of rocks. Not large round rocks that make for a technical challenge, but lots of small rocks that beat you up and check your speed.

At one point we were jamming down a trail on the side of a hill. I saw Chris disappear as he split between two trees in the trail, then I heard him crash. I stopped at the trees while he dusted himself off. Nothing serious, but it'll hurt in the morning. He thought his helmet might be broken as he hit his head pretty hard, but the helmet was intact; and worth far more than he paid for it!

A while later we came to 'The Log'. The log is a downed tree, close to 70' in length, with a dogleg in the middle. Someone used a chainsaw to provide a 6" flat surface over the length. Getting onto the log is the secret to riding it: it's steep and you need enough speed to glide onto the top of it and maintain your balance. There are the ever-present rocks in front of the log, making a smooth approach almost impossible.

Every time we ride here we spend time trying to master the log. Chris has more success than I, but both of us usually make it across. The log is about 18 " off the forest floor, and there are trees and rocks all around it. Most of the time if you lose your balance it's easy to just ride off, or hop your bike sideways. Speed is never an issue here so it's rare we get hurt. Until tonight.

After several tries Chris finally made it all the way across. I hadn't even come close tonight, I couldn't get on top with the right amount of speed. But with one last run before we continued our ride, I had a good line on it.

I rode the length of the log with good balance. But as I approached the end my front tire was drifting close to the right edge, but looked like it would make it. The tire suddenly slipped off the log exactly at the end, and my wheel jammed into the rocks that form the down ramp off the end. The sudden drop and abrupt stop catapulted me onto the rock down ramp. My feet were still attached to the pedals as I whipped around the wedged wheel like a tomahawk.

It threw me pretty hard, and I landed face first on the rock, sliding a bit before my body tumbled. Because the bike dropped so fast I hadn't manage to get my arms up in time to break my fall, it was a full on face plant. Not good.

Chris later said:

The sight of that crash kept me from sleeping well last night. I watched Steve ride the length of the log, and was convinced that he had made it. Then there was the sound of the knobbies tearing down the side of the log as the front wheel slipped off to the left, jammed in the junction of a small boulder and a tree. "NOOOO!", I screamed as Steve's face slammed into the rock. He was face down motionless for a couple seconds, and I thought he was dead. Then he lifted his head and spit a mouthful of blood into his hand. "Huh, never broke teeth riding before", he said. "Could you help me put this visor back on my helmet, I seem to be shaking." He was a mess, and his speech was off enough to know that there was some serious damage in there.

I spit out chunks of teeth and lots of blood. Any wounds to your head bleed a lot, this isn't surprising. Chris could see this wasn't good, so we took the more direct route over the road back to the cars. Still, it was 3 or 4 miles and a good distance through the woods to reach a road, but the road was mostly down hill and it went quickly. Chris took a look before I left and didn't think it was as bad as all the blood would suggest.

I called Diane on the way home and asked her to call the dentist. After berating me, mountain biking, and night riding in particular, she finally agreed to call and made arrangements for the dentist to meet me at the office. I am grateful for this help.

Dr. Tom met me and immediately said "Wow, that's bad". Dr. Tom is the best, extremely competent and a great guy. First thing I told him we need to take pictures before he cleans me up, we gotta preserve this for posterity! He totally agreed, thinks it would make a great Christmas card. It took a while to find a memory card for the camera, but he finally took the pictures. I looked worse than I thought, they are kinda gruesome. I haven't decided if I will post them here or not.

Dr. Tom cleaned me up and looked for any lacerations needing suture. He told me how he worked in a hospital ER that was super busy, and when the doctors found out this dentist knew how to suture they had him sewing up all kinds of folks. He says the first ones weren't very good, it's a bit different sewing up a face vs. sewing up inside someone's mouth, but he got to be pretty good at it. Unfortunately, I was scraped up and had several small cuts, but nothing requiring stitches. Maybe next time.

I couldn't bite down and didn't know why, but the reason became clear: the impact broke my cheekbone where the teeth attach, so the teeth pushed into my mouth. The body is actually designed to do this, and in most facial impacts the teeth are preserved. There still a chance the roots will be damaged or the trauma killed the teeth, but hopefully they'll fix.

Dr. Tom moved the teeth back into place and then cleaned up the jagged edges from the chips. The cheekbone presents a real challenge, however. With the teeth back in place and remaining immovable everything will heal. So he put the moral equivalent of a cast on my teeth using epoxy and Kevlar strand; this will use the stable teeth to hold the others in place, sort of like braces. For the next two weeks, I'm on a liquid diet.

In the end I have two broken crowns, a couple of teeth that may or may not need to be fixed, and a bunch of chips I can live with. I have cuts, scrapes, and bruises on my face to the point I don't recognize myself in the mirror. And I have a loving wife who freaks out over little injuries like this, yeesh.

Bust a cap!

My old mountain bike has been misbehaving the past few months. First, there was trouble with the headset, and then I couldn't get it to shift right (probably due to bent chainrings). At some point I knew I needed a new frame, it was time to retire the Giant V1.

I picked up a Titus ML-1 on a closeout sale at Colorado Cyclist. This is a full suspension bike that is more aggressive than the Giant, and a couple pounds lighter to boot. After I replaced the cranks with a new Shimano SX (very stiff, very nice!), I only needed a new front derailleur and cables to get it on the trail. I love it when that happens! The Titus has more of an XC geometry, good handling and fast, I like it!

I've ridden it a couple of times but still hadn't gotten to know the bike as completely as I would like. Our family vacation in the Berkshires presented a golden opportunity to spend some quality time on the bike. With both of my boys out of the house the estrogen level at home is pretty high, but the girls indulge Dad in his biking as they know it ultimately gives them more time to shop or eat out or generally burn money. Life's little tradeoffs...

Our hotel was right on the edge of Beartown Forest, a state forest with miles of mountain biking trails and lots to explore. My expectations were high as I contemplated ride reports I found on the 'net and studied trail maps.

We arrived on Saturday just before the rain began, and Sunday passed with steady rain continuing. The Weather Channel promised sunny skies on Monday, but when I left the hotel it was still raining lightly. My arrival at the CCC camp inside of Beartown Forest heralded the end of the rain, although it was still overcast.

Everything was wet and there were puddles everywhere. Riding was challenging as my tires routinely slipped on wet rocks, but I thought it was a fun skill test and was enjoying myself. Within the first mile I rode into a smallish puddle that I would estimate to be 2 feet across and 3 feet deep; the depth was completely hidden from me, of course, until I saw my front wheel disappear past the hubs.

Inertia took over as the bike stopped in the puddle and I ejected over the front, whacking my left kneecap on the stem as I went by. Other than a lot of blood from the knee, I was OK so I pulled the bike out and kept riding. The knee was sore from the hit but I didn't worry about it. I rode the Turkey Trail and looped back onto the mountain bike trail, finishing on the road as I made my way back to my car. The bike gained 10 lbs or more of mud and it took several dunkings in a pond to get it off.

The knee wouldn't stop bleeding, which is inconvenient when your wife accuses you of getting hurt every time you go for a ride. For the record, I hardly ever get hurt; I bleed a lot, but it doesn't hurt! There was a lot of blood on my shorts, blood running down my leg, and blood on my socks, so no hiding this one.

I sliced my finger open last week and fixed it with super glue, but I didn't think glue would fix this guy as it looked like it could use a stitch or two to close. Had I realized this when I was on the trail I would have kept riding; stitches mean riding goes on hold. I cleaned it up in the shower and put a bandage on it, then informed my family that we were going shopping in Great Barrington, which had the closest emergency room.

I dropped the girls off in the shopping district and arrived at Fairview Hospital a few minutes later. Clean, relaxed, and very modern looking, I liked this place from the start! It didn't take long to see a doctor, who decided to X-Ray just in case I broke something underneath. Fortunately the X-rays showed no real damage, so we just needed to close the wound and I would be on my way.

Before stitching, the doctor started to explain what he was going to do as he was looking at the wound. At some point he must have noticed all the other scars on my leg because he stopped and looked at me and said, "...but you've been through all of this before, haven't you." Uh, yeah, more than just a few times. I was pleased he used the thick suture and took a wide stitch; sometimes you get these wannabe plastic surgeons who don't want to leave a scar, and invariably the suture pulls out or the skin rips and makes a big mess. Knees have a lot of pressure on them from a skin point of view, don't screw around; just fix it!

Two stitches is all it took to close this guy up, it hardly seems worth troubling the medical community for it. The stiches are in for 10 days and it may be two weeks before I'm back on a bike, but it's healing up fast and looks good.

My usual motto is that a good vacation is a great time, but a great vacation includes a visit to the emergency room!

Fairview Hospital in Great Bearington gets two thumbs up!

We have wrist-off!

Thursday, April 12 was a special day for me as I was hopeful that it would be my final visit with Dr. Jurist and the completion of the wrist saga. I arrived early at the doctor's office partly excited to see how my wrist is healing, and partly excited to read some of the excellent magazines that the staff maintains there.

I obtained the usual x-ray first thing, check it out:

The first thing you might notice is how much better I'm getting at photographing x-rays. I don't think this is a marketable skill, but I've had enough practice at it that my pictures are turning out pretty good.

You will need a trained eye and a good imagination if you think you can see a fracture! You can't tell anything was ever wrong with the bone, except for a chunk of titanium and a few random screws. Everything fit back together perfectly and has knit, this is my best picture yet!

Dr. Jurist was elated. He looked at the x-rays and was really impressed. He felt the hand carefully, checking it all out. Then came the moment of truth.

During my previous office visit, the good doc gave me some exercises to do believing I would work hard and not need to see a physical therapist. For the past two weeks I have been working the wrist almost constantly, making it hurt to gain mobility while I can. Diane has expressed something of a contrary opinion, pointing out that the doctor didn't talk about maniacal persistence of exercise, just some exercise every hour. Usually Diane is right about stuff like this, but I felt in my bones that working hard was the right thing to do.

Thank goodness I was right. Or at least not completely wrong. When Dr. Jurist had me move the wrist he was so happy with my flexibility that he almost cried. He had me move it over and over. In a long career of fixing wrists, he's never had one heal this well or this quickly. He was very pleased. Emotionally and deeply pleased.

He told me the bones are healed, the wrist is good, I can do whatever I want. No need to wear a brace any longer. I need to be careful because the wrist has no strength and I might hurt myself, and indeed I've observed that I can't even pick up my coat with the left hand. But by doing hand strengthening exercises and continuing to twist to regain more mobility, he felt confident I would heal fast.

'So the golden question is, can I ride a bike?', I asked.
'Looks like the weather is going to work against you this weekend, but sure, you can ride a bike', he replied, 'just be careful, it isn't very strong.'
'My question to you,' he continued, 'are you going to wander into terrain parks and take big jumps when you go skiing next year?'
'Yes, I believe I will,' I replied. 'I've done hundred of jumps like that before and only messed up once. I don't see why I would stop now.'
He gave me a big smile, 'I thought you might.'

I am truly grateful to the competence and skill of Dr. Jurist, and I thanked him profusely. I also thanked the good ladies at the front desk and once again complimented them on their excellent magazine selection, and they promised they'd get some new ones for me if I called ahead, I don't even need to get hurt again to come by and read.

The weather forecast for Thursday was rain and snow, but when I walked out of the office the roads were dry. When I arrived home it still hadn't started raining so I quickly changed and took off on my mountain bike; I figured the shocks would keep the hand from taking any hard jolts. It was just starting to rain when I left the driveway. When I turned around after topping the hill to Westford Center it was sleeting and coming down pretty hard, but I was having so much fun just riding a bike that I ignored it. At about 4 miles it wasn't much of a ride, but it felt great!

Before I bring this story to a close, there are a couple of loose ends to tie up, although you may not realize it.

Several people have wondered if I was able to work while my wrist healed. The people I work with know I missed very little work over this. In fact, just to help me be productive, Rob, my manager, got me a prosthetic:


This is a mechanical hand that came in a box labelled "The Pianist", so I tried to play the piano with it. You have probably already noticed that it's another RIGHT hand, so not as useful as you might hope. I also took a picture of the instructions:


Oh, the irony! The cruelty! Sure, it seems like such a noble gesture to provide an extra hand when I can't use my own. But requiring someone with a broken wrist to clap is just cruel!

In closing, we live in an age of wonders and miracles, and yet they are so commonplace that we hardly notice them. If an injury such as this had occurred when I was a boy, my arm would never have been right and would have caused me pain the rest of my life. Yet here I am nearly completely healed, only a short time since a serious-ish injury. And I continue to marvel at the human body, a serious bit of engineering with the ability to heal itself and recover from the abuse we give ourselves.

I'll update this blog again when something interesting happens to me. If the past is any indicator, give it 3-4 months.

Happy Cast-Off Day!

Today was the big day to get the cast off! What a glorious day it has been too!

When the cast was put on three weeks ago it was pretty uncomfortable. It became very tight if I left my arm below my heart and tended to cause my wrist to throb. Holding my hand above my heart caused the blood to drain out and restore balance to The Force, but it was tedious. Still, I've been able to type, which means I could go to work, and I've been getting along pretty well.

The second week of the cast was comfortable. The wrist needed the support and the cast was just loose enough to be warm and comfy on the arm. But the third week, well that's when the itching began. In the past I've had a good laugh at people in casts trying to scratch an itch, and now it was my turn. I found large flat spoon handles to work pretty well, but everyone seems to have their favorite method.

The other funky thing is the amount of skin that started sloughing off. It occurs to me that our hands lose a bit of skin all the time, but we use them so much we barely notice it. But with a cast, I noticed I was leaving small DNA samples everywhere I stopped, a veritable shower of small skin particles. I heard somewhere that you lose around 10 lbs of skin a year and I used to think that was remarkable; but after seeing how much came off my hands, I think it's a pretty conservative estimate.

Last night was Cast-Off Eve, and today was the big event.

I arrived at Dr. Jurist's office and wished everyone a happy Cast-Off Day. The nurses & women behind the desk wished the same to me and apologized for not having a cake. Oh well, maybe next year.

Taking a cast off it quick and painless. It is also loud. They use a power tool that is sort of part saw and part hand mixer; it vibrates really fast and will cut through stiff material quickly, but won't harm your skin. They cut the cast in front and back, then use a reverse-pliers tool to pry it off.

Seeing my arm again reminded me once again how much I love these body parts of mine! The wrist looks a bit worse for wear, but I recognized the little buckaroo and was pleased to see him doing so well!



The small tape-bandages have been on under the cast the entire time. I thought for sure they were curling and causing the arm to itch, but they were intact the entire time.

With the cast off, it was time for X-rays. Check these babies out:


You really have to look carefully to see the fracture lines now! Dr. Jurist was pretty excited about these pictures, everything lines up perfectly and it's really healing well. I told him I love the pictures, but I'm biased because it's me. He said he loves the pictures, but he's biased because it's his work. Big love fest for the pictures...

The doc had me move the hand around. I've secretly been moving it as much as I could over the past week, squeezing a soft ball with my fingers and trying to work it a bit. I've also been running, having a belief in the healing power of blood being pumped through the system. I think this helped.

My movement exceeded expectations. I can bend the wrist more than you would think. I can make a fist. And it will turn both ways. Things are looking pretty good at this stage in the game.

The doc and I agreed to try exercising it by myself without going to physical therapy. We'll try it for two weeks, then reevaluate. He thinks I could do it on my own and wants to see me try.

In the meanwhile, I need to wear a removable brace. I can't pull or lift anything, but I can move the wrist and do exercises. And type. I need to have the brace on whenever I move around just in case I hit the wrist, it won't take much of a hit to set it back.

So here's a picture of the arm today:


One of the most amazing things about this experience is how common this injury is. I will wager I've met more than 20 people who have a scar exactly like this one! If I started a club for people who have had this injury, we'd need a pretty big hall to hold meetings! Someone at work is even recovering from it at the same time, it really is common. As an aside, I told Greg that with my titanium plate I am going to start a second career with the X-men as Bottle Opener Man; he said he is going to be Set-Off-Airport-Security Man, but he thinks his secret identity will be blown every time he travels.

I still wish I would have gotten retractable claws.

Meanwhile, I'm thinking about a new project: Broken Wrist, The Musical. I think it has BIG potential!

I'll update this blog if anything interesting happens, but for sure will report in April 12, after my next appointment. I'm moving into the recovery phase, getting close to the time when I can take this baby out and open 'er up, and see what she'll do.

Central Casting

Today was my big day, or at least the day I have been looking forward too. The swelling in my arm has gone down steadily since the operation, and the half-cast ace bandage thing was getting loose. Every day my fingers move with less pain, and I've been able to sleep a little easier. Last night was the first night I didn't sleep like a baby: wake up every two hours and cry...

Because the back half of my arm was unsupported, I haven't been able to use it for anything. Not so much as hang a towel from it without incurring undue pain. The other day I really, really wanted to go for a run, as the sun was shining and the roads dry and I have been doing nothing since the accident. But even movement caused me pain, so no run. Pretty pathetic. It drives me crazy not being able to help my wife and family around the house. I'm not someone that likes to sit around and be pampered.

This morning I went to see Dr. Jurist and check progress, I was pretty excited. The office was very busy, but I finally tore myself away from a 6 month old Newsweek magazine was led into an exam room. A nurse used scissors to cut off my bandages, revealing a long scar with 25 stitches. She asked me to lay my arm down to remove stitches, but first I took a picture!



So you might think it looks kinda gross, but I haven't seen my arm in almost two weeks and I was pretty happy to see it is still there, and in fact it has absolutely been thriving under all of those bandages.

Before the nurse took any stitches out, she led me into X-ray to take some pictures. It just doesn't get any better than this, I was hoping and praying I could get an x-ray to see what had happened! Dr. Jurist saw me in the x-ray room and stuck his head in, "you're going to love these pictures!" he exclaimed. I'm pumped now!

Back in the exam room the nurse took out a single stitch, then Dr. Jurist came in and said he would do that if she would fetch the pictures, we're excited to see them. I didn't say much as I was counting: 25 in all. The doc joked that he probably could have done it in less, but wanted me to have a good story to tell.

I've been flexing my fingers a lot every day trying to loosen them up, and the doc is pleased. I can't do much with the thumb, but the bandages prevented me from moving it. Hopefully I'll be able to wiggle around more with the cast on.

Now we get to see the x-rays:



So the first and most obvious thing is that I didn't get retractable claws. I expressed my disappointment to the good doctor, and he apologized. Still, look at the way dem bones line up, pretty impressive! You can see the titanium plate and screws in the lower part of the arm, and the pins coming off of the plate in the upper. I also notice that the plate has an interesting cut out in the middle: it looks for all the world like a bottle opener. I have no idea how I'm going to get to it to open a bottle, but I appreciate the thought.

You can see in the picture that the bones are not knit, but they are in nearly perfect alignment and things are starting to fuse. Actually, the bones could only be aligned better if they were held using zip ties, I'm convinced that is a patentable idea.

The doc is very pleased with how things worked out. He says these plates are sort of a new thing, they used to have to really open the arm up in order to put the necessary supports in, and now it's all pretty simple. Just in time too, he says he was getting too old to be cutting on people like that.

Dr. Jurist thought it was cool that I was taking pictures of everything, so we threw the original x-rays up for easy comparison:



This picture was taken before the initial reduction, so you can see that the top of the Radius is pushed way down and the hand is out of place. Now that I've been looking at these for a while, I realize how messed up it was.

The doc told me that often at this point they often provide a removable splint, but given the severity of this break they will cast it for 3 weeks, then we'll go to the splint. I was able to chose from a number of cast colors, but they were all varying shades of ugly. I decided to go with black, it goes with everything.



Notice that I have a lot more finger showing. Yes, I can finally type with 2 hands again! It isn't completely natural as you typically twist your wrist to contact the keyboard, but I've typed this entire blog entry in roughly the time it takes me to do a paragraph or two! I feel like lightening on the keyboard, comparatively speaking.

In exactly 3 weeks from tomorrow, I go for my next exam. They will remove the cast at that point and put on a removable brace. I'm still 6 weeks from starting physical therapy and regaining my full range of motion, but it's clear I'm making progress. The doc says I'm probably about 8 weeks from getting on a bike, but it's something we'll be watching. Evidently he had a patient last year who had the same operation and was able to do the Mt Washington hill climb
four months later. Cool! I've already missed registration for the hill climb this year, but wasn't planning on racing it anyway.