back on the bike... well, almost...

managed to ride the trainer last night for about 30 minutes before my shoulder started getting too uncomfortable to keep going. every day my shoulder feels a little better, so tonight i'll try for a mind blowing 45 minutes.

more updates...

just realized that i haven't posted since friday's checkup... the good news is there's no bone chip, so no surgery is required. i'm still using the sling part time, but it's comfortable enough now that i can take it out to type, etc... still not enough pain-free range of motion to drive and the whole area starts to ache if i'm out of the sling for too long. i'm right handed, so being without the use of my right hand sucks... i'm trying to find a balance between comfort, convenience, and pain.

i might try setting up my road bike on the trainer tonight and see if i can find a postion that'll at least let me pedal easily for a while. actually, i think that getting the bike into the trainer will be more difficult than riding it.

hung out at the schaeffer demo day for a couple of hours on saturday, but couldn't do much except try to talk to the brave souls that came out to test bikes in the rain. heather and i stopped by the dogfish head restaurant on the way home... i tried the aprihop, which turned out to be a heartier-than-usual take on apricot flavored beer (like magic hat's number 9) and heather had a verdi verdi good which turned out to be... green. at first we thought it might be leftover from st. patricks day, but it turns out it's brewed with spirulina algae (which turns it green and adds some more protein to the beer).

announcing...

...the new and improved http://www.dcmtb.com

we've relaunched the city bikes mountain bike team website as a blog where all members will be able to post. keep an eye on it, as we hope it'll become a really active site...

update

almost a week since i broke my clavicle so i thought i'd post a little update for anyone that's interested. i'm still in a sling/split to keep my arm & shoulder imobilized most of the time. when i've got it off the range of pain free motion in my shoulder is improving, but after it's off for a while it'll start to ache, so i'll probably be stuck with this thing for a while.

obviously, i won't be going to fruita next week, as i'd been planning. i guess i could go and just hang out, but i think it would be worse to be there and not riding than to just not go at all.

spent last weekend convalescing up in philly. we managed to pull off a great easter meal for her family who came into the city on sunday. i wasn't able to help as much as i'd hoped, at times i was a liabilty, trying to do more than i could handle, but managed to bake some foccacia (filled with fresh mozzarella & basil) and dinner rolls. this was the first time heather's managed to get the family let her do a holiday meal and it all went off without a hitch (in fact i think they were impressed).

i'll still probably make a showing at the city bikes demo day at schaeffer on saturday, but i probably won't be leading any rides...

a few more details

going to keep this short since i'm without the use of my right hand and that makes typing a bit slower than usual...

riding at schaeffer on wednesday i clipped a tree with my right shoulder. i stopped suddenly but didn't hit the ground. lots of pain in my shoulder so i bushwacked out to the road and rode back to the trailhead, then called and got a ride to the er. many hours later i'm diagnosed with a fractured clavicle and put in a sling to imobilize my arm & shoulder.

saw an orthopedist thursday who confirmed the diagnosis and wanted a ct scan to check on a possible bone chip. no surgery so far (if there is a chip it may need to be pinned) but i'm in this sling for at least a week, off any kind bike for several more, and mountain biking for 2-3 months.

right now i just want to be able to use my right arm...

thanks for all the comments, i'll be back soon and i'm going to try to ride trans wales this august

do the math...

joe + bike + tree = fractured clavicle

all your road are belong to us...

almost a week and no blog entry... i've been putting almost all of my spare time into riding and working on the new dcmtb website (which should be up soon). going to head to schaeffer this afternoon to get some singlespeed singletrack miles in.

friday afternoon braindump...

tom seitsema of the post has a review of Birreria Paradiso coming out this weekend... i went there a couple of weeks ago with the swill ride guys and have to say that the pizza is really good and beer selection is impressive.

speaking of the post, keep an eye out for a contribution from mike miller (mountain biker/MORE accotink liason/all around nice guy) about dremo's (article about dive bars, go to page 3 of the article online) in the sunday source. in the online version there's a shot of mike riding IN the bar, hope that makes the print edition.

tommorow's looking rainy, so sunday might be a good day to do a pre-ride of the fitness concepts AMBC course at greenbrier. not the most exciting riding, but the 99% of the place drains like a sieve. get in touch if you're interested, i'll probably head up there early sunday morning.

almost time to head home... this is a recovery day, so maybe i'll take an easy ride down to hains point.

burning the candle at both ends?

this has been a busy week... training is in full swing with Lodi a little over less than a month away and i've been trying to sort out technical issues for the new bloggy website for the city bikes mountain bike team. add some brewing, a team meeting, a MORE newsletter, and the general stresses of life just added up to a bit too much this week and i'm really looking forward to this weekend.

rode wakefield last night... well actually i rode 2 laps at accotink, the first at ricky-speed* then as we were coming back we ran across tommy/mike/bunky/marcus and i switched groups and rode another lap with them. food & beer & bike talk at kilroy's after the ride. nice to get 2 hours after works without lights.

* - it doesn't matter who you are, riding with ricky is always at ricky-speed, which is just a bit faster than you're comfortable with. ricky-speed feels even more pronounced when you're on a bit squishy full suspension bike and try to follow his we're-on-singlespeeds-so-lets-accelerate-up-the hill climbing style. riding a ricky-speed is highly recommended if you're training.

beer notes...

i had a chance to try troegs nugget nectar (limited release so get it fast) this weekend and it's a beer to look for if you're into hoppy beers... it's not excessively bitter but overflowing with fresh hop flavor and aroma.

taking a break from some of the more eclectic varieties of beer that i've got brewing now (tripel, biere de garde) we're going to work on an english pale ale tonight. the biere de garde will be going into a secondary tonight and the tripel will be heading for bottles this weekend.

rain/sun

up in philly again this weekend and so i hit the saturday road ride from the art museam. turned out to be a longer ride than i expected. as we were leaving, the group took a right and started heading out along west river drive on the other side of the river instead of up the way the ride had started for the last few weeks. it looked like a few people were going the 'normal' way, but i followed the people i remembered.

the ride ended up being around 60 miles at a more casual pace than i was expecting, so i was out for an hour longer than usual. it was a good ride... mostly crusing along, but there were a couple of sprints that i decided to go out for, and a little competition coming over the hill into manayunk near the end of the ride. the extra time didn't make much of a difference untill the last half hour as we were heading back into the city and the heavens opened and we ended up riding in some of the heaviest rain i've ever been out in on a bike.

as the rain tapered off and i rolled down south street, completely soaked, i got a call from heather to check that everything was ok. when i got back to the house a few minutes later i was greeted with dry towels and at that moment nothing could have been better. in spite of the rain, it was sunny enough to make my arms pretty red by the evening. i always seem to need that first time out to remind me that now it's time to put sunblock on for every ride.

mussels, steak frites, and a couple of belgian ales (1, 2, 3), at eulogy might be the perfect post ride meal...

sunday i made another try at wissahickon, this time with pat (formerly of city bikes, now living in philly) and one of his friends. we had a great ride, did a couple of loops on both sides of the creek, but according to pat we only scratched the surface of the park. lots of short rocky climbs that were difficult but rideable. the weather was perfect, not a cloud in the sky and we finished the day with a little grilling in the back yard with a few of heather's friends and pat and his fiance.