Faster than walking

And, it seems, less painful too!

I'm not sure I fully enjoy how, or the mode in which, this theme keeps recurring. Yes, yes, bikes are great, and so much can be wrong with them before they stop serving their fundamental function of being faster than walking. I know that, accept it, and appreciate it, so the powers of the universe can, please, stop demonstrating this thruth to me. Thanks.

After spring tightness in my hip that turned bad enough for me to give up contemplating if my left arm nerve enervation had progressed enough to run the Seven Sisters trail race, a month ago I had the diagnostic victory of asking at physical therapy if we could work with my ankle of the same leg. I had sprained it last August. The therapist demurred that ankle mobility isn't her best area of knowledge, but we tried a few introductory exercises she knew, and the impact felt positive. Gifteen minutes into my ride home, my whole leg felt its best in months.

Aha! Problem not solved, but I felt confident the root cause was found and recovery was on its way. My physical therapy referral was reordered to include ankle, and even with just those few introductory exercises, improvement happened, and I even started running again, gently, once a week. The nerve for my arm was also improving, and I was steadily trying mountain biking a bit more regularly, including last Friday, with two hours in the woods as part of a four hour wander. Yay!

Or not yay. With the twists and turns of mountain biking, I move my hips around and over the bike a lot more than during the more steady state pedaling on the road. Also, while most of my riding these days is on open pedals, the mountain bike sports clipless, which allow me to ankle through bottom of my pedal stroke more. By the end of the ride, I was aware of my right hip. It wasn't painful, but it was making its presence know with a slight murmur of displeasure. Hmm. Saturday's moderate commute to Bike Lab was expanded with new (to me) bike fetching duties in Sunderland, and again, once back home, my leg was not entirely pleased.

Sunday, it was time to take it easy, a day of rest. I rode three miles from home to meet friends and swim at Aldrich Lake, the same water, but much more depth than the brook in my backyard. I was walking with a stick at the pond to help reduce the load on my unhappy leg. I slept well that night, and while still not feeling great Monday, it felt right to try a gentle test ride, say a ten-ish mile round trip to the library in South Amherst. I took it easy and felt, not great, but okay.

Then Tuesday happened. Less good, my leg was starting to genuinely hurt, so rest day. I do know how to do those. I am, however, used to them having a more positive effect, but Wednesday I woke to find my leg was even less good. I was scheduled for more PT Thursday, but I was now walking with a can to distribute my weight's load, so I called my doctor's office to see if  in that condition, it still made sense to keep the therapy appointment. Hearing my symptoms, the nurse instead suggested a different appointment. Could I come into the office that day for more evaluation?

Doubtful of my mobility, I scheduled a tentative late afternoon slot with agreement that I'd cancel if I couldn't arrange transport. My extra close friend Adele had already encouraged me to take a car ride the next day to keep physical therapy, so I was hopeful it might be possible to bump that help up a day. Adele, thank you, was willing and able to help with only moderate inconvenience, but in the course of that conversation, I thought, maybe I can ride to Aldrich Lake again, walk the half mile woods trail, and catch the bus. If it wasn't working, I'd call Adele for rescue.

Wanting the flexibility of riding a bike I was comfortable abandoning, over night if need be, after bustling to mostly get ready, I gently coaxed my leg over the bike given to me last year, another connection of Adele's. It had been a engineering project at Smith College with a flywheel mounted in the front triangle and the variable internally geared rear hub that had enticed me to adopt it. The hub is still awaiting its new home, but the rest of the bike was converted to (rusty) single speed operation for precisely situations like this.

Extra welded stays for flywheel mounting

and even less theft enticement.

Riding didn't feel great, but it didn't hurt, and I liked that feeling more than inconveniencing a friend to pick me up, so to the bus stop I went. I wasn't fast and I wasn't sure there was enough time for me to stash and lock the bike off the wooded cut through trail, so while I'm less than 100% keen on using the bus bike racks since my bike was the primary impact with a deer the driver hit last fall, fortuitously, that day I had a bike that was selected for being less dear to me, so it was okay if it saw far too much deer.

Bicycle and I both went on the bus, and yay, we both left the bus as intended, and after one transfer, I made it to Northampton with a couple hours to spare before the doctor's appointment. Also, with the bike, I avoided having to negotiate one more bus ride and schedule, covering the last few miles from the Academy of Music to the medical offices on my own two wheels. It wasn't a insignificant victory for me that I maintained my streak of no car rides yet this year, and no, the bus doesn't count!

And another bonus, living outside the box meant I was accessible to other human beings, so I had the chance to meet two of them. The first, on another bike (yip, yip, hooray!) passed my slow dawdle to the doctor's office, but then we then met since we had the same destination. The person guessed correctly that the pole off the side of my bike was for directing passing cars to leave space, but concern was voiced that it might be hard for drivers to see and flagging might help. I had thought the same, but without needing to keep track of hard number, I can confidently say, and did, that the pole is hit by cars far more with a flag than without. Shorter poles are also hit more. Yup, the other rider and I were both surprised by this, and while I have hypotheses to why, I don't need know exactly why the longer, unflagged pole I use now works better. Ride wider!

With the bike bustling me about, I was early, so after locking (yay, my doctor's office has actual bike racks, and I've even seen another bike at them!), I headed for the shade of a tree to sit and read, but half way there, the person who'd just left the building asked if she could ask me about locking bikes. Likewise, she doesn't own a car and realized a bike could be convenient transportation, especially if it was still where she left it when she reurned outside. Simple questions can lead to longer conversation, and this one did, and it seems I have a new friend!

Relieved of fetching me duties, Adele still offered great help in the form of floor space where I spent the night, cutting the day's wear and tear on my leg in half, with the added bonus that Thursday's physical therapy was half way home, making it a lot less of a hardship when the therapist disagreed with the note to "keep PT" that was added to my record and said I should focus on rest, not exercises, and then we can all form a plan of action after we see the results of next Wednesday's ordered MRI. Yes, yay, healing takes time, but I'm happy to feel progress is in the right direction toward that. For now, rest, I have pletty of time to blog post.