Tuesday is Test Day

When I was a bike racer, aside from rides that started with an official shouting, "Go!", I would usually mountain bike once every couple weeks. It's hard to ride easy on a mountain bike, and if you're attending to things like recovery, which I eventually sort of learned to do, riding a bike through New England woods, with their steep hills and terrain that periodically requires a surge of effort to clear, is not gentle. Funny, I liked mountain biking enough to start racing which eventually meant I rode a mountain bike a lot less.

Lately, my reason for recovery has had a different source: from accidentally riding a bike badly instead of intentionally pedalling a bike too hard. Both, however, limited my time on the trails, but last Tuesday, after just shy of two months away with my unhappy hip, I tried running again, in the woods. It went well! I lasted an hour and a half without discomfort, and as a positive indicator, the return trip of my out and back route was a minute faster than my out lap. It seemed usage was a good thing!

More good news: I still felt good the next day, although my legs, while not outright sore, were mentioning under their breath that they hadn't been running in two months. But again, usage was a good thing, and after the first half hour of riding that morning, motion again felt free and easy! Over the next week, I started pushing the efforts now and again on my rides as my arm recovered enough to truly pull on the bars with a flexed bicep out of the saddle. Yup, my body, the nerve of it, is learning to ride a bike again. Whee!

But a little push also needs a little recovery, so I've had a few mornings of my right leg and pelvis feeling not 100% hip, but again, motion has worked like lotion, and after yesterday's morning stiffness, I realized, as I neared home at the end of my day's ramble, the joint at the top on my femur was feeling, dare I say, great!

The forecast for today suggested the possibility (as in, "we really don't know") of rain, but presentcast radar this morning showed all precipitation to my south, so after last week's success, I decided to end another dry spell, this one longer than two months, and swing my leg over a mountain bike for another Tuesday test. I had ridden a mountain bike a few times with satisfactory success since partially disabling my left arm, and while I'd always taught people to ride a bike from their hips, I'd learned that I often needed my arms to pull my body and hips into a particular location. That wasn't fully happening.

In the two months of letting my hip recover and finally figuring out to treat my much older ankle sprain, my arm's response has also improved. I can raise it over my head in front and to the side, and I even have reasonable confidence in the visibility of my left turn signal when on the road. Yup, I was due to test all that in the woods. Am I 100%? Heck no, but my arms will now pull myself and my hips forward, and I'm even starting to loft the rear wheel off the ground. Yay, I like mountain biking!

Highlight of my ride

If I can

1) Head into this corner fast enough 

for a two wheel drift,

(yellow arrow--NOT brake skid!)

and

2) Still clean my line up

to put both wheels on the 5.5" wide bridge

(red arrow)

I'm doing OK!

In addition to good fun, I'm thinking the mountain bike, instead of being the foe of recovery as in the past, may actually be a great boon. Those steep New England trails hills, they force me out of the saddle, pulling hard with, and training, my arm, and yes, I still ride a bike with my hips, wiggling them all over their range of motion above the bike. Yay, recovery! Hmm, maybe next Tuesday I'll try the kayak.