I said I wouldn't post anything until I was off the trainer and riding on the road again.
I'm posting.
You do the math ;-)
My regular readers will recall I was restricting myself to the recumbent on the trainer mostly because as rides got longer (10+ miles) my sciatica started acting up - calf would burn, forefoot would get numb, etc. This wasn't a problem on the trainer since I could just get off without worrying about how I was going to get home. The sciatica gradually lessened and the distances I was able to ride on the trainer increased to 36 miles so I thought it'd be OK to head out onto the roads.
I've ridden both the DF and recumbent on the trainer (I bought a second "smart" trainer - a Tacx Neo which I highly recommend if you're in the market) and the 'bent seems easier on my back so I decided I'd ride that. This wasn't entirely without incident since the Cruzbike is so different and I don't have a ton of actual road miles on it (527 to be precise) so I decided to put it on the car and headed over to Twin Bluffs where the roads are generally really quiet and I can loop around without having to do any weird maneuvers like starting from a dead stop at a traffic light, uphill, into a turn that take more skilz than I currently have. Well, I can do it but I'm generally of the opinion that mixing it up in traffic with marginal bike handling skills isn't a good idea.
So off I went to Twin Bluffs. As expected, getting underway was pretty weird but I did manage it on the first go. As an aside, I'll wager $10 to anyone reading this who hasn't ridden a recumbent that they can't get underway on the first try on the Cruzbike.
The ride was mostly uneventful. I went back and forth a few times (for those familiar with the area, from Twin Bluffs over to US-60) then headed over toward the Big City and a little bit busier road (CR-O) which also has a nasty little 8% climb on it. I then turned onto CR-RC which has a couple of 8% climbs before getting onto the bike trail and riding back to Twin Bluffs.
I did make one bike handling faux pas. Turning onto the bike path involved a greater than 90 degree turn and I took it too fast for my limited skilz. The Cruzbike has a tendency to "dive in" to a turn if you turn the front wheel and lean too hard (a lot of wheel flop) so I overdid the turn but there was a flat, grassy area there so no worries. I didn't crash, just rolled onto the grass and stopped.
One downside of riding the 'bent on the road versus the trainer is I need to keep my speed up on hills in order to maintain control. Below about 5 MPH I start to weave and have a hard time holding a line which is obviously problematic if there's traffic. I was pretty good at this when I was riding the Cruzbike exclusively for a few months in Texas earlier in the year - I climbed a 14% hill there while holding my line - but my skills have lessened somewhat with no practice. It'll come.
At any rate, because of the need to maintain my speed, my max wattage for the ride was 583 watts which is pushing pretty hard. My back seemed to tolerate it OK. It was sore post ride (this was two days ago) but "proportionally sore" with the rest of my out of shape self. It feels OK today.
And on the back topic while I'm here I'll give a brief update.
I had a pre-surgical exam scheduled for August 6th. Drove in to Madison (75 miles one way) and was on time for my appointment but it was the wrong location. When I did the scheduling, I first told the person I'd take whatever was available first so she scheduled me for a place that was another 45 miles further away. It was only one day earlier so I said never mind, schedule me for the Madison location which she did for my other appointments but didn't change this one. They were waiting for me at the other place which was obviously too far away for me to get there in time for my appointment.
Sigh.
Rescheduled for later in the month.
Having said that, at this point were I betting man I'd say the surgery is unlikely to happen. In fact, there's a reasonable probability I'll just cancel everything. My back is improving, still very slowly, but it is better. As I write this, the only symptom I have is a little bit of an ache in my low back and my toes feel "funny" - not numb or tingling, just a bit different from the ones on my right foot. This is obviously a vast improvement from two months ago.
I've also been wanting to restart the core strengthening but my tentative restarts in the past few weeks have resulted in a bit more back pain so I'm going to hold off for a bit.
In other related news, I'm on a diet :-(
I put on 12 pounds in the last two months and this was on a "base" that was already higher than I would like. So no beer (sad trombone) and very small meals. My "dinner" last night was 1/2 bagel toasted spread with peanut butter and an apple.
Sucks being me.
But I've lost 4 pounds so far and will stay with it. I'm hoping that I can ramp up the distances a bit so that'll help.
Stay tuned!
