Status report

Sorry; I misspoke earlier. I haven’t got tendonitis, but bursitis. It’s owie, and slow to heal. I brought it on by trying to go from six miles per week to 150 miles per week in one leap, with no ramp-up. A lot of that is because work has kept me from riding much during the week, and the weekends have been spotty.

After a couple weeks of living with it, I finally admitted defeat on June 18th. In the past three weeks, I’ve barely been on the bike at all, and only done one ride longer than two miles. The bursitis has been pretty bad, and it’s lousy timing, since this is supposed to be the height of my training. Last year at this time I’d covered over 2500 miles; this year I’ve done much less than half that.

Now I’m going to go into the ride undertrained, which really shouldn’t be too bad, as long as my knees have recovered and hold together; that’s my main concern, which is why I’m resting, rather than pushing to get back on the bike.

However, the Fourth of July has always been a day I take off and bike. This year I got back on and went out to Waltham to meet my coworker Jay, and rode back to Boston, showing him the Charles River bike paths that he could take to commute in to work.

It was all good until he flatted a couple miles from home. I patched his tube and we continued, but he’s a stocky guy, and he blew out the patch after about a half mile. I pulled out my spare tube, only to discover a gaping hole in it. So I put two more patches on the old tube. But as I was getting the tire back over the bead, I pinched the tube and it popped. So we wound up walking our bikes a mile and a half back to my place, where I gave him a new tube and sent him home.

The highlight, tho, was getting to ride on Storrow Drive, one of Boston’s busiest highways, which is closed one day each year on the Fourth. And even that’ll stop soon, since they’re moving the fireworks over to Boston Harbor starting in 2008 or so.

Overall, I did maybe 30 miles, which was a lot more than I originally intended. My knees… were a little ginger. They definitely need more time to heal, but at least I was able to put a few miles in. And now I know where I stand: my knees are recovering, but need another week or two of rest. And there’s only four weeks to the ride.

One benefit to reduced training hours is that I had the time to send out a ton of fundraising letters. I’m well ahead of even last year’s record pace, although I’m not sure that in the end I’ll raise as much as I did last year. That’ll take a lot more money, and only time will tell.

Another benefit of the time off is that I was able to get the bike into the shop for routine maintenance. The only major item was that I needed to replace my bottom bracket. So the bike’s in good shape now… better shape than the rider, that’s for sure!

Oh yeah, and I bought a tiny new point & shoot camera for use on the ride, so you can look forward to better pictures, as well as some movie clips, after this year’s ride!

The other thing I’ve been experimenting with are devices to reduce wind noise, which is a real problem when riding. I saw an advertisement for Slipstreamz, and went to their site, where they say the way to test how much noise is reduced by their product is to put a finger right next to the leading edge of your ear, which does seem to make a big difference.

So a week or so ago I took a couple foam tubes—okay, they were Nerf darts—and taped them to one of the straps of my helmet. They really do seem to work, but they look kinda silly, like peyot, the wispy curly sideburns thingies that Hasidic Jews have. So I actually ordered some Slipstreamz, and will report back how effective they are once I’ve given them a thorough testing.

But that isn’t happening yet. Gotta let the damage control process continue to work on the kneecaps. I miss being out on the road, tho.