Monday, April 21, 2008

OTB, either definition is not good.

OTB-In a race this stands for "off the back". Not good.

OTB-In my case it means "off the bike". Also, not good.

This winter I went down hard on my knee. My front wheel went out on some ice and I pile drived my left knee into the asphalt. It looks like I tore some ligaments. I have been continuing my riding with the assumption that it would heal. Well, with the introduction of intense riding a couple of weeks ago, the pain has gotten worse. I took almost a week off, but the 4 hour ride yesterday brought back the pain. Now it gets iced twice a day, I swallow 3 ibuprofen 3 times a day, and I am keeping off the bike for a minimum of a week. Rest now so I can race later, hopefully.

This means NO Transiowa. I would end up dropping because the pain in the knee would end up getting worse and worse during the event until it was too much. I would probably end up doing more damage as well.

Some times you gotta do what you gotta do. I guess I am glad that my life does not only revolve around cycling, and I can look forward to some other things the next couple of weeks.

Other big happenings? Top Chris SL tied the knot this weekend. Check it out with KC here.

In other news, J-No and L-No have a new set of twins in their family. Here is the man with all four young'ns. They had other children before, but they were given up for adoption because they did not have the required blond hair and blue eyes. I kid, I kid.


J-No requested a pic of my Transiowa bike. Here it is. Four large water bottles and a handlebar bag (mount is on, but bag is not in pic) would have aided me in my now cancelled assault on Iowa. I figured I should make J-No happy as he is the one of the 3 people who read my blog.
I am going to take this bag of ice off of my knee and head to work now....

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Charly,

Sorry to hear you won't be going to TI this year. It would have been fun riding with you, but were my circumstances the same as yours I would be making the same decision.

Sounds like a pair of studded winter tires would have gone a long way to improving your season!

Brian

Anonymous said...

Yo,

Thanks for the pics. They will be seen by the millions that read your blog. That sucks about Iowa. It is a wise choice to bail out. I hope to join you next year for the ride.

-J-No

Charly Tri said...

Yeah, it was the "smart" call, but I'd rather be riding. Brian, I do have a pair of studded tires. When all this happened the roads and sidewalks were clear, thus I took off the studs. The one exception was when the snow would melt and refreeze over night. By the time we got back into town at 9:30am all of the ice was melted again (the knee slam happened at about 7am). When I stopped riding is when the pain and swelling kicked in. Good times.

Anonymous said...

Just a note:

Your saddle and bar tape are different colors. Get that fixed.
J-No