The Long Recovery Week 23

Okay, here we go - the first bike ride in 160 days!

I survived!

The Long Recovery Week 22

Today was another Doctor appointment. My surgeon wanted another look-see.
After I stretched and move my arm and shoulder around, he said he was very pleased with my recovery. So pleased in fact that he doesn't want to see me again.
He said that I will probably never get full range back, especially when reaching straight up over my head. But the mobility that I have now is more than adequate to be described as functional. And as long as I use it, it will keep getting better, so working and stretching are still the keys.
He said that I had sustained a lot of damage and scarring, but he was quite happy with my recovery.
And so am I, of course. I thanked him, and left the hospital. Five months ago, my arm and shoulder were shattered. Now my arm works. What more can I ask for?

The Long Recovery Week 20

Despite my prediction in the last installment that it might be at least a month before I'd be back on the water or on my bike, a few days ago my physio-therapist gave me permission to kayak and ride again. So not being a person to let moss grow under my feet, mainly because then they smell icky and turn green, it was time to return to action with a short paddle at Elk Lake.
The Usual Gang showed up: Alison, Paula, Louise, Bernie, and myself. Even the elusive Dennis appeared.

My left arm is still weak, so getting in and out was a bit of a challenge. I tried a couple of times on land and it was doable. So I got into my kayak and Paula pushed me off.

And now, 161 days after my last paddle, I can only paraphrase Bill Murray from the film What About Bob?: I'm paddling! I'm paddling!

Louise soon hit the water, while Dennis decided to wave goodbye and go home. No, just kidding. It was good to have the gang out on the water again.

Bernie headed out.

Dennis decided that I was taking too many pictures of Bernie, so he made sure that Bernie's face was hidden in this picture.

It was busy out on the lake today... the rowing club was having a big celebration this weekend and was using much of the lake, but that was okay. We were just doing a small, short paddle today, because I didn't want to overdo it on my first paddle.

So we paddled gently and watched the races.

My shoulder survived reasonably well. It was sore and stiff, but not overly so. The hardest part was tying down the kayaks onto the van. Holding my arms up while tying off the straps took a lot of effort. But I did it! Or rather, we did it, as everyone was very keen to help. Afterwards, The Gang presented me with a Challenge Trophy, for overcoming a challenge!

Ah, bliss!

The Long Recovery Week 18

Time munches on.
Now over four months after my bike accident, my once-broken arm and shoulder still have a road to travel before they could be said to be recovered.
That said, a lot of progress has been made over the last few weeks.
First, I have graduated to what is referred to in physio lingo as "resisted exercise." You and I call it pulling giant rubber bands. This is significant because my range of motion, while still not yet in the normal range (and may never fully be), is certainly in the range of motion for getting by. The problem is that I have no strength in the arm. In fact I have more range than strength. If I left up my left arm in front on me, I might get 130-135 degrees of rotation. But if I use my right arm to push my left arm up further, I'll get 175-180 degrees of rotation.
So now we're into strength building and re-activating the muscles that haven't had to work in months. Hence the rubber bands. I have eight exercises to do with the bands, plus one exercise with a free weight, a whopping three-pounder!
Other good news: I don't need to do stretches with a cane anymore. I'm flexible enough now that I can do some new stretches that do the job better and don't require the cane. And I'm now down to once-a-week visit to the physio dude.
So now the question is when do I get back on my bike and into my kayak? That remains to be seen. The Victoria Day weekend marks about six months since my accident, which was sort of the time frame mentioned by my surgeon, so that is a target that is on my mind. Sometime I feel that Canada Day is a more realistic time frame, but we'll have to wait and see. The point is that I WILL be back on my bike and on the water this summer.
Woo hoo!

A Lovely Selection

...of articles on biking can be found at The Guardian. The bit of information I found interesting is that almost half the population of England lives within one mile of a National Cycle Network route, which is longer than the UK's motorway system. Can ymagine what that would be like here?

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The Long Recovery Week 15

It's hard to believe that 15 weeks ago, almost four months, I was just coming out of surgery on my shoulder. Range of motion is still an issue, and as yet I'm still not doing any real strength training, but that should start any time now.
Today my doctor said that everything was as it should be. He ordered up another set of xrays, but he figures this will be the last set because the bone and the titanium look good. Now it's just a question of how well the soft tissue comes back.
Here's one of today's x-rays. This is from the side -- a profile shot, if you like.
Man, that's a lot of titanium.

The Long Recovery Week 14

Clearly, things are looking up -- last night I went through the drive-in at Wendy's.
Now before you get yer garters in an uproar about global cow warming and all that, consider this: I drove up to the order window, wound open my own window, and passed out money, then took back my change then took in my drink and meal.
I did it all with my left arm.
Slowly, very slowly, my shoulder is getting better.
It's still very week, and mobility is still limited, but it is coming back. I keep finding myself able to do things that a week or two ago I couldn't.
ANd I must be feeling optimistic about my eventual return to the kayaking -- yesterday I ordered a waterproof VHF radio.

Couriers Kick Ass

Full props to these characters--this is hardcore biking in the Big Apple.

The Long Recovery Week 12

This was a week of firsts.
Monday, I had my first bath. I decided that it was time to try to get in and out of the tub. Getting in was okay, but getting out still remains a little haphazard. However, I didn't fall, and it was very relaxing. Heck, I may even have another one tonight. (Long-time followers of my misadventure will recall that due to the tinyness of my bathroom and the awkwardness of my injury, I was forced to pee in the sink for a short while after my release from the hospital. I would like to state for the record that for some time I have been able to pee in the usual manner and into the usual bathrrom fixture, although I still occasionally pee into the sink because I am a lazy and gross bastard.)
Tuesday, I tied my shoelaces for the first time in three months. After getting home from my accident, the first phone call I made was to my niece who works in a discount shoe store to ask her if they had any sneakers with velcro instead of laces. And lo, they did, and they were delivered unto me, and I've been wearing them ever since. But after a recent long walk, I discovered that discount shoes aren't designed to be walked in over a lengthy distance, and since my plan is to walk home when I return to work, it was time for more comfy (and more expensive) shoes. And so it was that on Tuesday morn, I took my old expensive sneaks out of the closet, placed them on my feet and tied the laces with no discomfort in my battered left shoulder. Huzzah, huzzah.
And today another first: my first day back at work. What a, er, um, thrill it was to be back. Makes one hanker for the days when I could just sit home, rest, watch tv and get paid. And that was just last week!
Actually, it felt good to be back, if for no other reason than it represents another small step along The Long Road Back. The shoulder seemed to survive the day fairly well. And when I did my exercises in the evening, it seemed a lot less tighter than usual. Perhaps being back at work did it some good.
I stuck up a copy of my x-ray in my cubicle. Most people were shocked at the amount of metal in my arm.
"Is that permanent?" they gasped.
"Yes," I replied, "until someone figures that the going rate for titanium is worth digging up my cold and rotting corpse for."
I walked home, as per my plan, and although I was jealous of every bike rider that passed me and every kayaker in the harbour (there was only one, and he had to be crazy to be out on a stormy day like today), at the end of the day I feel a little more confident that one day soon I'll be back on my bike and in my kayak.

The Long Recovery Week 10

It's funny how I can suddenly discover that I can do something without even thinking about it, or that I can still find that there are very simple tasks that I cannot do.
For instance, last week after physio, I ran for the bus. Not that the running itself was a surprising thing -- I'm not much of a jogger, but up until my accident I was riding my bike five days a week, so I was in shape enough to run if need be -- but the fact that I was running and my shoulder seemed pretty okay with it was an unexpected surprise. It wasn't until I got on the bus that I realized that I had run a couple of hundred metres with little discomfort.
Mind you, later that day I couldn't get my socks off. As I stood in front of the laundry hamper, I decided that the socks I was currently wearing were due a wash. So, still standing, I bent my left knee, lifted my left foot, reached down with my right hand and pulled my sock off. After lowering my left foot, I lifted my right foot and without thinking reached down with my left hand and did not have the strength to take off my right sock.

The good news is that I am feeling more and more human and I'm venturing out more. Here's me last week at Gyro Park. Dig the "physio beard."

The Long Recovery Week 8

After the swelling in my arm started going down, physio began in earnest. My first exercise was what's called the pendulum. It's exactly what it sounds like. I lean with my right arm on a table or counter-top and let my left arm out of the sling and let it hang like a pendulum. I swing it forward and back, side to side, then it circles, first clockwise, then counter-clockwise. I swing it for about three or four minutes, twice a day. The idea is that it gently pulls on the muscles that are now super-tight and holding my arm in my shoulder socket. All those muscles have been traumatized and many surgically reattached. They were, and are, extremely tight to say the least.
Funny things were happening with my arm. Suddenly my left arm began drying out and flaking. My right arm was fine, but my left arm suddenly developed a taste for vast amounts of moisturizer.
And I could feel strange sensations in my arm as all the new hardware rubbed against flesh and bone. Sometimes, it even feels like it gets caught against a tendon or ligament [shudder]. It's a strange, strange feeling.
Slowly, time passed. Days became weeks. Weeks became months. Months became years. My writing became a pattern of clichés.
But seriously, time did go by slowly as I was mostly housebound. If it wasn't for the fact that I had just ordered the first two seasons of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea on DVD, I might have gone mad.
I couldn't even write or surf the Internet much as it was too uncomfortable to sit at my computer for very long.
Christmas rolled around and I began to venture out more. Thankfully I had done most of my shopping before the accident, and Amazon did the rest.
At physio, I got to do more exercises. I got to lie on my back and, gripping it with both hands, I had to raise a cane over my head. At first, I could barely raise in 90 degrees, or just above my head. Now I can get it about 150-160 degrees over. Still got a ways to go.
Next came The Violin. Still lying down and with my forearms straight out in front of me at a 90 degree angle, I gripped the cane and moved it from my right to left, trying to move my left forearm away from my body while keeping my elbow in place at my side. This works to stretch my shoulder were the Bankart repair took place and the flap of muscle was sown over my shoulder socket to keep my arm in place. This I can only do to about 35 degrees. More work needs to be done here, too.
You're not reading this over dinner, are you?
As long as you're grossed out, here's how my scar was doing after about seven weeks.

Other exercises were added to regime like Walking Up the Wall. Simply put, I stand in front of a wall, put my left hand on it and use my fingers to "walk" my arm up it until my shoulder screams out "Enough already!"
However, the physio is going slower than expected. All these exercises that I've been doing are passive exercises, meaning that the injured area is not doing any work during the exercises it's all being done by the other arm, gravity, or in the case of my physiotherapist, someone else entirely. The normal recovery protocol for a Bankart repair would allow for active weight-bearing exercise at this point; however my arm is still too sore and stiff for this, so we are continuing with just the passive exercise. This will make for a long recovery period.
At least now I'm out of my sling.

Watch That First Step....

My co-worker Scott passed these on. Don't know where these are taken, but holy jeez, whatta view!

The Long Recovery Week 4

When I first came home from the hospital, my biggest disappointment was that I could not easily snuggle my cat Linus. Whenever I sat down, my busted left arm and shoulder needed to be protected and propped up with pillows. And my right arm needed to be beside the arm of the chair or sofa so that I could use it to push myself up. I couldn't lower myself down onto my bed at first because it's so low -- it has no legs and sits on the floor.
After a couple of days, I figured out a way to finally properly snuggle Linus.

Only then did I feel like I was finally on the road to recovery. For those first two weeks, Linus stayed near me and watched over me. There wasn't much he could do to help me, but knowing he was there made a difference. When I walked aimlessly around the house, he walked with me. When I came back from the doctor or from physio, he greeted me at the door to ask how I was feeling. When I rested after my exercises, he rested with me.

Three weeks into my recovery, Linus suddenly stopped eating. He seemed mostly okay, he just wasn't eating or drinking. Then he began staring mournfully at his water and food dishes as if he just couldn't remember what he was supposed to do. His urination, what little there was, became more painful. He became weak and his legs started giving out on him. The vet was stumped.
The only choice became sadly obvious.
Linus passed away on December 19, 2006. He was almost 17 years old.

I really miss him.

The Long Recovery Week 2

I get to go home.
After more than 38 hours in hospital (4 of them in surgery having my left shoulder rebuilt after a bicycle accident), the nurse says I can go home. She pulls out a bag of my clothes and says, "Here. If you need help putting these on, I'll be back in a few minute."
I have a new 22cm-long surgical incision in my left arm and shoulder, freshly sutured and covered with a large bandage. My arm is tightly held in a sling. I'm loopy on morphine. How the hell am I supposed to put clothes on?
I can start by removing my hospital gown. It's practically falling off anyway. Because of my arm, it can't be fastened properly around me. Every time I've gone to the bathroom, my ass has been hanging out for all to see.
One little shrug and it's off. Modesty dies quickly in a hospital.
What's first? Well, underwear, I guess. It normally goes on first anyway (unless you're Madonna). Don't see why a busted shoulder should make any difference.
I'm not going to be able to reach down and hook the underwear over my feet while standing up. Bending over hurts. Doing much of anything hurts. And I have no balance. While I might able to get the right foot in the right hole with the right hand, getting the left foot in the left hole with the right hand will be impossible, and trying it with the left hand would probably leave me kissing the hospital floor.
The last thing I want to do is fall down again.
I sit on the bed. In a sitting position, I can hook my underwear over my feet and pull it up my legs with my right hand. Near the top, I can stand up and pull it over my butt.
Ta da. Blue Fruit of the Loom boxers are on.
Well, this procedure worked so well for underwear, it ought to work for pants, too.
And it does. Mind you, I have to figure out how to buckle them and my belt with one hand. It's not as easy as it sounds, but not so hard either.
Socks and shoes go on at the same time, too.
Now comes the shirt. My left arm is clearly not going into any sleeve, so I put my right arm in the right sleeve and then toss the left half of my shirt over my left shoulder. With my arm against my abdomen, I button it (one-handed) as far down as I can go.
When she returns, the nurse seems surprised that I was able to do it all myself. She pretends not to recognize me -- who is this well-dressed man and what have you done with my patient?
Thus beginith my recovery.

My sister is playing taxi driver for me today (as she will for many weeks to come -- thanks, sis!).
The first order of business is to get me out. I have no idea where I am in the hospital. Left to my own devices, I might have been wandering the corridors for years trying to find the exit -- the Flying Dutchman of Jubilee Hospital, ending up a crazy old man who mutters, "I beep at airports -- wanna see my scar?" to anyone who will listen.
But no, my dreams of becoming a human derelict end quickly as my sister finds the way out.
I walk gingerly. Falling down would be a disaster right now. But my first few haltingly hesitant steps are soon replaced with more confident paces. I'm not setting any records, but I start to feel safe on my feet.
Sis has brought the van -- a good thing. I don't think the MG would have been suitable. Climbing in isn't so bad, but the next stumbling block is the seatbelt -- I can't fasten it. I can pull it around myself, but sis has to snap it into its latch.
Can't do up a shirt properly, can't fasten a seatbelt. What else can't I do?
She drives me home, apologizing the whole way for every bump, stop, turn, braking maneuver and acceleration that occurs. Actually, it's not too bad. The right turns hurt the most as the inertia pulls at my left shoulder.
Finally, home. What does a man look like arriving home after major surgery for a crunched shoulder? Like this:

The first thing to do is to make me comfortable. The obvious place is the couch with lots of blankets.
My left arm is useless, so I have to sit on the right end of the couch so that I can use my right arm on the arm rest to help push myself up when I stand. I also need some pillows to support my battered left arm.
The downside is that now I can't curl up with my cat Linus, who has missed me and clearly realized something was up. In fact, we pile up extra pillows on the left side to keep Linus at bay; he's a large cat and likes to walk on me, and god forbid he should walk on my injured shoulder. Still, being home with my cat is a great start to my recovery, and he even seems to understand that although I am injured and can't really snuggle him, I did miss him and am glad for his company.

This is pretty much how I stayed for a couple of days. Sleep was impossible. Between the dull ache in my arm and my back stiffening up, there was no sleep to be had. In fact, I considered it an improvement when I was able to move to various chairs around the house during the night and not sleep in any of them. At least I was moving. But before I worried about my first night's sleep, there was another problem that I needed to face.
I needed to pee.
My bathroom is small. Tiny. The toilet is in a small alcove with little if any maneuvering room. And the transition from standing to sitting is painful and uncomfortable. And I am still wobbly. Pulling up my pants is awkward. So I have little choice. For the time being, I'm going to pee in the sink.

A couple of sleepless nights later, I was starting to smell. I needed a shower.
The only restriction I had about showering was to try and avoid having the shower spray directly on the incision. A little collateral water damage okay. I would also have to change my dressing afterwards. My dressing looked like this:


In order to have my shower, I would have to get undressed and get my arm out of the sling. Then I would gently get in the shower and somehow do all the necessary hair and body washing one-handed, then dry off, then get dressed again. My sister volunteered to stand by if needed. I told her that if she heard a splash and a thud followed by screaming, chances are that I would be in need of some assistance.
In actuality, the shower went well. Slow and steady wins the race.
The only problem was that I couldn't get my underwear on. Because of the aforementioned limited space in the bathroom, I had not yet managed to sit down on the toilet, and sitting down was the only way I could get pants and/or underwear on. Getting tired and a little frustrated that I couldn't devise a plan for my underwear, I had no choice but to call my sister through the closed bathroom door.
"Sis, I have a problem."
"What is it?"
"I can't get my underwear on."
"How did you get them on in the hospital?"
"I was on morphine. I don't remember."
"Oh."
"So I thought you could hold them in front of me. I'll step into them and you can start them up my legs. I should be able to grab them when they reach my calves and I can pull them up myself."
My sister reluctantly agreed. I opened the door a crack, and passed her my underwear.
"Are you ready?" I asked. She nodded.
I opened the door, naked as a skinny-dipper at Mackenzie Bight. She knelt in front of me, holding out the underwear and averting her eyes. I stepped in and reached down to grab the waistband.
"You'll have to lift them higher. I can't reach down that far."
She leaned in a little closer, and lifted them a bit higher. Now I could grab them.
"How's that?"
"That's great, sis, thanks. I got 'em. Don't hit your head on anything on your way up."
"Okay, glad I could--- oh, oh, you...."
She turned red and ran.
I went back into the bathroom and chuckled.

Then we changed the dressing. What did my incision look like? It looked like this:

I'm guessing 17 sutures. It's hard to tell, and they were dissolving sutures, so after a couple of weeks they were all gone anyway.

I had two big problems that first week. One, my arm was swelling up. I expected swelling around my shoulder and upper arm. That only made sense, that's where the injury and the surgery was, but the swelling was going down my arm towards my fingers, too. In fact, my fingers soon became giant white sausages. My whole arm was swollen and I was concerned, but the swelling soon passed and my arm returned to normal, Or what passes for normal these days.
The other problem was sleep. Or the lack thereof. After a couple of days, I moved off the couch and tried my bed. But nothing worked. I could not find a comfortable position or place to sleep. Worse, I was getting pretty wired from the Tylenol Extra Strength I was taking. I spent a couple of nights absolutely tripping out on the stuff. I took this picture at 3:00 one morning. Why? Because when you're basically immobile, dead dog tired, and hopped up on Tylenol, there really isn't much else to do at three AM except take your own picture.



My first physio appointment was a week after surgery. It snowed that day. Yes, my first trip out of the house with my busted shoulder and arm was on a day it snowed six inches.
At the rehab clinic, I meet Jim, my therapist. "Bike accident, eh?" he says. "Let's see what you did to yourself."
He consults my chart. "Uh huh, uh huh, hmmmm, uh huh, uh huh. Now that's interesting. Usually you don't see both of these injuries together. Usually, it's one or the other. But not both. Very unusual."
My elation upon hearing this knows no bounds.
There's not much treatment during this first session. Not much can really be done until the swelling in my arm starts subsiding. But he does ask if I have any problems.
"Can't sleep," I mumble between yawns.
"We can fix that."
He asks me to lie down on my back on the examining table, and he grabs some pillows. He sticks one under my head, a couple under my knees, and slides another one under my left arm, between it and my body.
Oh my. Suddenly, I'm totally relaxed.
That night I set up the pillows on my bed the way Jim did. I'm worried about Linus. Our ritual the past few years has been that he always jumps on the bed and curls in between my left arm and my body. If he tries that, it's going to hurt. I settle in with the light off and await Linus's arrival.
He hops up on the bed. Somehow he knows that the left side is off-limits. Without hesitating, he curls up in the crook of my right arm.
We both sleep for eight solid hours.

Winter weather

It's been real winter for over a month, and my three-wheel bike is sitting in the porch. Alas, there is now some rust on the fenders (or deflector shields, as the ones on John's bike are labeled). So my big bike activity for the coming week is going to be taking some steel wool to the rust, with a little oil.
And how to protect against future rust? My friend Heather says to polish the metal with Johnson's Floor Wax. I haven't seen it in stores for ages, but shall hunt some up. Failing that, I'll drip a tealight candle onto the fender and buff it around with a cloth, pretending it's floor wax.
Can't get over how much it means to get out on a bike and go more than just around the corner, faster than just doddling along or dawdling along. I actually find myself planning to get a new three-wheeler, and probably an expensive one at that. Better than thinking of owning another car. The bike means health and strength, and clean living compared with driving a car.
Now if only I could ride a bike that fit onto the bike racks on the buses... well, I can't have everything. The bus racks don't fit my kayak either, so there shall be no complaining on that score.
Off to read the websites for the Greenway and Trixy, the two models I'm currently considering. Semi-recumbent trikes. Kick-ass good, from what I can tell. More research needed.

The Big Ouch: What Happened Part Three

"Go towards the light," said the voice.
I could see the light, beckoning, calling.
I have not had any surgery or anesthesia since having my tonsils removed as a child. I have no recollection of being under.
"Go towards the light."
Sometimes things go wrong in surgery. You don't wake up. Could this be happening now? Could the surgery have gone horribly wrong and now I was to find out the answers to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything?
"Go towards the light."
Or was something else happening?

1:15 am.
The nurse comes by and offers me a drink of water. It will be my last drink before surgery. She asks when the last time was that I went to the washroom. It's been hours, so she suggests that I go.
She helps me out of bed, and I stagger along the floor, my busted left arm and shoulder in a sling, my right arm dragging my IV rack. I make it out of my little area, but I have no idea where the washroom is.
"Which way?" I ask.
She points to my left. A door is open, with a light shining behind it.
"Go towards the light."
"A fine thing to say to a person hours before surgery," I harrumph.
"Oh great," she mumbles, "it's going to be one of those nights."

It's amazing how much your life can change in an instant. This morning, I was dreaming of an 18' kayak. Now, after tumbling off my bike, I'm wondering if I can go to the bathroom without screaming.
Kayaking is a distant memory.

There was no screaming. In fact, the entire process was mostly painless. I return to bed, and sleep in fits and starts. I awake around 7, about 45 minutes before surgery. Breakfast arrives for the other patients, but not for me. The nurse warns me that should a breakfast accidentally arrive for me, I shouldn't eat it. I haven't eaten in 18 hours now, but I'm not hungry. In fact, I will go about 30 hours between meals. I was never hungry.

The nurse returns to explain the procedure. Around 7:45, the anesthesiologist will come and sedate me. (This never happens.) They will wheel me into the waiting area, then the operating room. The anesthesiologist will then inject something into my IV and put me out, and from my point of view, I will wake up right away in the recovery room. No time will pass for me. I may be a little disoriented, but it should pass quickly. No dreams.
The anesthesiologist does arrive, with questions for me, plus papers for me to sign. Then an orderly comes and wheels me into PreOp.
I don't give it a lot of thought, but it does occur to me that I may be facing my last conscious moments. Mistakes do happen. Things sometimes go wrong. But I'm resigned to my fate. It's in the lap of the gods.
I'm wheeled into the orthopedic surgical room. The operating table is narrower than I thought it would be and there's some discussion of how to transfer me from my bed to the table. Finally, I say that I will walk over to the table. Someone helps me up and off the bed, and I cross over to the table and lie down.
It hurts, of course. Lying down on my back is the most painful position. Someone calls for "shoulder extensions"; the bed is so narrow that my shoulders hang off the sides, and for my mangled left shoulder, this isn't helping.
I'm not aware that the shoulder extensions ever arrive, and now the anesthesiologist has my attention. He explains that during surgery, they will be freezing the areas they operate on. This will reduce the pain when I come around. I'm all for that.
He starts by poking something between my left shoulder blade and neck. He's trying to find a certain nerve or muscle group, I guess. He wants me to tell him when I feel a tingling like a mild electric shock.
"Feel anything?"
"No."
"Feel anything?"
"No."
"Feel anything?"
"No."
"Feel anything?"
"No. Wait. There's a bit of tingle. By the shoulder blade."
"Okay, good. That tells that I'm in the right area--"

Then I open my eyes.
Which is odd because I do not remember closing them.
But my first sensation is a good one. My left arm, even though it feels sore and swollen, also feels attached and whole again.
I focus on a clock on the wall. It's almost noon. Four hours have passed in a blink.
There's a machine beside me automatically checking my vitals. I can feel it inflating to check my blood pressure.
I glance over at my left arm. I have a long bandage stretching from above my shoulder to half-way down my arm.
A nurse appears. She says everything went well, but the surgery was four hours, not the planned two and a half. They found additional damage in my shoulder to repair. They kept re-locating my shoulder and it kept falling out. So in addition to screws and a plate in my arm, they also performed a Bankart Repair. This is a procedure that ties a strip of muscle across the joint to hold the arm in place in the shoulder socket. I don't know it at the time, but this will slow down my recovery, and probaly permanently decrease my range of motion.
The nurse leaves as she tries to find a bed for me; they did the surgery even though they did not have a room to put me in afterwards.

What else did they do to me? They put in a plate and screws to fix my arm. They repaired a small break in the shoulder socket; unfortunately it was where some tendons and ligaments were attached so they had to be repaired. Also, a lot of muscle had to be re-attached as it had come away from the bone. Here's what my shoulder looks like now:


Yes, the plate and pins are permanent. I will never have an MRI and I will beep at airports.

The nurse returns, they found a bed for me. I ask for a drink of water. My throat is killing me -- it's raw from the breathing tube they had down it.
I'm wheeled to my room, pumped full of antibiotics and morphine. I'm tired and I feel like sleeping, yet I also don't want to sleep. Mostly, I just sit dazed, occasionally nodding off.
Karl will visit me around 5:00 PM -- I spent more of his visit asleep than awake. Others will visit me. Louise, Brenda, my niece Kai all stop by. Paula and Bernie visit. For some perverse reason, Bernie is mostly concerned that my right hand still works. Paula thinks I look like I've been hit in the face with a sledge hammer. Not that there's anything wrong with my face, but because the shock of this life-altering moment is still sinking in.
Dinner arrives around the same time Karl does. It's a fish patty thing, which wasn't very good. The mashed potatoes are excellent. The nurse tells me to go easy -- it's my first meal in 30 hours. I nibble at it.
Details are a blur, but I am constantly poked, prodded and checked by nurses. Everything seems to be normal.

I'm sharing my room with three other patients. Across from me is a young guy who's here for the long haul. He's just ordered a tv. He knows all the nurses by their first names. They are asking him for advice on his course of treatment. I'm guessing dialysis.
Beside me is an old lady. I'm never sure what is wrong with her, but she seems to have all sorts of ailments. She is constantly being taken out for tests.
The third roommate is an older man who's left left hand got into a fight with a table saw. I give the victory to the man only because all his fingers are still attached.

Afternoon fades into evening, and into night. It's early in the morning now. And I need to pee. There's no nurse around, so I slowly sit up. My back is killing me. I carefully stand and walk to the washroom, dragging my IV rack. A nurse has already helped me do this a couple of times, so I already got the hang of it. When I return, I stop at the window and look out. I can't see much -- most of the view is blocked by the roof of another part of the hospital. But I can see the tops of some trees, some streetlights, and clouds.
I miss being outside.
And it will be along time before life becomes normal again.
I carefully climb back into bed.
Sleep eludes me.

In the morning, I go down for x-rays. It is there that I see for the first time the steel and pins that are now part of my arm.
Holy jeez. I'm bionic or something.
The rest of thr day is a blur. More drugs, more pills. More blood tests. They want me out -- they need the bed. In mid-afternoon, I get the word. I can go home.
My long recovery begins.

The Big Ouch: What Happened Part Two

The one nice thing about being seriously injured is that you go to the front of the queue at Emergency. This was probably a good thing, as by the time the ambulance got me to VGH, my arm was really hurting and I could feel myself getting more uncomfortable. I was probably going into shock, perhaps not deeply, but going there.
As I was waiting to be admitted, one paramedic noted my discomfort and offered me a blanket. Being a stoic male, I declined the offer.
"Let me give you some advice," said the paramedic. "When a paramedic offers you a warm blanket, you should take it."
"Golly," I said, "maybe I'll take that blanket after all!"
It was now about 6:00, about an hour after I fell off my bike.
Soon, I was wheeled into a cubicle, where they quickly started me on an IV. A doctor came in, took a quick look and very quickly determined that at the very least my shoulder was dislocated. He asked if I had any numb patches and I indicated I did, on the side of arm. This could mean nerve damage.
Then he uttered the one word that I was longing to hear: morphine!
But soon I was left alone, and I reflected on my situation. I would need help tending to my sick cat. Someone was going to have to call work and let them know I was going to be off for a few days.
I looked at my arm. Man, I really wrecked it.
By this time, more of my guardians began arriving. First, my sister Brenda arrived, followed by my girlfriend Louise. Each time, the nurse mistook them for my wife.
My memory of events during this period is somewhat fluid, but somewhere between the blood tests and the IV drips, they took me to X-ray.
This was not an experience I'd like to repeat.
The x-rays taken while I was standing up weren't so bad, but I had to lie flat on my back for a set and this really hurt. I never saw any of the "before" X-rays until much later, but lying flat was excrutiating and I could clearly feel bones floating around in there. That was 20 minutes that I never want to repeat.
But interestingly, the numb patch in my arm regained feeling after the x-ray ordeal. I surmise that something moved just enough to take pressure off the nerve, and there were (and are) no more concerns about nerve damage.
I was taken back to my room to await judgement. Brenda and Louise both commented about how cold my hands were.
Soon, a young woman appeared, the orthopedic intern. She'd looked at x-ray, and reported that my arm was broken in three places and my shoulder dislocted. Worse, I had broken ay arm at the ball joint, making repairs all the more troublesome.
Here's the x-ray:



Now, I'm no doctor, but clearly you can see that the shoulder is out of the socket, and the ball is broken, and not in the correct shape.
She said there were two courses of action. I was going to need surgery on the arm, no question. But do we fix the dislocation with surgery at the same time, or do we fix the disocation manually, then do surgery on the arm later?
This didn't seem like much of a choice to me. If I'm going to go under the knife anyway, must as well do it all in one go.
But she wanted to call in some experts, so who am I to argue?
Somewhere along the way, the paramedic's gear was removed from my arm and replaced with a sling which I am still wearing. (I'm typing this one-handed, so please read this at half your usual reading speed to get the full effect.)
The intern returned with the verdict.
"When I suggested we fix the dislocation first, everyone laughed at me."
There were two problems with her plan. First, the ball was broken off. It was not attched to the rest of the arm. There was no way to re-insert the ball into the socket. It probably would have caused more damage. Secondly, even if it was safe to proceed, she probably couldn't have done it.
I'm a big guy, and she was not a big girl. (She made Chantelle at work look like Shaq.) She physically could not have done it and the last thing my broken arm needed was someone heaving and hauling on my shoulder.
She said she would start on the paperwork and took a felt pen and initialed my injured left shoulder.
So it was surgery, a one-stop fix everything chop. Sort of like Midas Mufflers.
Surgery was set fot 7:45 the next morning, not at VGH, but at Royal Jubilee Hospital. The only question was, could they find a bed for me there? An ambulance was ordered anyway to transfer me. Louise and Brenda said their goodbyes and headed out to spread the word that I would, in fact, live. They noted before they left that my hands were warming up.
A nurse returned with the paperwork for me to sign, but stopped herself before handing it over. It seems that the intern, despite having examined and marked my injured left shoulder, put down on the forms that it was my right shoulder that was to be operated on.
Oops.
Once the paperwork was fixed, I signed. Good thing I'm right-handed.
So there it was. I was facing my first surgery since having my tonsils out when I was 5.
The orthopedic surgeon, my newest guardian, drove over from the Jubilee to examine me. He explained that the surgery would take about two and a half hours. I've heard since that he is the best "shoulder man" on the Island. So far, I'd have to agree.
Around about 11:30, an ambulance arrived to transport me to the Jubilee, they found a bed for me, so we were all set. They loaded me up, and away we went. It was a quiet night for emergencies, the paramedics said. The quietest night they'd ever seen. They'd been on duty for six hours, and I was their first call. And I was just a glorified taxi ride.
By 12:30, I was safely tucked in my bed in Jubilee. Surgery was mere hours away.

The Big Ouch: What Happened Part One

It's an odd sensation, realizing that your bicycle has suddenly stopped but you haven't. That your handlebar has suddenly snapped to the right and stopped your bike cold while momentum is still carrying you forward. That not only are you flying over your handlebar but that you are twisting in mid-air to the right and are now travelling sideways, a change of direction that will probably save your life, but in this moment only adds to the disorientation.
Then you realize that the ground is getting closer. You barely have time to register that this is going to be bad. And that it's going to hurt.
It is bad. And it hurts.

Two and a half weeks ago I was riding my bike home following the path I do everyday. Part of the journey is a short trail connecting Burnside Road with the back of Tillicum Mall. On this day, dusk, 5:00 pm, water had washed out a pothole that had been filled by gravel back in the summer. Was the washout caused by all the rain we had received in November? Or was it run-off from the watermain that had burst in Tillicum Mall an hour previously? I don't know. All I do know is that as I went down the path, my front wheel caught the pothole and I flipped off my bike. There was a small culvert ahead of me with a concrete pad over top of it. I landed on the concrete pad with all my weight on my left shoulder.

"Ummmfph!"
The air rushed out of my lungs on impact. I bounced off my shoulder and onto my back (my backpack, actually). My legs swung up beside me and ended up in some bushes just off the trail. I'm not sure what happened to my bike. At least it didn't run over me.

I knew right away something was wrong with my left arm. It didn't feel "attached" properly. Still, I tried to gently move it, but the pain toldme that I had probably broken it. There was also the disquieting sensation of things rubbing together that should not be rubbing together.

Okay, so the left arm was clearly an issue. What else was broken? I hadn't hit my head (and yes, I always wear my helmet). I wiggled my toes, they seemed okay. My right arm seemed fine. It felt like I might have a scrarch on my left leg, but this was minor. Everything seemed up and running save my left arm.

I needed my cell phone which was in my backpack, and was now underneath me. Okay. This was gonna hurt, but there wasn't much else to do. Cradlling my left arm as best I could, I swivelled on my butt, getting my legs out of the bushes. Then I sat up.
Yes, it hurt.
I rested a moment, then cradled my left hand in my lap, then slowly unbuckled and removed my backpack.
I somehow managed to get my left arm out of the straps, then I opened it up and fished out my phone. I turned it on, hoping that it still had some juice. It did, I dialed 911. The operator was cool and professional and able to figure out what trail I was on. He asked if I was bleeding; I said I didn't so. He asked if I could get up and walk along the trail. I said I probably could, but I'd just as soon sit where I was.
I hung up and started to call family members to alert them to my plight. I told my mother that Louise would call soon. (I was supposed to help Louise move some furniture that evening -- clearly, I would do anything to get out of that.)
Just as I finished calling my mother, my first guardian of the evening arrived. A gentleman named Ollie rode down the trail and stopped to assist me. He picked up my bike from across the path and offered to wait the ambulance came.
When the ambulance arrived, Ollie, who as it turned out lives just a couple of blocks from me, offered to take my back home.
The bike was fine. Of course.
The paramedics checked me out. They cut away my bike jacket and jersey from my arm. I'm no doctor, but I could see that my shoulder looked wrong. Instead of curving down, it suddenly dropped off, and there was a large bump where there shouldn't be a bump. This was the ball joint at the end of arm sitting in a place where it shouldn't be. They checked my arm for numbness and I had a big numb spot on the outside of left arm. This indicated possible nerve damage.
They immobolized my arm by wrapping what looked like a life preserver around me, they got me to feet and we walked down the path. I climbed into the ambulance and sat down. They moved me over to the stretcher later as they tried to put in an IV line in my right hand. The paramedic kept failing to find a vein and apologised profously for continually poking my right hand in vein, er, vain. We went to Victoria General Hospital.

The Big Ouch

Last Monday, I tumbled off my bike, seriously injuring my shoulder. We're taking pins, plates, possibly even a fork and spoon. I'll post more soon; suffice it for now to say that I am alive, and the long-term prognosis is good.

PS. The bike is fine. Of course.
  

This just in -- newsflash!

Our most dedicated blog poster, John, took a tumble from his bike yesterday and ended up in hospital.
On the positive side, he recognised that he had an arm injury and actually made his own 911 call. A neighbour stayed with him till the ambulance came and took his bike home. This is actually quite surprising, as many men of my acquaintance (notably Bernie) would be more likely to push the bike home and call for a cab. Maybe the steep hill on which John lives was a factor in the decision, but I prefer to think that the wise choice John made was a sign that he may not have suffered any head injury in the fall.
On the negative side, he's in surgery right now and will not be biking or kayaking for a while.
We'll post what news we get (or John will himself) but for now we'll be optimistic about his surgery and send him plenty of good wishes for a full recovery.

One Day While Riding My Bike

One day last week, I took my camera to as I rode my bike to work. I picked a good day. First off, what a sunrise!
 
 

Then, on the way home, look up in the sky, it's a bird! It's a plane!It's a...blimp!?!
 

Let's Be Careful Out There

While riding my bike home yesterday across the Gorge Bridge, I saw a kayaker get in trouble. He was in a long Current Design boat, possibly a racing boat. He had just gone under the bridge and was followed by a eight-man sculling boat and the coach in a small motorboat.
I'm guessing that the kayaker did not see the motorboat go by, or he didn't realize that he needed to turn into the wake. Either way, the wake of the motorboat broadsided him and he went half-way over.
He shoved his paddle down into the bottom and stopped himself from going totally over. But he was stuck on his side, half in the water and half out.
There was little I could do up on the bridge except have my cell phone handy to call 911 if he needed help. And he did -- he was calling out.
Another kayaker and a pair in an outrigger were quickly there and helped right him. The coach in the motorboat puttered away in blissful ignorance.
So today's lesson, Grasshopper: even in calm, shallow, well-travelled and familiar water, accidents can happen. Let's be careful out there.

Make Room, Make Room

According to this report, car drivers tend to drive closer to helmeted cyclists than unhelmeted cyclists.
They also apparently give female cyclists more room than male cyclists.

Fall

I saw my breath when I started my bike ride to work today.
Damn.
Where's that box of winter riding gear?

30 Minutes to 25

I'm back on the bike I purchased last year, although late and cursing the fact that I haven't gotten out sooner. I have been riding in the gym as well getting my legs prepared for 3 months. Afterall I do have a bad left knee and both knees tend to creak. Tonight I rode my neighbourhood circuit in 25 minutes--shaved off 5 minutes. Not bad for the second time out riding it.

On a different note....a friend sent me an article on Lance Armstrong. I'm always impressed with people who are into professional sports, sure they make lots of money but I figure some of them really do work hard and it is gruelling to stay in shape. Lance is one of those people. Not all professional sports players maintain a healthy life, some do drugs, some drink and drive. What is interesting is Lance is different....physically different. I would put a link or two here, but it is more fun for you to go search. Search Lance Armstrong's heart and see what you come up with. I found it interesting to discover Lance and other atheletes are actually different from the average person. It isn't all training.

User Fees

I've been reading many letters in the local paper over the past few weeks calling for licensing and registration of bicycles and riders, the idea being that this will increase safety by decreasing traffic law violations by riders, and will help pay for bike-lanes and other bike-oriented improvements.
As a bike commuter, I say these are excellent ideas. There are some bad riders out there that make the rest of us look bad. We've all seen the example of how licensing and registering cars and drivers have reduced speeding, red-light running, non-use of turn signals and other vehicle violations to absolute zero. Our roads our much safer now, thanks to those fees.
While we’re at it, it’s time we stopped subsidizing roads and highways with our tax dollars and increase fees vehicle drivers pay. Gas taxes, licensing and registration don’t begin cover the cost of maintaining old roads, never mind building new ones. And that's also ignoring the costs of externalities such as policing, associated health care costs and environmental damage and repair.
Continuing the user-pay scenario, let’s start licensing pedestrians, too. Clearly there’s room for safety improvements in this sector of the travelling public, as many of them don’t seem to understand the simple phrase “Don’t Walk.” And somebody’s got to pay for all those sidewalks.

Different Worlds

With two trips in the last two months—one to Edmonton and now to Mississauga—I've been missing certain things from my now usual life in Victoria; mostly my kayak and my bike.
When I lived outside Edmonton, I seldom biked; there was never anywhere to bike to. Occasionally I would take my bike into Edmonton and use it for a day, or I would head out onto the secondary highway a mile away from the farm, but not often. When I left and spent time at Monica's remarkable mountainside farm near Nelson, I would take my bike into town and cycle about, sometimes heading up towards Kaslo, but most often just using it as in-town transportation. But this all changed when I settled down in Victoria.
By the time I got to Victoria, Paula had already acquired her trike and was making her own tracks around town. It wasn't hard to tell why: Victoria, for all its hills, is a terrific town to bike in.
Once I went back to Edmonton, I was newly sensitised to bike issues. Edmonton has no bike lanes that I noticed. Not that there aren't a lot of bike riders; Daryl Richel, the programme manager at CJSR Radio, for example, is a 24/7/365 rider. Yes, even at -40°C he commutes by bike. Not coincidentally, CJSR also runs the Bike Report, Canada's only bicycle traffic report. Currently the reports are given by Claire, who reports on local bike traffic conditions and bike related news from across Canada and around the world.
And while in Edmonton, I spoke to a rider having a smoke in front of Mountain Equipment Co-op. This kind of sums up biking in Edmonton; biking is a radical and individualistic act. So a bike rider who smokes, well, I wasn't surprised.
The rider I spoke to at MEC was a tough, aggressive rider—and acknowledged it. But he also acknowledged commute biking in Edmonton is something is an extreme sport and that in the end, even he occasionally bikes on the sidewalk for safety.
It was the same story in Mississauga; extreme sport, dangerous traffic, lack of bike lanes, and frequent riding on the sidewalk. Next to my sister's place in Mississauga is a park and part of the Mississauga trail system. Just like in Edmonton, where the trails are chiefly confined to the river valley, the trails in Mississauga are confined to parks and natural areas. But I borrowed my brother-in-law's bike and headed out to check out the trail.
The trail is lovely—winding, no big hills, paved and travelling through areas that Mississauga Parks are encouraging to return to a more native condition. This means more birds, small hardwoods, and native plants (and weeds) allowed growing unimpeded.
This natural area is not that unusual here; I've noticed several of these small oases in Mississauga. Much of the areas under the power lines in transmission corridors are given over to over to park. But the parks—and, importantly, the trails—are not contiguous. In ecological terms, they house “stranded populations”. The populations may seem healthy, but all are stressed by the very nature of their isolation.
And this holds true for the bike population as much as for the frogs and birds. The path/trail I found is about two kilometres long and connects nothing to nothing. Six lanes of commuter traffic chop it off at one end, and it heads off the other direction past Iceland (a year-round ice sports facility where my six year old niece plays hockey), past a natural recovery area with a stream, around playing fields to where it dead-ends at an off-leash park for local dogs. This would be where I wiped out and the resultant soft-tissue damage put paid to much more biking for the rest of my stay. The trail is good/valuable/worthy, but it is a trail from nowhere to nowhere.
According to the map I have, there are other trails/paths in Mississauga—some even look quite extensive—but they are miles apart, and are all supporting stranded populations.
Nationally, at least, we're trying to address this problem of stranded populations with the creation of the Trans-Canada Trail. Slowly, the country is being connected with this multi-use corridor.
Clearly I've been spoiled for the last year. Victoria has been quite aggressive in its development of bike lanes and multi-use trails, knitting them into the mass transit system and extending them throughout the city. All the users—particularly cyclists—that I speak to love the trails and lanes. And most all of them want to see the system extended, and most of them want to see it done by last year. Personally, I'd like to see a set target of, say, fifty kilometres of new bike lanes a year. Or before any road can be resurfaced, a bike lane must be added.
But honestly, we live in one of the most progressive cities in Canada in terms of traffic policy. An aggressive, vocal bike lobby, traffic engineers who give weight to non-car traffic (whether forced to or wanting to doesn't matter: it still happens), a pretty good mass transit system (almost every bus with a bike rack on the front and I just love the double-decker busses!), walkable neighbourhoods and extensive paths and trails, make for a very liveable city. Most weeks we need a vehicle one day a week and then only because we need to haul kayaks. Otherwise we've spent much of the last year not car-free, but certainly car-reduced. I know I've gone from what was a five thousand kilometre commute each month to a life where I doubt that I've driven five thousand kilometres in the last year. Good for us, good for the environment, and good for the planet.

Four Wheel Ride

Oh boy.
I've been wondering for a while why I can't find a bike built like a dune buggy. Four wheels. Seat low, near the ground. Enough room to carry a picnic cooler (or maybe a 64 litre Roughneck Tote, my favourite gear box).

There are a couple of models of pedaled wheels pretty similar to those specs.
Pedal car -- that's pretty appealing. But no cargo.
But the Rhoades car -- oooh, that's pretty. And appealing.
Go to www.rhoadescar.com and have a look at their designs.
4wheels, 1 person -- pretty damned nice. 1 gear, six gears, or thirty-six.
4 wheels, 2 persons -- also good. The long bed has a big cargo bed instead of a back seat for two more riders.
GoBoy -- also nice. GoBoy for 2 with a flat bed and a ladder rack... ooh, baby.
If any of these could carry a kayak, I'd be sold immediately.
Opinions?

Bonk Bonk on the Head!

So I'm walking through the Library courtyard yesterday, past all the parked bikes. One fellow is clearly not having a good day.
He is swearing and cursing and yelling. His bike lock has jammed up on him and his bike is now possible permanently attached to the bike rack.
He's beating up his lock. He's pulling on it, pushing on it, hitting it, kicking it. Finally, as frustration talks his toll, he grabs his ball cap from his head and slams it to the ground.
Oh, wait.
It wasn't a cheap and flimsy ball cap he snatched from his head and threw to the ground, it was his bike helmet. An expensive bike helmet.
He stopped cursing.
A quiet moment of recognition and reflection.
And then, the swearing and yelling began anew.

Sustained sensation of wellness

Gotta say, this riding a bike -- well, tricycle -- has been working out for me. As in me working out. As in breaking sweat at least twice a week with hard riding. well, hard for me. But even on slow, drowsy rides I have noticed that I have a sustained sensation of wellness. It's a pleasure to ride. It's been a year and a half since I bought this bike and hills are eaasier, flat stretches go faster, and I go farther and feel better during and after. What more could I want?
Well, a recumbent trike with a big basket and a custom Tony's trailer.
But that's for the future.
Ride the bike that's here.

6/6/2006

So 6/6/6 wasn't such a scary number after all, was it? I know that here in Victoria it was one of the nicest days we've had this year. And I took full advantage of the combination of a beautiful day and a day off from invigilating exams at the University to take my bike and power off to the end of the Galloping Goose Trail.
The Trail, named after an old locomotive and running on the old roadbed, runs from kilometre zero at the Johnson Street Bridge out past the Sooke Potholes Provincial Park to end at the abandoned mining village of Leechtown fifty-five kilometres away. I've never biked the length of it, and have always thought that the trip from Victoria to Sooke would be interesting. And it is.
The first section of the ride is alongside the main artery of Victoria, Douglas Street. After Switch Bridge, the trail parallels Douglas as Douglas turns into the Trans-Canada Highway heading up to Naniamo. As Douglas changes, the Goose veers south into Colwood. The Trail starts to become more than a commuter route at this point, as the trees lining the sides of the Trail start to close in and occasionally arch over it, leaving you biking through a green tunnel. It's here that you cross Six Mile Bridge, one of those typical places in Victoria—where a place of stunning natural beauty exists fifteen metres from fifteen thousand people. Or as I put it 24 years ago; “another f*cking picturesque view, eh”?
While the route that the Trail follows through Colwood is very pretty—lots of flowering trees and wild rose bushes—there seems to have been a distinct lack of commitment to the Trail by the local government during its construction phase. There are several awkward or impossible crossings (such as the one over the Island Highway at Ocean Boulevard) that could have been made so much better if trail users had been given a bit more thought (or respect). One also has to be careful crossing the Veteran's Memorial Parkway, as the Trail technically ends and then restarts across the way. But if you watch the signage here, you end up back on the Trail rather than on the pedestrian-only trails paralleling the Parkway.
Between Kilometre 17 and 18, if you keep watch, is a small post that says “Jenkins Trail”. This is an excellent turnaround point for a morning ride. If you turn north here, you end up in Glen Cove Park, with its AFPV (another f*cking etc) from a small bench in the boardwalk that cuts across the east end of Glen Lake. This is an excellent bird-watching spot—I spotted a redwing blackbird jumping from lily pad to lily pad and occasionally flipping up the edges of the lily pads, foraging for bugs. This isn't behaviour that I've seen in redwing blackbirds before, so I found it quite interesting. But I usually use this location for fish watching. The water here is usually quite clear, and the bottom is covered with a forest of plants, so if you watch closely you will usually see a number of fish of different sizes and types moving in and out of the shelter of the plants. But today it was only fry less that ten millimetres long zipping about in the water.
Leaving Glen Lake, you run into another terrible crossing, where the Trail, Glen Lake Road and the Island Highway come together. And particularly try to avoid this crossing during the Luxton Fair weekend—nothing but cars and people in every direction. Thankfully, the fair was a couple of weeks back, so the traffic was lessened.
After the Luxton fairgrounds, the Trail runs roughly alongside Happy Valley Road and becomes more distinctly rural in nature. Here farms back onto the Trail, and creeks run along side it, and the biking is a treat. It rained a few days back, so the Trail was still damp, and biking along it was a lot cooler than it was in the sun.
The next problematic crossing comes when the Trail crosses the intersection of Rocky Point Road and Kangaroo Road. It was a short while after this crossing that the unexpected happened between kilometre 27 and 28. I was cruising nicely, the gravel surface of the Trail here is a fine crushed gravel (say 8mm and under), and is well packed. Making good time, I came around a slight bend in the green tunnel and slammed on the brakes. I skidded to a stop while less than seven metres ahead of me a small black bear crossed the Trail. He (all bears are he, except for Polar bears which are she) was obviously still young and not anywhere near full sized. His coat was rough, not the late summer sleekness of a well-fed mature bear, and all I wanted to do was dig my fingers in and give him a good scratch. He jogged across the Trail and paused briefly on the down-slope on the other side, turning to look at me while I stayed quite still looking at him. Then he continued down the slope and stopped in the underbrush by the creek flowing at the bottom of the ravine.
I guess I never really believed that there were bears on the Island. I've seen the local deer—often on the Goose or Lochside Trails—and while the mule deer we'd see on the farm were seven hundred pounds and up, the local deer are luck to weigh a tenth that. So I didn't really think that bears would be able to live on the Island. But this area, particularly as you get closer to Matheson Lake, is still quite wild. Cougars are regularly spotted inside the city limits, and years ago one actually was spotted within two blocks of our house on John Street, but I have difficulty believing in them too. I think its because growing up in Edmonton, the urban and the wild were distinctly different things; with the wild being relegated to the National Parks like Jasper and Banff.
At approximately kilometre 30 is the cut-off to Matheson Lake Regional Park. Previously, this was the furthest I'd biked on the Galloping Goose. That was last summer when John and I biked out and Paula and Louise brought the kayak out. At this point you are just past halfway to the end of the Trail, and Matheson is a good place to stop as the lake is suitable for swimming, fishing, and boating.
The entrance to Roche Cove Regional Park is at kilometre 35, and this is where I stopped for lunch. The Trail has to be around a hundred metres up from the Cove, and provides some spectacular views. Roche Cove is connected to Matheson Lake, and Matheson is home to beautiful sea-run trout with orange salmon-like flesh (yes, back in the day I would occasionally drop a line into the water).
From Roche Cove, the Trail follows the Sooke Basin shoreline all the way over to Cooper Cove, passing at least one B&B enroute. It was only a couple of weeks back that we were out kayaking in Cooper Cove and Sooke Basin, so it was very interesting to see it from the Trail point of view.
After Cooper Cove, the Trail follows Sooke Road for a while before bending off to the north and heading towards Sooke Potholes Provincial Park, staying high up the side of the hill while far below the Sooke River tumbles along.
There are two spectacular trestle bridges here; the Charters Creek and Tod Creek trestles, both of which are high over their respective creeks. There are alternate routes over each creek for horse traffic. And the trail finally end at kilometre 55 in Leechtown—the former site of a gold mining community.
By the end of the trip I have to say that I was plenty tired. It has been months since I've biked more than fifteen or twenty kilometres at one go, so I biked back down to Sooke Road about kilometre 41, and caught the municipal bus back to Victoria, loading my bike on the front. I've never done this before either, and found the procedure quite straightforward, and the bus drivers quite understanding and helpful. But then most of the bus drivers here are understanding, patient, and helpful.
So I made it back to the house, tired, but not destroyed. And the next morning I experienced only a small amount of stiffness—about what I usually feel in the morning, so I was quite pleased with myself. Really, a terrific bike trip.

Bike to Work Week - Dénouement

Now that all the hoopla about Bike to Work Week is over, there's just one last thing to take care of: prizes!
The joke was all last week that we’d win a water bottle. Guess what? Yes, it’s true – we won a water bottle! And a hat, and two passes to various Greater Victoria Recreation Centres.
Ah, but now comes the tricky part. Who gets the prizes? As team captain, I decided that each day that a person rode their bike to work last week would count as an entry in our Prize Winner Determination Draw. I rode five days, so I get five entries. Same with Linda. Paddy rode three times, she gets three entries, and Jocelyn, who rode once, got one entry.
An impartial non-bike rider made the draw. And the winner is ….Jocelyn! Jocelyn who rode only once! Jocelyn who beat the 14-1 odds in our draw! Man, that sucks! I like that hat!

Bike to Work Week - Day 5

Amazingly, no evils befell me. No cars lept out of blind alleys, no strange and sudden meteorological anomalies rained down on me, no part of my bike suddenly disintegrated while I was racing down a steep hill.
How was the turn out? There's 24 people in our branch. 7 signed up to ride all week, only two of us, including myself, did. One person rode three days, one person rode one day, the other three didn't ride at all.

Bike to Work Week - Day 4

What a great week this is turning into. This morning I got "pot holed" by a car. First time ever. The car had me lined up, found a pot hole full of water and splatto - drenched from head to toe.
Thank you very much, Mr. Anonymous Asshole.

Bike to Work Week - Day 3

After yesterday's sunshine, the clouds returned. Cold and misty. But not bad for biking.
Except that my chain fell off again.
Sigh.

Bike To Work Week - Day 2

Tuesday was a much brighter day. Thanks to the nice weather, there were lots of newbie bicyclists on The Galloping Goose trail today. It was crowded!
This is why some experienced riders don't ride during Bike to Work Week -- it's too busy!

Bike to Work Week - Day 1

Well, what can I tell you?
It rained in the morning, my chain came off twice and I dropped my digital camera. Not a great start to the week. Out of the seven people at work on my team who were going to ride, only two did. One injured his ankle over the weekend and won't be riding at all this week.

Still, it looked like a lot of people were out, judging by all the amateurs on the trails. And the activites looked well attended, too. Maybe I'll have a better attitude tomorrow!

UVic's cycling/parking news

In August 2005 the parking rates at UVic went up 40% (UVic's president got a 45% raise) and a lot of employees were pissed off. At the time we hadn't had a pay increase in five years, and although we've won some gains, our parking rates will go up again this August. It is all in an effort to reduce the cars on campus, which in light of gas prices and cutting down on traffic is something that is commendable. However, at this point in time there isn't the set up to encourage staff to ride to work. A lot do cycle to work, and interestly enough most of them live close to UVic and sometimes even walk to work. In some cases my fellow coworkers live too far to cycle or have children to drop off and pick up after school. Cycling just wouldn't work in this case, nor does taking the bus.

I too drive to work, during the summer months. In the winter I take the bus using my student bus pass. I feel I'm doing my part. I would cycle to UVic, however there are a few issues that prevent me. 1) I use to work at Campus Security and one of my jobs was to do the stats--bike theft was pretty high at that time and I don't think the figures have gone down. 2) my supervisor had his bike stolen during Bike to Work Week 2004, it was locked up right outside our office doors. 3) there is a waiting list for the bike lockers, although more are on the way.

I think the bike lockers are a neat idea! I'm hoping that I can get one next summer and ride to work. I know I should do it this summer, but I already purchased my parking pass for the summer months, and it wasn't cheap! It is non-refundable, non-transferrable.

There are covered lock up areas on campus too.
Check it out the lockers, bike shelters at: http://transportation.uvic.ca/cycling/parking.html

Gear up!

Hey, I got my new gear!
My five-speed tricycle is still a five speed. But instead of gears 1 through 5, with a 36-tooth front gear wheel, it's now got a 40-tooth front gear wheel so the gears are more like gears 2 through 6. I go a little faster now, and never use first gear anyways but walk up hills that steep.
Zoom.
Now I'm looking for a recumbent trike or semi-recumbent. Time to test ride an EZ 3 at the Fairfield bike shop again, and try others.
But in the meantime, zoom.

Bike to Work Week

Hey kids, it's that time of the year again!
Bike To Work Week is May 29 - June 2. Sign up for fun, frolic and prizes. I'm a team leader at my workplace, and I'll bring you all the lowdown during the week.

Fitting into my life

I've decided bikes fit into my life.
Now if my bike just fit onto my bus... well, guess we can't have everything. But I sure have a lot of things!
I've been wearing my bright reflective vest when biking some days, when I know I'll be on the road a lot instead of the goose. All it seems to do is make drivers laugh, but hey, if they don't hit me that's good enough.
One driver pulled over and shook his fist at me for biking on the crosswalk when the signal was blinking "don't start" -- and after he'd repeated himself so I could hear him with my half-deaf ears, I gave the correct reply -- the raised finger. Hadn't thought I was a militant biker until then. And I sure don't look like anyone's poster girl for biking. But hey, I'm on my bike tomorrow to go down to the kayak shops and buy a proper paddling vest. Nice to fit that bike into my plans, and nice to fit my plans on my bike, too.

Invisible or blind?

I've been reading magazines on biking and on paddling lately, and trying to write articles for 'em. Sold one to WaveLength Magazine, and hope it'll be the first of a new series of articles. How can ya tell I'm a freelance writer, eh? Well, they say write what you know.
The bicycling magazine I was reading lately had an article on invisible bikers. But by the time you get most of the way through the article, the author has realized that there really is a community of people who use bikes to commute, to work, to improve their lives and to make a difference. And it's not that these are invisible bikers. He finally realized that these people are perfectly visible, out there, working in the same real world in the same city he lives in. The reason he and his friend bikers don't see them: the rich bikers are blind. The people really using their bikes are low-income, and the author realized he just hadn't been seeing the people who were using cheap bikes all around him. And he felt like a complete shit.
Is there an answer for this reversible blindness?
Well, it wouldn't hurt to promote a local bike shop/repair centre. Bicycleitis on Bay Street (1 block west of Shelbourne Street) is a great little shop. They not only sell affordable second-hand bikes as well as new, they have a "free tree" on the boulevard. Haul those old clunkers out from under the deck and give 'em to these guys or some other repair shop like Recyclistas. Wheels on the road, eh? there is no excuse for anything else.

Out of shape

Yeah, the winter has made me feel out of shape. I haven't been biking as much as I've wanted to, nor as much as I should have. But the speed at which my fitness has declined has been ridiculous.
Even out biking with Paula--no speed demon, but very consistent-- became a chore. Riding the Goose was work--and that's dead flat and paved. Where other people have been zooming along, I've just z'd. So depressing.
Right up until a visit to Recyclistas by Switch Bridge on the Goose. Something had gone askew on the treadle (well, nuts had loosened/tightened on my rear axle), and the guys taught me how to pull the axle apart, replace the bearings, and fit the whole works back together. Now my bike, she go zoom again! Well, with a little help from me.
But let me recommend Recyclistas to everyone. These guys know their stuff, are both friendly and helpful, and do excellent work. But more importantly, they are pretty darned good at teaching you how to do the work yourself. And they are more than fair with their sliding scale of rates.

Just had to share the news: I need more gears on my trike!
Well, I have five. Not surprising that after a year of biking and walking and kayaking that my fitness has increased and I want to GO FASTER on my three-wheeler.
Yes, I'll keep it slow enough to be safe. But I am soooo going to get the front gear changed. More more more faster harder higher stronger
I'll have to put a picture of the Norco Parkland up here to show what it's like. Staid. Bland. Gets cheers wherever I go.
And now the electric bike store on Yates street has ones just like it with motors! oh baby.

Bait Bikes

Our neck of the woods is prone to bike thefts. Local police have started a "bait bike" program similar to "bait car" programs to deter bike thieves. GPS transmitters and other devices have been installed in bikes around the city waiting for the bad guys to steal them.
(There's some tips to avoid having your bike stolen at the end of the article.)

Enough

I don't feel much like a real biker, not compared to the bikemutants roaring past my three-wheeler. But hey, my trike gets me on the road and trail. And that's real enough.

Ride Like The Wind

It's been very windy out here on the We(s)t Coast for the last couple of weeks, and I've noticed something very strange about it.
Maybe it's just me, but when I ride in the wind, the wind is always blowing in my face, slowing me down and making it a much more difficult ride.
When I ride to work, it's in my face.
When I ride home, it's in my face.
Riding home, I go west, then north for a while, then turn west again, and finish up with a couple of blocks of south. Every time I change direction, the wind is in my face.
The only time the wind is not in my face is when I'm stopped at a red light. The weather gods taunt me with a moment of placid calm, before the winds whip up in a frenzy. It's like trying to ride through a solid brick wall when the light turns green.
There's some strange meteorological effect going on here, like I'm being followed by my own personal microburst.
I should be flattered that the gods take such a personal interest in me. If only they would pay the same sort of attention to my lottery ticket numbers.

Hail Hail!

Okay, here's a ride home for the books...
The morning ride to work was cool and windy. However, the weatherman promised that the afternoon should be clear and sunny.
Which it was, until naturally it was time to go home. As soon as I hide a road home, a squall came in, cold and windy. And the heavens opened up and began dumping.... hail!
I've been rained on, snowed on, but I never been hailed on!
And it hurt!
Oh well, no one said bike riding was boring!

I have this great Bizarro cartoon and I'd scan it into this blog if I could. Since I can't I'll have to explain it...imagine a psychologist with a patient lying on a couch....the good doctor is saying....

Let me put this in layman's terms--the mind is like a bicycle. You've gotten your pants leg caught in the sprocket and your chain has come off.

When you've had enough

So this motorist in toronto tosses some crap out his window. A bike courier tosses it back in. Escalation happens...

Johnson Street Bridge

Riding over the Johnson Street Bridge is an, er, interesting proposition at the best of times. Going west, it's two narrow lanes on a metal grating. Lots of fun to ride on in the winter wind and rain. The posted speed limit is 30kmh and lane changes are not allowed. Yet I'm always amazed that I can get up to the speed limit on my bike, yet every single car passes me and many of them change lanes to do it. (And most of them probably spend their driving time cursing those #$%&ing bike riders. But I digress.)
Suffice it to say, crossing the bridge is not for the faint of heart, especially when I cross during the afternoon rush hour. Traffic is tight, tempers are tighter and riders are taking their lives in their hands.
Hell of a time for my chain come off.
Which is what it did yesterday, flying off the front crank and wrapping itself around my peddles just I hit the metal bridge decking. I had just hit top speed when my chain decided to depart. (The vehicle behind me was a Victoria Police van that illegally changed lanes, then sped up over the limit to pass me. The officer driving was probably mumbling something about those #$%&ing bike riders. But I digress.)
The good news is that with nary a wobble I was able to maintain my balance and coast across the bridge to the first turn-off and with a few minutes of cursing and grease stains was on my way.

Crank Forward

Here is a Wired story on new "crank-forward" style bikes.

Gears

I've been having trouble with my gears. I ride a ten year-old 21-speed mountain bike, and despite the fact that I have a brand-new drive train on it, my gears are acting up.
When I'm in my high gear at the front, I sometimes have a devil of a time finding the low gears in the back. And it's got me thinking: do I really need 21 gears?
Honestly, I never use most of them. I rarely leave my top gear of the three in the front, and only use a few of the seven in the rear. Sure, if I was cross-country riding across lots of mountains, some low gears would come in handy, but as a commuter and trail rider, most of them are wasted.
I figure that I only need about five gears:
- go like hell;
- medium cruising;
- cruising in traffic;
- little hill;
- big hill.
Give me those five gears, and I'll be happy.

Pedestrian Rage

I ride my bike to work.
In Victoria, the weather is such that it is possible to ride your bike year-round here in the City of Gardens. Only on those very rare days when I see white on the ground in the morning do I trade my bike for the bus. (And before you scoff at the notion that Victoria could receive any snow worth mentioning, recall the Blizzard of '96, a ten-day long series of snowstorms which culminated in a blizzard during which downtown Victoria received 85cm of snow in a 24-hour period, the 3rd largest snowfall in a city in Canadian history. But I digress.)
So everday, I put on my shorts and t-shirt (or during these cool days my gloves, jacket, sweater and spandex long pants) and my helmet, of ocurse, and embark on the half-hour ride to work.
But three times in the last week, I've been the victim of "pedestrian rage," pedestrians who started yelling and swearing at me for no reason than the fact that I ride a bicycle.
As example, yesterday morning I was riding along my usual route to work through a local Mall. I was in the traffic lane. A pedistrian was walking along the sidewalk beside me. We reached the corner at the same time. We were both going straight in the same direction. He started across in the crosswalk, I started across in the traffic lane. At no time were we within three metres of each other.Suddenly, he starts swearing at me. "EXPLETIVE DELETED bicycles! Watch where you're going! Stay out of the crosswalk! EXPLETIVE DELETED jerk!"
What the EXPLETIVE DELETED? I wasn't in the crosswalk, I wasn't aiming for the crosswalk, I travelling parallel to the crosswalk!Maybe this fellow put too much beer in his Corn Flakes.
And a few nights earlier on the way home, a guy pushing his shopping cart along the trail starting swearing at me as I slowly passed him. "EXPLETIVE DELETED biker! It's not safe for pedestrians any more!"
I should have replied, "Yes, especially when the pedestrian is pushing a shopping cart along a dark trail at night in a poorly lit area while wearing black clothes! Damn right, it's not safe!"
Come to think of it, this guy might had too much beer in his Corn Flakes, too.
But clearly something is going here. Pedestrians are rising up, fighting back against slights both real and imagined.
Someone should do a study on this. I'm sure the government will pay for it.