Sticking a pin in it

Last week was a banner week.

I was back at work on Monday aboard a bike, albeit my garvel bike... and I allowed myself to get roped into eighteen miles of Sad Dad™ that evening.  By Tuesday, I felt up to riding my bar bike/grocery getter to trivia night.

These things got to go though.

The ER doc wanted to stitch the lower laceration, but I told him I'd had enough for the day.

Wednesday, I rode over to Dr Mike's house for some modern medicine.

I'd say things are looking 90% better now, but I can see why the OG doc wanted to lace up the smaller cut.  Doh.

After removing my stitches, Dr Mike convinced me to ride twenty something more miles to get three beers as payment.  I don't think Cigna is going to cover my bar tab.

I agreed to ride whatever gravel route he and Burke could come up with on Saturday.  I didn't know what I was getting myself into.  To make things worse, I also didn't know my Wahoo data acquisition device was ded like single speeds and 27.5" wheels and democracy.  I had no idea what mile we were on, how long we'd ridden, when/if it was time to eat, and also how close I was to getting this ride over with.  I was supposed to "take it easy, but...

It might sound kinda nuts, but I'd yet to ride my garvel bike in WNC before.  Of course they chose a sixty five mile route that had some of the chunkiest gravel I'd ever seen this side of Costa Rica (thanks, Pinnacle Mountain).  I was pretty concerned about what was going on under my knee pad, so I only took a quick peek at it when we stopped at some place called Canteen (which had $5 pretzels, draft beer, and free(?) soup).

The ride really kicked my ass, and I don't know if it's because I'd been riding all week, had eight days off the bike in a row, the tight knee pad was cutting circulation to my lower leg bits, or I'd just forgotten how to ride a bike. 

 

The post-ride stop at Iron Key Brewing was very welcome.

Yeth, that is a solitary confinement cell at the prison cum brewery.

I thought I'd go out for a recovery ride on Sunday to get a beer and watch the feetballing, but I was coerced into forty something miles at a peppy pace by Burke (again).

I guess I'm going to be wearing that kneepad (or some modified version of it) until the end of March or so any time my tires are hitting anything other than tarmac.  Sucks, but at least I'm riding bikes for fun again.

So that's that.  Nothing more than a post to show that I've moved the flags a little further downfield so when/if I look back, I'll know how it all went.