Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Going the Right Direction

Last update was a while ago, back in early March and a lot has happened since then. Let me elaborate.
Bike Riding -Negative
Yup, everyone knows I have fickle knees.  The last two years have been a pain trying to figure everything out.  I've been trying to rest and recover, work on muscle groups, positions, and anything to be able to ride wihtout sharp pain.  Just enjoying the trails and riding consistently is what I want.  I'm still riding, but very slowly, inconsistent and not as long as I would like.
Knee Progress - Positive
I finally took action and got an MRI and worked with my Sports Medicine doc Rich Price, MD.  He went out of his way to help me, find the problem, give solutions and link me with some great knee docs.  I'll be doing a little slicing and dicing next week to take out some fatty pad and scar tissue that has become impinged in my knee joint creating the sharp pain.  After physio, taping, electotherapy, injections, positioning and what not, this is the next step.  I am #veryexcite to be visiting a very top notch knee doc and getting my problems put behind me.  The season, especially spring/summer may be scrapped, but I am jones'd to be able to enjoy riding and maybe getting fit again this summer.  We'll see what the summer and recovery brings, but Iceman bitches!
Bike Race Promoting - Positive
We've been working hard on getting cycling events going and expanding in the Grand Valley of Colorado the past 3 years.  This year we changed it up with events and tried to innovate and get more locals stoked on participating.  We did a local hill climb which was a neat first year race, but our focus has been on our mountain bike race, the Rumble at 18Rd.  We worked hard dialing everything in to make this a great race.  In the end, it went of perfect for a first year event.  226 people registered with 90% of them from out of town.  The course was great, weather turned out good, and positive vibes were had all around.  It was definitely worth the effort to put on such a great race and not have haters bringing you down afterwards.  Lots of regional and national media coverage was had from MTBRaceNews.com, Mountain Flyer Magazine, Post race pro-interviews on CyclingDirt.com, a 20 minute radio interview, and more.  It's rare you walk away from promoting an event excited, but this was the case.  Can't wait to make it even better next year.  In the meantime, we're working on our next events, an Enduro race and Urban Poker ride in Fruita.
Visitors
The hard part usually about not riding much is not knowing what to do.  Luckily, I've been busy with promoting races, promoting the shop and events, and having friends in town.  The past few weeks I've had people crashing my place.  It was Colin Cares and Mitch Hoke, then Joe Schnieder and Jill Behlen, last weekend was the Boudlerites, and this week some Michiganders are in town.  Hopefully we'll get some riding in and some typical BBQing.
Currently
Lately I've been doing some yard work and landscaping.  I'm currently an expert at sprinkler systems!  Been working on my garden and put another raised bed in for more veggies this summer.  Just call me a hippie.

I'm calling this good.  I'm sitting at a Starbucks in Temple Town of Salt Lake City.  I took an Amtrak from GJ here last night and took a stroll through town to a hotel late at night.  Picking up a Sprinter van and some In 'N Out Burger this afternoon, then headed back to heaven.