wish I was in the UK so I can watch this new show: CHAOS LABORATORIES

New blog for bike info / cycle parts and so forth

www.circle-360.blogspot.com

bike parts
reviews
product info

shoulders, yup theres more

following on... yesterday I had an MRI on my shoulder, today my doctor called an told me I had separated my acromioclavicular or AC joint in the top of my shoulder with swelling & tissue damage to a fairly sever extent but with no complications,  apparently this is common in impact sports and takes time to heal.  It will take 5-6 weeks to fully heal, but after a few weeks I can ride my road bike, if I fall during this time, it will be very bad. 

This is a better situation than what was thought to be rotator cuff damage, which could have required surgery.

 AC joint is shown in the upper right

McOver the handle bars crashtastic fun.

Last Monday signified the start of a long time off the bike for me.
The last Short Track Mountain Bike race of the season, as last year; the last race is well wicked, at the end of the night a planned team relay, podium prices and general mayhem.
My night on the other hand got cut a tad short, in the warm up rides I managed to crash hard, land all my weight on my right shoulder and send myself to the Hospital Emergency Room for x-rays. Thanks to my friend Joel and his onhand trusty Subaru, I made it to the emergency room in one piece and very quickly. After the First Aiders at the race had looked at me, it was almost certain that I had broken a bone in my shoulder, x-rays showed no breaks. Intense pain and lack of motion in particular areas of my shoulder , lead to only one thing, rotator cuff damage.
With a good prescription for Vicodin and paracetamol I was sent home, arm in sling and an appointment for a doc visit in a few weeks to evaluate the damage after all the inflammation goes down. If all goes well, no surgery will be needed, if the lack of motion and tears are deemed bad enough, I may be under the knife in a few weeks.
At the end of the day it will be 4-6 weeks before I can ride my bike outside, if all goes good it will be 3 weeks till I can ride inside on a stationary trainer, where I do not have to put any force on my arm/ shoulder.

Needless to say, the bike is pretty buggered up, bent brake lever and two pretty much well destroyed wheels.

oh well...

high speed crash on dirt, could have been much worse, high speed crash on concrete for example !

STXC (Short track cross country) July 6th

A friend took this picture, but of course i'm only at the liftoff of my air journey- I think it's pretty good snap, this was taken over the finish line. This is a cross country mountain bike race for about 30mins. and for me it's one gear, no bloody shock absorbers. There is only one category for single gear which means you get a field of really fast people. For me finishing around 30th out of 60 is good. I'm working on getting better, mainly my bike handling, cornering, honing in on my gear ratio and so forth, my fitness is there, but my lines and familiarity of a single gear is not. It can only get better I hope!

STXC June 29th

do I look happy, do i fuk. this is the look of being over geared at the top of a hill.
Short Track Cross Country - STXC - Monday nights @ PIR
bloody sure that 16tooth cog's getting changed for a 17 bugger.

New kona SS Cross bike

Hot off the press, Kona Major One - same Scandium frame as the geared major for a sick ride. Available as a frameset. Color, yeah um, not so sure i'm down with it.

this worries me

Thankfully, it's not my wheel and I love Mavic, I have sold many sets of wheels in favor of my metal bladed Mavic's but this really worries me. Product testing mavic, it's called testing.

read about this here

mixed bag of worms

mixed bag of worms this past week.
a few friends hurt in bike race crashes (not me mum). They will be alright and strong soon. Still scary shit, that makes you wanna glue your helmet to ya melon. yeah.

mum you would be proud, I bought a new gas cooker, yeah your son all domesticated right, who would have thought. It's not wired up yet. It's pretty sat in the kitchen nonfunctional. Kinda like me pretty and disfunctional. This weekend will be to wire in the bugger. (my friend Clay at GE Appliances designed this one)



A clean turtle tank, is like a clean mind, no poo chunks floating around to ruin the flow of clean nothingness thoughts. Clean your tanks people!



my flatmate Jordan is still stinky and only eats plants. He is obsessed with going to the cinema, i think he goes 5 times a week.

On to Thursday, the day of point races at the track, pain and getting stuck at the back of the pack. Yeah I love velodrome. Some say i'm crap at it, others (like me) just say i have potential.

Cat 4 track

CAT4 Track upgrade, not a big deal, but I got it, so I don't have to ride with the "crash right in front of you gang"

Strange I got my upgrade, coz I won less and rode less than Erich, go figure, get some more sand in that bag Erich.