Books, brains, bikes and balance- all things I enjoy that begin with the letter B.
I started this blog because I signed up for a 2 day bike race that covered 85 km of single track, and I wanted to document the journey, but since then, it has nebulized into things I think about (mostly bikes). Also, I secretly (well, not anymore) want to write books and abandon my career in neurology, and this is me writing again.
Anyone can see the road that they walk on is paved in gold, and it’s always summer, They’ll never get cold, they’ll never get hungry, they’ll never get old and gray. You can see their shadows wandering off somewhere They won’t make it home but they really don’t care They wanted the highway, they’re happier there today ~ The Way ~ Fastball
I used to love this song. I still do. I think it’s about dementia. I don’t know where I got that from, but it makes perfect sense.
It’s freedom at its best, an idyllic escape.
I write this as I sit out my third Monday Night Rides. The shoulder is coming along, but when it’s a warm summer’s night, and pretty perfect for a bike ride, I lament the fact that I am at home, doing a whole lot of wall push ups and shoulder rotations. And I lament the fact that I’m doing more work, after the work day is done.
I had a moment today, thinking of the people who just have evenings free to do anything they want, without any work obligations weighing overhead. What must that feel like? They must make incredible dinners, or be so fantastically fit. Or maybe they paint pictures or write songs.
I am proud of myself today though. I made dinner. It was a sausage with bag salad and box mac and cheese. The 20-something dude re-staining our deck (for the second time, I might add, because the first time he did it the paint company gave him the wrong blend and he just put it on and then realized it was a strange shade of pink, and no, my husband said, we cannot just leave it pink, so now he’s got to redo it) looked over at the dinner plates I laid out and probably decided in that moment that he would one day have to ensure he found a partner who could cook.
Whatever. They are not starving. And overlooking a newly nude deck.
In other news, I need creative input. This Thursday is Chromag’s (a local bike company) annual Show and Shine party. Anyone who wants to can bring their Chromag bike and set it up for display. The more creative the display, the more votes you are likely to get. You win, you get a sum of money to spend at Chromag, and you go down in Show and Shine history. I’m going to bring this bike, because it’s got a cool basket contraption and some fun old school parts. My dirt jumper is also from Chromag, but it’s not fun or interesting. It’s just elegant and pretty. But this has potential.
In the past, some have poured shots whilst standing next to their bike. Last year, a guy handed out little dime bags of weed for every vote he got. One person has suggested calling it Shotgun, and having shot glasses lined up in the basket for people to enjoy. I briefly considered calling it the Green Fairy and offering up absinthe, but that’s actually a terrible idea, because last year, by the end of the night, people were bunny hopping bikes over the fire. I also thought about calling it Verve, with a slight wordplay on Veuve Cliquot, where I’d pour wee gulps of bubbly, as Verve’s definiton is “vigor and spirit or enthusiasm”.
I am, of course, especially open to ideas that do not involve drugs and alcohol, and ideally much cheaper treats I can find at the dollar store. Because we are, at heart, a town of gigantic children riding bicycles.
Please mum, it’s for a good cause. Just one quarter. Please? You’re just standing in line to pay for groceries anyway! Drop the quarter in. Watch it roll, ’round and ’round and ’round. ‘Round and ’round some more, and it continues longer than my attention span will tolerate. Little feet rise on tiptoe, watching it fall, finally, into the abyss below. *Plink.*
My shoulder range of motion is excellent, but the stability isn’t there. My clavicle rolls and I feel little tendons shift out of place as I do my physio exercises. To compensate, every muscle surrounding my shoulder is doing its misguided best, and each and every day is spent willfully ignoring the tight, screaming spasms they produce. Today it’s my teres major and my levator scap. Yesterday was the trap and infraspinatus. I can identify each and every muscle based on pain localization alone. I tell my physiotherapist this, and he proceeds to stick needles in every sore muscle, chit-chatting while I try not to cry out, while I focus on breathing. I leave with tape holding things in place, and, for the first time in a week, an ability to fully turn my head without pain.
I post a positive thinking post to social media. I have successfully, for the hour surrounding that post, managed to talk myself out of feeling sorry for myself.
A friend calls the next day. “I read your post, and you know what my first thought was? You’re a f*cking liar. I know you.” she laughs. “But really, how ya doing? Did you hear? The Swede broke his hand. All my riding buddies are dropping like flies.”
I message the Swede. Surgery pending. 2 months off the bike. He is annoyed. I tell him to book a ticket to the next local race apres, a riotous annual party at a local bike manufacturing shop. I’m just going because I miss everyone. Not even going to ride the race beforehand. We can show up as our gimpy selves and see our friends. He does not commit, but jokes that maybe he will ride the race on a unicycle; no hands needed.
How am I though? I’m kind of a miserable cow. And, because I’m not doing much by way of sweating my little heart out in the sunshine whilst pedaling up and down mountains, I went and got my eyebrows touched up. If you didn’t know, I get my eyebrows tattooed on. This requires touch-ups every year or two, so I figured I may as well, since I’m not doing much anyway. The thing about eyebrow tats though, is that they are REALLY dark for the first few days until it flakes off and leaves behind a more natural looking shade. Until then, though, I look like an insane Chaplin-esque Kardashian. Well, that’s how it feels anyway.
Combine this with my ridiculous work week and four hours sleep last night and I kind of just want to lie on the floor. I also feel like this time, my brows are a bit asymmetric. To match my shoulders, I suppose.
The Dentist Project isn’t even giving me joy. “Would building your bike help with the crushing pain of not riding?” says the bike friend who is helping me with my build. No. I have decided. It would not. So tomorrow, instead of building a bicycle, I’ll just work, I guess. The wheels still aren’t here anyway. Crushing indeed.
He is nine tomorrow, but every night, like tonight, he yells from his bedroom, “MOM! SNUGGLES!”
His hair is damp from his shower, and his gangly pre-pubescent body is cartoonish in length. He folds his limbs under a duvet that has slunk down into its cover, leaving a frustratingly empty handful of fabric in his fist as he pulls it over himself.
He is at a stage in his life where the chatter is incessant, and today, it is about the Legend of Zelda, the school bake sale, and the project he’s been working on for his dad for Father’s Day. It’s as though he’s forgotten it’s his birthday tomorrow, so excited is he about his Father’s Day project. He’s been online, and found his dad’s business website. “You’re on his website; did you know that, Mom? Only you’re young in the picture.” I laugh. I would have been five or six years younger, yes, but to him, that’s two thirds of his lifetime.
The blue-tinged light from his alarm clock casts shadows onto his tired face. His chatter quiets, and I kiss his forehead and give his skinny, small-boy shoulders a squeeze. “Goodnight buddy, I love you.” “Goodnight, mom. Love you too.”
There is a pause. Then, “DAD! SNUGGLES!”
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I am ten, and my left fourth metatarsal is broken. It’s been a long, tearful night, and I am exhausted. First, the diary is stolen, then I’m leaping down four steps to try to get it back, only I slip on landing, and the rest of my body weight lands on the folded foot still under me as I tumble into a heap at the bottom of the stairs. It is a sharp, breath-taking pain in my foot, and in the half hour drive to the hospital where I’m diagnosed with a hairline fracture, every bump in the road brings tears anew. All the family friends who have come for dinner have prodded at my foot, ultimately making the decision that I am not, indeed, a drama queen.
A fluorescent yellow fibreglass cast is placed on my leg, and my mother has tucked me into bed with a children’s Tylenol slowly dissolving into my system.
I lie on my back, in the dark, and lift my newly casted, heavy leg, straight up into the air, sole pointing at the frilled pink canopy above my bed. It is a deep, miserable throb. I’m in a sweat, anxious at the school I’ll miss. I squeeze my eyes shut and two angry, hot tears squeeze out the sides of my eyes, trickling into my hair. I slowly lower my leg down, as I drift into a fitful sleep.
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She’s five, and her bright, sunny, self is skiing with her class on the mountain. There is a magic castle, nestled into the woods, where the kids can take a break to run around.
Today, there is an instructor dressed as a dragon at the castle, and he chases the kids around. The clomp-clomp-clomp of ski boots on perforated metal grating is mingled with the laughing screams of red-cheeked children, running with their runny noses away from a roaring dragon.
But a stumble, and a fall, and pile of children falling on top of one another. One scream, higher pitched than the rest. She is hauled down the mountain in a tobaggan after a small dose of ketamine, bundled and strapped in tight as a patroller skis in graceful arcs to the base, where she is transferred to the medical centre. The colouring page she is given reflects her ketamine high; dizzying brown and black spirals circle the serene faces of Disney princesses.
For her spiral fracture, she is encased in a hot pink cast that goes up to mid-thigh. Her little leg, with its little muscles developing under baby fat, is suddenly forced into stillness.
She is propped on the couch with pillows, a long t-shirt hanging over her kindergarteners body as she decides if she ought to go to bed in bed, or simply sleep on the couch. “This is the worst day of my life!” she exclaims, a big, fat, tear rolling down her pouting face.
She puts a cushion over her face, and asks to be taken to her bed.
It is. It truly is.
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He is mine and I am his.
Because he is mine, I must learn to accept his need for a fan in the room, running overnight.
I picture his mother working night shifts so she can spend her days with her three boys. At night, after a stimulating day, she tucks them in to bed, and turns on the fan so she can sneak out for work unheard. I picture her exhausted upon return in the morning, flicking off the fan, waking the boys, making breakfast and ushering them off to school before she can lie down for a much needed rest.
It’s Christmas, and his mother hands us a box with a smirk.
It’s a white noise machine, and we are both much more excited about this than we should be.
That night, he plugs it in to the corner of our room. “Love, do you want to listen to the rain tonight? A thunderstorm? Or a steady mechanical hum? The hums are named after different colours.” “THUNDERSTORM!”
He crawls in to bed with me, the room dark, the sound of thunder and a downpour in the distance. I can feel him smiling as he faces me, on his side, and no doubt he can feel me smiling back. It’s a simple pleasure, this.
He jumps out of bed. “I forgot to turn the fan on!”
I have had 500 mg of acetominophen, 200 mg of ibuprofen, and a CBD gummy (legal here, and with infintessimally small amounts of THC, so I won’t be tripping anywhere).
Prior to ingesting these, I had a bananas work day in the city.
And now I sit. The more still I am, the less things hurt.
Monday Night Rides. I love it for the fun, the stoke, and the friends, old and new. I learned to mountain bike at Monday Night Rides, and a large portion of my social circle is somehow connected to Monday NIght Rides. So on Monday, it was a smaller group than usual, with two people I’ve never met before. We were slated to ride a couple of classics, but at the last minute, we figured we ought to ride a new-ish trail, still not on the maps, called Bingo Wings.
Hearsay suggests it was originally supposed to be a trilogy, Bingo Wings, Muffin Top, and Cankles, but to date, only Bingo Wings has been built. I rode it years ago when it was first built, and you had to bushwhack a little to find the trail entrance. Last year, they built a new, steeper entrance, on which I washed out and garnered an impressive bruise mixed with scab down my left forearm. It was every shade of green and purple imaginable and took a solid two weeks or so to clear. Because of that crash, I ended up not riding one of the last big features on the trail as my confidence was shaken, and well, my arm was really effing sore. This year, I rode that entrance again. Achievement unlocked.
There are really only two big features on the trail, and maybe a couple of steep chutes, but the trail itself probably only requires moderate commitment. There are ridearounds for everything, it’s close to road access, and I rode everything on it ages ago on a shorter travel bike, and with years less bike experience. I don’t know what it’s rated in terms of difficulty level, but probably on the easier spectrum of a double black diamond I would guess.
So we lead the newcomers in, and the first big feature is a rock where you turn at the top into a steep, straight rock roll with a mildly rowdy run out. Hold strong on the exit, and you’re good.
The new girl decides not to ride it. The new guy wants to, I can see it in his eyes. He lines his bike up and takes a few deep breaths. He sees me watching him, and gestures for me to go first, while he is still preparing mentally. I ride it, another buddy rides it, and the new guy commits and comes flying down successfully. I can see he’s got the adrenaline trembles and the rush and his face is sporting a grin a mile wide. There is whooping from him, and for him, and fist bumps all ’round.
This is what I mean. I don’t even remember his name, but I’m so stoked he rode that rock, and he was so stoked he rode that rock, and I just love love love that we as a group all got to share the stoke. Bikes man, it brings people together.
I can see the girl is struggling a bit, and another friend advises her there’s only one big one left, and everything else is manageable.
We pull up to the last gnarly feature, a steep rock chute with a bumpy step in the middle. I know from experience that this chute looks terrible, but has always been a straight shot. Commit and fire down the middle. I look as I pull up to the entrance. It looks different this season, more eroded, with a deeper gully than before and a curve to the exit. The little steppy rock is still there mid-gully but still looks like I could straight-line over it. I double-check my body position and roll in, with plans to just pull up over the rock, but it is milliseconds after I drop in that I’m finding myself rolling in the dirt in a world of pain.
I have shoulder-checked a tree to my right, hearing the plastic smack of my helmet, and then rolling in to the dirt of the path after. I’m head down on an incline, and instinct is to get up and get off the trail. Only I can’t. My shoulder hurts so badly I can hardly think. I try to push myself up to get up, but it is a blur of pain. My left hand grips my right shoulder, and I feel like an armless lizard, frantically trying to roll onto my side so I can get up. I can hear the hiss of my front tire deflating, and a friend runs to pull the bike off me. I get myself righted and sit trailside, trying to focus my breathing to breathe through the pain. “Where does it hurt? What hurts? Show me.” says a friend. Just a second, Give me a second, I gasp, trying to slow my panting breaths. She asks again. And still, I have my eyes wrenched shut, my body doubled over, my brain trying to figure out what has happened.
Finally, my breathing slows, and I run a systems check. My right shin is bleeding, but I don’t feel it. The new girl is swiping it with alcohol and slapping a bandage on. A friend has found a bottle of bug spray and douses me in it. From the stinging, I think I’ve scraped the back of my shoulder up. It tastes bitter, and I cough. I can wiggle the fingers of my right hand. I can feel everything. I can flex and extend my elbow. But ooh, that shoulder cannot move. Must not move. It is insanely painful. I poke around with my other hand and turn my head to try to see. Doesn’t look dislocated.
I stand, and immediately, I see the blotches in my vision that I get when I’m dehydrated and stand up too fast. I feel a bit faint. Nope. Sit down. “Ugh. You look green. Anyone have sugar?” I hear another friend pipe up, “I’ve got Haribo!” There is more banter about how he’s been holding out on all of us, hiding his Haribo gummy bears. A couple hard gummy bears are shoved in my hand. I lick the dust off my lips. Someone finds a tensor and fashions as sling while my freshly abraded arm bleeds all over the bandage. Someone is picking tree twigs and moss out of my hair.
Hot damn this hurts. I don’t really remember the last time something hurt so badly.
I hike out, with reassurances from this stellar group of people that they’ll get my bike down. Another rides out to get the car to meet us on the road. The Haribo friend walks with me down the trail, chatting all the while about the various injuries he’s incurred over the years.
We get to the road, and in my head, I try to recount all his injuries. I can remember them all. Broken wrist on Danimal. S-shaped scrape from bike park in UK. And others.
There is only a mild graze on my helmet. I check my balance on the awkward sections of trail to walk down, and dart my eyes around. I don’t think I’m concussed.
I call a friend to ask who’s working the ER. “Oh, it’s my hubby. I’ll call him to tell him you’re coming!”
At registration, the clerk takes one look at me and says, “Bike park?” “Nah, trail” I reply. “Which one?” “Bingo Wings.” She laughs. “Oh, I’ve got those!” and she lifts her arms and jiggles them. She checks my health card. “OH! I see your name on all the CT requisitions!” She ushers me back.
Beside me in stretcher six is a guy who’s wearing the same bike shorts as me, but in black, and he has broken his arm in three places and is waiting to get shipped to the city for surgery in the morning. Stretcher 4 is an appendicitis I think, and heavily sedated.
I get some painkillers, a quick exam, get sent for an Xray, and thank GOD it’s only an AC separation. Grade 2.
I am so grateful nothing is broken. I am so grateful I didn’t really hit my head. I am so grateful it wasn’t so much worse.
My friend had gone to apres and got herself a burger. She wolfs it down beside my stretcher and I steal her fries. She hands me my car keys, says she’ll drop the bike for me tomorrow, and I go home in a sling.
Tuesday is a 14 hour work day. I roll into clinic in a long-sleeved knit shirt, only to find my forearm has stuck to it. I gently reopen all the scrapes on my forearm in the process of unsticking, and mentally prepare to get some patient comments as I leave the sleeve up. I find the other two GPs. I want sympathy. One had broken his hand in a bike crash a month ago and it is currently encased in a hot pink cast. The other was the one I rode with last week. I tell them I’ve separated my shoulder, and they both immediately show me their own step deformities in their shoulders from similar injuries in the past. I have joined a special club it seems. The day is long, as I try to do Botox injections and nerve testing with limited dominant hand movement. I make it through though, and the clinic riding friend comes by at the end of the day to say how much it sucks now we can’t ride more before his new baby comes, and that it’ll get better, I’ll be strong again, on my bike again, and just wait.
My bike was actually dropped at the friend’s who doused me in bug spray. He has installed a new tire, cleaned the wheel, packed my rear hub with grease so it will no longer sound like I’m riding with a pack of bees. He’s injured his shoulder like this before too, it seems, and advises ice, physio, and patience.
Bicycle friends are awesome.
Each day I come home to my kids and husband. The kids help me get my shirt off in the evenings, help me tie my ponytail, fold the laundry and put away the dishes. The husband fusses over me like I’m an invalid, brings me snacks and hugs me gingerly.
I’m not getting the sads yet (how could I, surrounded by so much positive energy), but the FOMO is coming no doubt, and to be honest, I just miss the high of riding bikes with good people.
The photo above is from a few years ago, when I first discovered the technicality and joy of dirt jumps. You can tell I’m new because I’m showing too much skin (which, later that afternoon, was handily scraped off my shoulder after a crash). I’m also on a really old bike with a spring fork, which left me with probably very little control.
Last night though (photos aren’t out yet) was the first Ladies Jump Jam of the season.
I can’t tell you how awesome it is to go to one of these things. When I’m often the only girl at the jumps, and usually the only mom, it’s so fun to go with a bunch of girls, some of whom are absolute freeride queens, and just take over the jumps. There were a bunch of BMX bros there, stupidly not wearing helmets, trying to hit the snake line. Our group of ladies showed up, and one particularly rad girl (who I met a few years ago at these events, and is apparently a PhD in chemistry or something in her adult life), went and boosted the XL big jump line like it was no big deal. I’ve also seen her do a backflip from standing, like a boss. Toward the end of the evening, we did a few trains of girls all in a row riding the little gap jumps (photo above) and the more advanced girls doing the big gaps simultaneously, ponytails flying. I can’t want to see the final video of that. The stoke was high, the vibe was relaxed, and it all just came together for a really fun evening. Girl power.
The night before, I’d gone for a ride on a trail I haven’t been on since last year.
Photo stolen from some trails website
This is the sign for the trail. After a techy, twisty little climb that I usually run out of steam for at the end, I end up hiking my bike up, through the trees and mosquitoes, and then the view opens up and if you look at the sign the right way the sky shines through the cut outs so they’re bright blue letters. I only discovered this trail because a friend of mine at work told me about it (it was his bike I rode down the clinic halls a few weeks ago). It’s an old, but excellent trail with technical features and just, as my friend put it, “fun gnar gnar gnar”. Bike culture has its own hilarious and rudimentary language. It’s one of those secret trails that’s off the maps and because my sense of direction is kind of terrible, I need to go a few times to remember how to get there. Last year, I rode it once with the work buddy, fell in love with it, then led another friend down it, but couldn’t remember this season how to get there. Because said work friend is expecting his THIRD child in a few weeks (bananas!), time was limited to get out for a lap. He seems to know where all the secret trails are, and he’s drawn me maps on the backs of prescription pads at work, but I can never find them off sweaty bits of paper in my pocket. It’s just easier to have someone lead you there, and even better when someone can lead you down the trail, and you don’t have to stop at every rock lip you can’t see over to see how it will end, because someone is just yelling back “Gap jump here x2, cut right to skip!”, “Veer right around the tree for best line” or “Steep but rollable here, then bank left for a little wall ride.” Just trust and go! The best.
We finished the lap pretty quickly, then rode back up for another hidden loamer trail that was loose and dusty and fast, flowy fun. He stopped at one point after a steep, long, rooty chute that, to be honest, as I plunged into it, I wasn’t sure I’d make it out. Spoiler alert, I did make it out, but it definitely felt like things were moving faster than my brain could process. I knew it was going to be spicy when I saw he’d stopped at the bottom to wait.
Ahhhh, so exhilarating.
We chat bike parts for my Dentist Project build, then part ways. I open my phone to a bunch of texts from my husband and neighbours, advising that a 300 lb grizzly had been spotted in the main village, and was I still alive? I wasn’t even riding near there, but oh, this magnificent bear. She was a proper unit. Spotted on the Fairmont golf course the next morning, just grazing. Sigh.
That about sums up a most excellent weekend, and now I’m supposed to be working, with my little boy beside me on the couch watching Minecraft videos, and my little dog at my feet, happily chewing on a chew toy. I’ll help a friend tile her kitchen tonight while she makes me tacos, and you know what? Life is good. 🙂
It’s the first Monday Night Rides of the season, and the lineups to sign waivers is long. I’m talking to a friend I’ve not seen in far too long, when another bike friend taps my shoulder. We work together in the clinic, and because he does the building maintenance, and I am obsessive about being ready before patients arrive, we often have 7 AM chats before the day gets going. He looks somber.
“Did you hear about the news downstairs?” I shake my head. “Downstairs” is the emergency room. He pulls me aside, lowers his voice. “Dr. X was found dead last night. That’s all I know.” What? My eyes widen, I am sure my voice was a squeaky squawk. Dr. X was young, early sixties, fit, active and healthy. Foul play? Sudden cardiac arrest? “I dunno. Like I said, that’s all I heard.”
I roll into clinic this morning, and pump my colleagues for information. Suicide. Method uncertain, but no doubt it was swift, clean, and definitive. Doctors are good at that sort of stuff. We all planned our own methods in residency, probably. My method was going to be potassium chloride via IV or a giant dose of opiate. Residency was…not the greatest for nurturing mental health.
This is a small town. Our medical community is even smaller. When another colleague died of a brain tumour two years ago, a hole was left in the fabric of this tightly woven mesh.
The hole has just gotten bigger. Bigger and ragged-edged.
A patient comes in today about a tremor. “I’m sure it’s just anxiety or stress or hypochondriasis.” he says. “But the thing is, after I turned fifty, I started seeing friends die. Ignoring symptoms, missing cancers, that sort of thing. I don’t want that to be me.”
He does not, I reassure him, have Parkinson’s, because I know that is what he is quietly worried about. Reading between the lines is not written in to the job description, but at its core, is what my job is about. It’s arguably what all social interaction is about. Watchful waiting, I advise, and I give him my office number to come back if things evolve. He has my personal number from before, because sometimes, in a town this size, the lines between social and professional are very, very blurred.
When I first moved here nearly a decade ago, I was startled by the demographic. I no longer needed the extra large cuff for blood pressure measurement. I no longer saw as many strokes, or illness related to lifestyle factors. People here are picture perfect models of health and vitality.
A friend of mine here recently went away to visit family, and after leaving our little bubble, she texted me from an airport lounge that we were all elite fitness models, whether we realized it or not.
With this fitness and activity, there is an emphasis on youth; maintaining it, renewing it. There are ninety year-olds still skiing the mountain, and many of my elderly patients regularly doing laps around me on the cross country ski course or passing me on a ride. What’s that they say? Pain is just weakness leaving the body.
So illness, mental or physical, is carefully wrapped up and hidden away. Last night, a conversation was had with a thirty-something friend who is due for a hip replacement. She had hit a low over the winter, and the only reason people suspected something was up was because there were no social media posts of her launching jumps on her snowboard all winter. No fricking way she’d have said anything. But she’s triumphed over other demons in her life thus far, and I expect she will be just fine. I hope. Is she medicated? Who knows. I suspect a lot of people are. Half my medical school class was.
But Dr. X? I guess you never really know. One can look cheerful and energetic and good good good, but then plunge deep down into deep holes that no one can pull you up from, even those close to you who are in the know.
Physician, heal thyself. Or at the very least, each other.
A crooked photo as I try not to drop my paddle or my phone whilst taking this picture.
On Saturday mornings, I wake up early because I am an insomniac, and wander to the lake with my paddleboard. There, I pump it up, feeling the burn in my triceps and the sweat prickle between my shoulder blades in the cool morning air.
The lake is usually glass at this time of day, and it’s pretty spectacular. A friend of mine meets me and we head out together for a peaceful paddle where all manner of life is discussed. It’s a time to pause and reflect, reset from the chaos of the everyday. We talk about our families, our marriages, our children. We talk about our careers, and the things that make our hearts hurt, and then we encourage each other to dream God-sized dreams, to set goals that cannot be achieved without divine intervention. And sometimes, we remind each other that miracles need to manifested in the everyday, and we need to look for them. We paddle back to the dock after about an hour or two, and both head off to start the weekend.
My son has been saving up the past few months for a Nintendo Switch. He was at $400, so I subsidized the rest and we put the order in last week. Since then, he’s been playing Legend of Zelda (his first game a gift from me and his dad). My husband loved that game as a kid, so they’re playing it together.
As a parent, I’ve been anxious about the fact that my children are growing. It happens, as it should, but I wasn’t ready for it. My daughter is ten going on sixteen, and I have been getting moments of startling clarity that if I don’t ensure our relationship is strong right now, she will one day be lost to me. So on Friday, I pulled her out of school to spend a day with her in the city. She doesn’t love the things I do, so dragging her out on a bike ride or a ski date with me isn’t fun for her like it is when I go with my son. Instead, I booked a “beauty consultation” at department store, and they taught her how to put on makeup and all about skin care. Then, we met my friend for lunch on a rooftop patio at a fancy hotel. Said friend is an insolvency lawyer, and partner at an international firm, and was meeting a bunch of her other powerhouse female lawyer friends for afternoon drinks afterward. We ordered cocktails (a mocktail for the kiddo), and I not-so-subtly tried to manipulate the female role models my daughter is exposed to. Then, the kiddo and I shopped for some summer clothes and found a little charm for her bracelet, which, she told me later, was a memento of our most fabulous day together. The drive to and from the city was peppered with conversation in between listening to the most interesting podcast about chickens. Yes, chickens. It was a two-parter. Anyway, as much as I’ve managed to achieve in my lifetime, this day with my daughter was one for the books, and perhaps the first time in an eon where I felt a bit like I was being a pretty okay mom.
I brought the kids to the farmer’s market today, and I bought a mug from a potter who lives in a tiny town a couple hours north. The kids chose a few art prints from a woman and my son, ever inquisitive, asked her how long it took her to do a painting. She was honest, saying that sometimes she would have to re-paint some, because they looked too sad. And sometimes, it would be okay on the first try. Most days, she said, a painting would take her four hours. My son was blown away. We bought four prints from her, and we talked about how artists maybe work extra hard because not everyone understands how much time it takes to make beautiful things.
I’m getting the Sunday sads tonight, but my cup is full to overflowing, and there is so much going on that is and will be stressful, but it’s okay. I can have my ugly cry while doing my intervals on the trainer bike because I missed my dad this morning and wished I could send him photos of how amazing his granddaughter is growing up to be. I can squeeze my kiddos and take a nap and call a friend and sit on the deck and think about all the good things to come. I can dream about the dentist bike build (blue front chainring and black pedals with blue pins? or black chainring and blue pedals? blue grips? black grips with blue collars? how much is too much???), and tomorrow will be the first Monday Night Rides of the season, and a chance to see summer friends again and push each other to ride bicycles down fun and scary things.
Soooo, I might have just spent a large sum of money.
And I’m pretty excited.
This bicycle project is taking up a good amount of brain space, and it’s wicked fun. So expect Dentist Project updates every so often, so that if I vanish, you’ll at least know where I was on the bike build.
The other night was spent making a spreadsheet, listing off all the bike parts I could think of that I need to source, then thinking about options I had, and what I wanted, then pricing them out. This build, if I were to obtain everything at retail prices, would likely top $13k. It makes me a little sick to my stomach. But I am not going to obtain everything at retail prices because maybe I know a guy who knows a guy or something. This is my drug of choice, and I have my dealer. It still might be in the $11-12k range though, which is about how much a top spec bike could be if bought stock, like I might if I were, say, a dentist.
Anyway. The most expensive parts of a bicycle are undoubtedly the frame, wheelset, and suspension.
The frame, in case you needed a reminder, will mean that even if you don’t find my body, you’ll find my bike.
The suspension isn’t that fun to look at, but the fork will be this one, which is just a larger volume version of the one I currently have. Keep in mind too, that decals can always be changed…
And I haven’t decided on the rear suspension yet. Have been reading a lot about progressive, regressive, and linear curves, ratios, and all sorts of physics I haven’t thought about in decades. I’m leaning toward an air shock, but the coil calls upon my curiosity.
Now, the WHEELS. I actually dreamt about wheels last night. There are the ones I’m running now, which are carbon, with a very loud DTSwiss hub. They’re great. But if I want a set of my current wheels with the hub I want (the Onyx Vesper), it’s about $1k more than the wheels I ended up going with.
But why a different hub you ask? Because I can’t hear myself think it’s so loud, and I can’t hear people talking to me because it’s so loud, and bonus, I scare away the bears and warn the cougars I’m coming, but holy hell is it ever obnoxious. I debated a different hub, but it was a higher pitched buzz, with a bit of a whine to it. I’ve been told that if you grease it up, it’ll quieten down, but who can be bothered to be greasing it? A buddy of mine has to do it every 3-4 months to keep it quiet, and maybe I rode his bike down the narrow hall of the clinic just to hear the hub and found it a bit buzzy for my liking before going back to my paperwork. The hub I want is dead silent. It is also known for it’s IMMEDIATE engagement, which I never realized could be so satisfying until I bought the XC bike I rode for the stage race last fall. That bike has a slight lag in hub engagement, and you can feel it and it’s really annoying. Which reminds me, I really need to work harder to sell that bike. Immediate engagement is a step toward making the bike simply an extension of your body.
Then come the rims. I ended up going with these wheels, made by a local (in our province) company called We Are One, also offering a lifetime warranty, but a bit newer to the game. They’re all wavy to optimize spoke angles, which apparently results in less spoke “nipple fatigue” (hahahahahahahah their words not mine, also, I am a child/I had children and had my own version of nipple fatigue) and increased strength.
Pretty cool right? Or clever marketing anyway.
And I found a local company that builds them up with the hubs I want. So I went ahead and anodized them.
Yes, it looks ridiculous like this. But all you’ll see is the blue. The pink widget part will hardly be visible, but is just that little something that I’ll know is there. And maybe it cost me an extra $15. But my own little fun secret for $15 is a steal, in my opinion.
Anyway, I’m having major impostor syndrome, because I don’t feel like I’m a good enough rider to deserve this bike, and I also feel like a morally bereft selfish a-hole because it’s a lot of cash that could probably be better donated for worthy causes outside of my ego. For both of these, I have no remedy but to simply ignore and forge ahead. Life is short and then we die?
I also might otherwise be spending it on anti-depressant/anti-anxiety medication and therapy, and bikes are sort of all that for me.
Speaking of ego, race photos from last weekend are out and this is one of my favourites, because I’ve got a stupid grin on my face, which pretty much captures how I feel about bikes in general, whatever the wheelset.
TL;DR: feel sad, buy things, nerd out (+++) about bikes. You probably have better things to do with your time…Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
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Every now and then, I am reminded of my dad, and the startling revelation that he no longer exists on this mortal plane.
Each time this happens, I am struck out of nowhere, and reduced to tears. Great, big wracking sobs emerge, and if you know me in real life at all, this is not the dramatic stuff I am normally made of. Today, it happened at church service, in the middle of a song, and I ran off to the bathroom to pee and cry.
The last time I did that was at a scientific conference fifteen years ago, and an ex-boyfriend showed up and I held it together just long enough to act like I was fine, after presenting some research to a reasonably large audience and unfortunately sweating into my light-coloured blouse. I ran to the washroom with an ice cream cone in hand (I can’t remember why), where I sat and cried on a toilet. Straight out of a soppy teen movie. Barf. Then I finished the ice cream, went to a mall and bought $80 of makeup. I don’t even wear makeup.
Then, I went with my kids to a local garden centre, and we bought soil and all sorts of flowers to appease my daughter’s adoration of all things bright and pretty. Beans? I suggest. Maybe lettuce or cucumber? Bah. Flowers. Bright pink. Purple. Yellow. And oh, look Mom! Those! Grampa had those at his house! She is pointing at large purple irises. Yes, I say. And the tears well up, and I am sucker punched again. WTF.
We buy one, and my daughter is delicately protective of her special plant on the way home. She later plants it in its own special pot where it stands tall and proud, and she gently kisses the stem after watering.
It is hot out, moving suddenly from interminable rain to thirty degree heat. We wander down to the lake, rife with tourists, and wade knee deep into the glacial melt. My kids play in the sand, and I sit with my dog on a rock, reviewing bike fork options, because it’s been a week, and I have just put a deposit down on this very fuschia frame:
After much dithering, I’ve decided I’ll stick with the Fox 38 fork as pictured, as a friend happens to have it in his arsenal, and is willing to sell it to me for less than the other one I was considering, which has just come on sale.
I want to build my own bike. I know it will likely cost me astronomically more than just buying it stock, but I don’t like the stock build options. I just want to put what I want on it. And I want the pink frame.
I want to put it all together myself. Every screw and cable and ferrule. I will likely need adult supervision, and some extra tools, but it will be mine, and I’ll know it inside out. I am so tempted to go all out and get the coolest boutiquey things, but I don’t have the riding skill to back it up, so I will stick with the great, though maybe not the greatest. Just so I don’t cement myself firmly into the realm of dentist bikes. But maybe I already have…
I feel the need to justify that this is not an impulse buy. I’ve been deliberating for weeks.
I had a race yesterday (the last of the three!), but the day before, when I was supposed to be drinking lots of water and going for an easy thirty minute pedal to loosen the legs up, I arranged to borrow a friend’s version of this bike. I needed to try some technical climbing, and some janky downhill and steep rock with compressions, obviously. I pick a trail I know well and pedal it out.
It’s fun, but not all that different from my current bike. Marginally more hard-charging with the bigger front wheel, maybe. I am mildly disppointed, because with this knowledge, I am not going to spend the money just for a colour change. I message a friend (who had the extra fork) with the verdict. Try the medium frame, he says. Ride mine. It’s a tank. Hm. I should be on a small frame, based on height. Just. Try. It. Okay, can I try Sunday? After the race. I’m supposed to be saving energy. You really ought to try them back to back. Sigh. Well, are you free? Work is fluid. Can you go now-ish? About 45 minutes later, I’m meeting him on a service road where he’ll shuttle me up half way so I don’t have to pedal the whole climb again, but I’ll still get to do some techy climbing to see. And then descend. He’s had to change the suspension for my weight, switch the brake levers around (he runs them opposite) and change a tire on his other bike that he’ll be riding.
Whoa. This is like the first time I tried a downhill bike. I can just smash it into things and it takes it, supports me, smooths it all out. It really is a tank. He’s way ahead of me, but hollers back to go hard, that it’s built to take the abuse. It’s a bigger frame, a bigger front wheel than I’m used to, and while I think it ought to feel like riding a penny-farthing, it is sort of like riding my downhill bike, only I can climb on it. And these brakes, sensitive and controlled. Man I need to bleed my brakes.
We finish the lap and spend another twenty minutes talking about brakes before he heads off to do a lap with another friend of ours (who apparently later compared that bike to a magic carpet ride).
Surely, it’s not just the frame size. No, suspension matters. Componentry matters. But mostly, suspension matters. He’s built the bike up with a different link, allowing an increase in front and rear travel by an extra 10-20 mm, so that it’s equivalent to my current bike’s travel. On the steeps and chunky bits, this makes a very noticeable difference.
Last weekend, I rode a race on a bike that has about 40 mm less travel front and back from my usual bike, making all the trails infinitely more terrifying and teeth-chattering.
The way he’s built his bike up is what I want to do. I’ve been discussing it with a colleague of mine at work between patients, because it’s fun, who also happens to be a bike nerd and has the newest iteration of the Nomad, the “men’s” version of my current bike (called a Strega in the women’s lineup) in a medium size. This fuschia confection I’ve purchased is named the Roubion, which in the men’s lineup is called a Bronson. This colleague has advised that what I’m wanting to do is build a Bromad.
YES. All the Bromads.
The women’s branding is strange. They discontinued the Nomad (aka my Strega) and only have the Bronson (called the Roubion). The men’s and women’s frames are the EXACT SAME FRAMES. Just different colours and logos. And this season’s Bronsons and Nomads are coming out in pretty boring colours, so the fuschia Roubion it is. Only I’m going to make it a Strega/Nomad, effectively. The main change is that the new builds are mullet bikes, where the front wheel is 29″ and the rear wheel is 27.5″. I could talk numbers and geometry for days (yes, maybe I have a comparison chart compiled and saved), but ultimately, that’s why I absolutely had to try riding them first before committing.
Because it’s a bit weird right?
But commit I have. And it is such a great little rabbit hole of options now. Everything from tire valves to stems to handlebars and brakes! (I think I’m going to go with TRPs, for what it’s worth.) OMG I LOVE IT, IT’S SO FUN AND I BET IF MY DAD IS WATCHING ME HE’S ROLLING HIS EYES BUT SECRETLY LOVING IT TOO. Dammit Dad, I really, really miss you.
And meanwhile, my long-suffering husband continues to nod and smile politely when I start talking. What a champ.
It’s been a surprisingly relaxing few days. I’m finally sort of caught up on work, and because the training schedule has eased up for all the races, I’ve gotten to sleep in.
This morning, while lazing in bed, I was sent a link for race photos from last week. I like this one best.
Holy heckins I love riding my bike. It’s freedom and exhilaration and challenge and fear and goofing around with friends, all in one giant, sloppy, smelly duffle bag.
So when we got the race email for the race tomorrow, sent at 730 am this morning, it was a bit of a shake-up.
These races are local races. Sure, there are a lot of world cup racers from our region, but these races are meant to be fun and challenging. Everyone kinda knows everyone through no more than three degrees of separation, and while the demographic here is generally Type A and competitive, there is a realistic sense of why we race (for fun). For tomorrow, there is a long course of 50 km, and a short course of 25 km.
Way back when a group of us registered for the short course, we all committed to riding our little bikes, “for sh*ts and giggles” being the objective. The short course is considerably easier, not only in distance but in trail difficulty, and it’s meant to be an intro to racing for people haven’t done it before. In my mind, it was going to be a fun day out on bikes with friends, on little bikes to make the easier trails scarier, with a little competition thrown in. I have no delusions about winning anything.
But this email! There were sentences written in ALL CAPS, some even highlighted red. So stern. It was far too early in the morning to be shouted at, and such stark contrast to the emails we’d gotten from last week’s race organizer. There was a safety briefing video and it was very serious, and gave the sense that the organizers expected carnage. The worst part? Staggered starts, instead of self-seeded. This is practical of course, but counter-productive to our objective. All the men would start their race over two hours before the women. Almost all of our riding group would be nearly done by the time we girls started. Where are the sh*ts and giggles then? I was hoping to suffer the uphills all together to ease the pain, rehashing all the mistakes of each stage, catching up on a whole winter of not seeing these riding friends regularly.
There is a flurry of messages, sorting out cars and bikes and bits and bobs. Discussions about tire choices and footwear, and how to swing it so we all can ride together. It is decided the boys will just start later, with us. They’ll ask to switch start times, and since all our race plates have timing chips embedded in them, it really shouldn’t matter. There are four men’s categories, and only one women’s.
So, I’m looking forward to tomorrow with some trepidation, but hopefully it’ll be good, injury-free fun. You’ll be sure to hear about it if it isn’t (and of course, if it is :D)!
Bikes, Brains, and other Musings 