Mountain Bike lessons

Each time I ride the Bridgestone MB-4 bike again, after a 15-year hiatus, I learn more about how to ride, again, and more about myself 15 years older. In short, I'm not as good as I was then, something I learned this week on my second ride.

I rode 6.5 miles round trip to town and back, a 3.5 mile route there with a variety of hills, from short and steep to long and low, and a the same 3 mile route home I took the first time. I learned my balance problems from my then pinched Sciatic nerve in 2012 haven't fully gone away.

I noticed it's hard to do something while riding I took for granted years ago, like looking back over my shoulder for cars (here it's the law that bikes are vehicles and required to follow the law as one, meaning ride with traffic and not on sidewalks unless necessary, something lost on many riders).

Anyway, while in town after crossing a major intersection (road has wide bike lane), I tried to look back for traffic before my turn ahead to see if any cars were signalling to turn too, I turned into the curb, and as expected, the front tire stopped and I tumbled onto the sidewalk.

I learned years ago never to try to break your fall with your arms or hands, it's a good way to break bones, especially your wrists. I learned to roll with the fall. I was wearing my backpack I use for walking for the stuff I carry which helped cushion the fall, but I took some skin off my right elbow and knee.

Nothing hurt, except a few sore muscles later that day, but it was the lesson I forgot about mountain bikes, you ride, you fall. I'm two for two now. Two rides, two falls. Both falls just being older and still reacquanting myself with the bike.

Anyway, that's the lesson so far. I still not very good, don't have the muscles for riding - have runner, walker and hiker's muscles than biker's muscles, and they remind me later. But it's good cross training and fitness, but something to do in moderation as it leaves a lot of sore and hurt muscles for now.

What I look forward to is riding this fall when the weather is cooler and not always sunny, even maybe rainy. The bikes fat off-road tires do ok in that weather as I used to ride on the closed roads they allow bikes in Mt. Rainier NP. But I'll need some lights so cars see me.

Bridgestone MB-4

In the early 1990's I  bought this Bridgestone MB-4 bicycle. I rode it for about 5 years, mostly in Mt. Rainier NP where they allow bikes, which are the paved and dirt roads (Westside Road) and the Carbon River trail to Ipsut Campground (just the main trail and no tributary trails).

After that I realized I don't have the leg muscles for riding bicycles, mostly have walker/runner legs muscles (slow twitch instead of fast twitch muscles), so I parked it and rode every now and then over the years but mostly it collected dust and flat tires.

This weekend I got it out, cleaned it, pumped up the tires and rode 3 miles to Starbucks in town and back, about half downhill and half uphill, from 240 ft elevation where I live to about 100 ft and back up to about 300 ft elevation (reverse ride home).

I won't aruge the big fat off-road tires and the quick turning makes it harder to ride on pavement, but I got myself there and back with only one tumble in soft gravel (wait, gravel isn't soft) with the result of a skinned knee from not getting my foot out of the toe clips fast enough.

The bike will be used more often now that I know I can ride to town and back to add to the walking or days I want a late afternoon or early evening ride. There's a bike/walk trail along the highway I can take beside the rural roads (many with wide shoulders for bikes).

The bike looks and works great since it's been little used in the past 15 years. Sorry I can't say as much about the body and legs. They're 15 years older and worse for wear.

A Mole

I live on the third floor of an apartment building with a gorgeous view from a 44" deck. I've also had between 12 and 16 planters of various sizes over the years. It started with one planter after my brother passed away to grow a Bristle Cone Pine for him.

Over time the number of planters grew and shrank as the weather took some plants each year and I decided to add or subtract them. I've always occasionally had birds visit the planters, after which sometimes I would put bird seed in the planters.

This summer I started feeding the birds but then lessened it over time as the summer changed into fall and then winter. I part it was due to the fact the larger birds, mainly Jays, started showing up and effectively trashing the planters.

I've also had squirrels (this is an area which was a forest and is surrounded by small forests between housing and commercial areas, meaning, no shortage of squirrels and chipmunks). They love digging for nuts they buried or thought they buried, where I sometimes find peanut shells in the dirt.

But this winter a small creature started showing up in the wee hours to get into the planters and dig in the dirt. At first I thought it was a rat of some sort, and after getting a trap to find it was always empty every morning, I discovered it was a mole.

We have some moles in the area between the building I live and the one just north, but I've never seen moles, but a juvenile one found my deck and the planters, and it came almost every night to dig in the planters.

I started putting aluminum foil over the planters without plants and slowly reducing the number of planters for the mole, but it always seem to find one to dig in and spread the dirt around the deck. After the birds and squirrels, I was cleaning the deck twice a week so I could walk on it without stepping in dirt.

The deck if 6' wide by 44' long which I put outdoor carpet over the rough marine finish (hard on the bare feet), so vacuuming the deck is tedious. So after consulting garden people as the various local home improvement stores, there was three choices to deal with the mole.

A trap, either trapping or killing it, wouldn't fit the planters. Repellent, which is for yards, would ruin the carpet and wood deck. And that left the last option, poison.

This was something I didn't want, but the mole was clearly coming to the deck almost every night and there was no way to stop it without removing all the planters, something I don't want to do right now because I don't have a place to put them, and likely it would return if I brought them back.

So I checked the one planter he always dug in and cleaned to put the pellets per the instructions where it would find them, and sure enough the next morning all the signs showed the mole ate all the pellets, and I haven't seen it since.

I regret having to do this and I know many home owners consider moles a pest not worth a second thought to kill, but it just seems unfair, for the mole who was only surviving and me who had no alternative to deter it.

Somewhere though a mole died without really realizing what it had done but find some good and tasty food, which was laced with a poison. He didn't deserve it.

A Lost Year

While many people are celebrate 2014 and look forward to 2015, I'm only looking at the latter, for 2015 to be a decent year, but then anything is better than 2014, after a good 2013 from the health issues of 2012.

I'm glad this is the last day of 2014, and while the year started off good with the continuation of 2013, it quickly went south in February after January where I walked the second most miles and passed the 2,000 mile mark in the last half of the month.

But then in February I aggrevating my Sciatic nerve (first in June 2011 and then worst in July 2012) and kept walking with it for a week to find I needed to take 2 weeks off. Then resuming walking in March I aggrevating it again and kept walking on it again only to also blow out both shins where I couldn't walk at all.

That prompted a 6-8 week rest with just a few short walks but things got worse when I got a bacterial infection in my digestive tract they couldn't diagnose and only said to give it time. I went from 155 lbs to 163 lbs in two months.

I managed to resume walking in June to get down to 161 lbs but it was July when things changed. Over a week period I lost over 5 lbs from the body fighting the bacterial infection, which reduced it but didn't eliminate it, and I got back to 155 lbs.

Then in August I got an ear infection, and the irony is that the Amoxicillin they prescribed didn't cure the ear infection, which turned out to be "swimmer's ear" and required a very painful cleaning and removing earwax which was stuck to the eardrums, it did cure the digestive infection.

You see Amoxicillin is a universal anti-biotic which kills all the bacteria in your intestinal system, both good and bad, which killed the infection but also all the good bacteria used to digest food, which meant the system worked again but then didn't function right.

Then they prescribed a more powerful anti-biotic for the ear infection which I took twice and stopped because it completely shut down my digestive system for days. Really, and it took a week to get it back to functioning where it had to rebuild the good bacteria.

That didn't quite happen until late October but then I got the seasonal flu for 3 weeks, followed by a few days of feeling good before coming down with the intestinal flu for 3 weeks which is a common followup reaction to the seasonal flu.

So by early November I was over all that and the digestive system began working again, this time with help from some probiotics (didn't work before), and I was still at 155 lbs when all was said and done with the body.

But to be on the safe side I reduced the walks to 6 miles, and while they felt too short and too easy, the goal was to give the body and the back time to recover for the new year when I plan to return to 8 mile walks in January.

The difference this time is that my digestive system has changed significantly where I have to remap the foods I can eat and lose the food I can't eat anymore, some which I liked (canned/fresh Salmon), but I've found a new list of foods which the body likes.

This has required going through a list of food and meal experiments to find what the body accepts and digests and what it doesn't, meaning it's been a trial and error period since the middle of November with foods, from meats to vegetables, but many are still on the list of off-limits, eg. wheat and many grains.

And through all that I managed to get to 153 lbs to start the new year with a goal to reach 150 lbs or less by March 1st or thereabouts. It looks promising as long as I don't get sick or I hurt or break some body parts.

The real goal is to get down to 145 lbs where I have the least fat on my body and find peace where my Sciatic nerve doesn't go south on me again. The specialist said in takes 2-3 years to recover from a pinched Sciatic nerve where it will be for the rest of your life.

They said it will never fully heal, only get to a point I can manage it. This is because once past about 40, the back won't fully heal to where you were, only to where you can function in life with little or no pain, but you will always be susceptible to reinjuring it from then on, as I learned.

So that's where I'm at to start the new year. Lots of positive signs with lots of potential pitfalls, and the best I can do is just keep going and keep walking, and give my digestive system time to find balance and function near normally for me.

That said, I have no New Year's resolutions other than keep going with my life.

Walking 2014

This is a summary of the walking for 2014.

January was the continuation of 2013 walking 200+ miles for the month, normally 8 miles round trip. I carried a backpack with 12-15 lbs depending on normal stuff and any groceries and often carried a grocery bag for larger stuff for the walk home.

February was more of the same until mid-month when I aggrevated my Sciatic nerve and kept walking on it for a week which only required occasional stops for about a week when it hurt too much to walk, which necessitated a 2 week rest period.

After 2 weeks of rest into March I resumed walking to aggrevate the nerve again but kept walking for a week when I blew out both shins with severe shin splints from the knee to the ankle and could barely walk at all. The diagnosis was 4-6 weeks of rest for the back and shins, meaning from late March to early May.

In May-June I got a bacterial infection in my digestive system which wasn't treatable except with time, or so they said. The infection lasted until September when I had an ear infection for which they prescribed Amoxicillin, which cured both the ear and the digestive infections.

Amoxicillin as a general, or universal, antibiotic which kills all the bacteria in the body including the natural bacteria in the digestive tract, the ones you need for digesting and processing food. After the usual 10 days your digestive tract is pretty much gone for bacteria and needs time to restore itself.

For me that last until late October I when got the seasonal flu (forgot to get a flu shot) which lasted about 3 weeks, and after a few days of feeling good I came down with an intestinal infection which they said is a common occurrence after the flu due to a weakened immune system. That last 3 weeks.

These two flus lasted until early December where the body and digestive system finally came back to some sense of normal, but a different one that before, especially the digestive system where the food sensitivities are almost totally different now as are the reactions to foods.

That said, I decided to keep the walks at 6 miles for November and December to allow the Sciatic nerve to heal, if it does, where I can get back to 8 miles walks in January 2015. This is just an idea as the Sciatic nerve pain seems to be persistent most days.

As for as weight goes, I got down to 155 in February, increased to 163 in May from the digestive infection, then dropped back to 155 by the end of July from recovering from it, almost all of the weight loss occurring in one week.

Since then I've been from 151 lbs (August) to 155 lbs (October-November) and recently I'm consistently at 153-154 now. It takes 80 miles to lose a pound, so miles was the difference to losing weight last year than this year along with the health issues adding weight to lose it again.

The goal is to get to consistently be under 150 lbs which is my goal for the New Year by March or sooner. Then I see what I can achieve with running if the body, namely the back, is willing and able. The goal there is to run 2-3 miles and walk 6 miles.

But then this year my goals and plans have been more letters in the alphabet than agent Maxwell Smart had plans to thwart his enemy. So as they say, I'll keep you posted, hopefully more current in 2015 than this year.