CyclingAgain2

(Sammy J Shuford) #1

Im back again but this time it for medical reasons. I have had L5-S1 surgery, and now the L4-L4 joint bothers me. But setting on my road cycle put my back in a curve to take the pressure off that joint… and yes, even my spine doctor recommends cycling

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(Bob M) #2

That’s great news! I miss cycling.

(Central Florida Bob ) #3

Which Cannondale model is that? I used to ride an R500, I’m gonna SWAG around Y2K, and Cannondale Hybrid before that ('94-'99? ). Ran into a deal on an Airborne Titanium bike in '05 and have ridden that ever since.

(Sammy J Shuford) #4

CADD 4, R600. Also (long time ago) had a CAAD4 R800. The tires were laced with too close in a separation, made a fancy pattern, but not very strong. I ripped a rear wheel up climbing a hill.

(Bob M) #5

@CFLBob, did you find a difference in ride quality? You went from a supposedly stiff aluminum (?) bike to titanium, which is supposed to provide a smoother ride.

I rode a LeMond steel bike for a long time.

I stopped riding because the roads near me are so narrow and dangerous. Many of them can’t fit two cars. When I take my dog jogging, we only have 0.2 miles where it’s super narrow and on a road with a lot of traffic. It’s harrowing.

(Central Florida Bob ) #6

To be completely honest, I don’t really remember. First off, it was 21 years ago - that’s the big one - but the other part is the R500 was regular drop handlebar, road bike, while the Titanium bike (Airborne) was more like a hybrid touring-bike. It had Mountain bike-style, flat handlebars, different shifters, the whole 9 yards.

I converted it to a road bike replacing the handlebars, shifters and probably other stuff I don’t remember, but the bottom line was that I went from road bike (Cannondale) to touring bike to road bike over the course of a few months, rather than one day to the next.

I stopped riding about a year ago, primarily because of the Afib issues I was having. The roads here are generally good, the area is not quite as “flat as a board” like south Florida, but nobody would call it hilly. The bigger roads have bike lanes, but not the neighborhoods I was riding in and around.

(Bob M) #7

Bob, how are the Afibs after the ablation?

I got up to riding two centuries, where one of them what in New York and was specifically made to be as hard as they could make it. It had quite a bit of elevation “gain”, which was a ton of 300-500 foot climbs. Nothing spectacular, but if you add them all up, it was a few thousand feet of climbs. Nothing like the Grand Tours, where they gain more than that on one mountain, but climbing nonetheless.

(Central Florida Bob ) #8

I’m pretty much unaware of Afibs or an arrhythmias - but I wasn’t aware of them before the annual exam when the tech asked about it. Not to repeat the story too much, but she was doing my annual echocardiogram and asked if my Afib bothered me. I said I’ve never known I had them and she said, “you’re having Afib now.” Could have knocked me over with a feather. That repeated on the plain EKG they do on every visit. After the ablation, they said I had no Afib or any other arrhythmia so “see ya next year.” That’ll be next April.

Our local bike club has a century every year around the end of October and my wife and I have done a bunch of those, but stopped doing those as she was starting to need a second hip replacement (other side, not second on the same side). Pretty sure that was 2008. I’ve driven around in the Finger Lakes area of NY. Far hillier than around here.

Two years ago as I as getting close to 70, I decided to ride my age again, like we always used to. Didn’t quite make it due to some inexperience with some of the route. But if I’m remembering correctly I did 68 miles that day. Hey, that means if I started back now, I could probably do 73 miles in February this year. Hmmm.

Probably better not.

(Bob M) #9

That’s great about no Afib.

Riding the same miles as age is fantastic.

I was driving to work this morning, in the dark, and it’s when someone comes at you with lights on and you have to slow down to ensure you don’t (1) hit them or (2) go off the road, where you realize how narrow the roads are. Most of them can barely fit two cars. Some of them can’t.

Where I was before, many of the “major” roads were a lot wider. It was also a lot hillier.

Now, I’m jogging with my dog at “dog speed”. It takes us about 40 minutes to go 2.x miles. But that also includes having to wait in someone’s driveway because we have to wait for cars to pass on the super narrow section. And she likes it, as she gets to pee and smell all over the place.

(Central Florida Bob ) #10

Re: riding the number of miles as our age - long ago, I had come across references to an article by a radiologist in Psychology Today magazine that cardio exercise might kill us. I keep it as a bookmark.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/archevore/201103/cardio-may-cause-heart-disease-part-i

The part that got me was that this radiologist was an avid runner and until he saw the images himself (an advanced imaging technique called late gadolinium enhancement) never paid any attention to stories like that going around. Seeing the images and knowing far more about these things than the typical cardiologist or even typical radiologist. He changed his running times and efforts, cranking down both aspects.

Buried in the details somewhere was the idea that this applied to people who were elite level athletes, but my brain said what’s the difference between an elite athlete pushing their body to the limit and someone running their first mile and pushing their body to the limit? Obviously, the limits are different numbers, but is it the absolute numbers for the measurement or the relative stress on that tissue that’s adapting to the stress that matters? The number is lower, but it’s a similar level of effort. You know, like the tables of your maximum heart rate that we see: “220 minus your age in years.”

Another 10 or 20 thoughts along that line is did my Afib come from 50 years of pushing myself a little more? Say I’m at 1% of the level of an elite runner or cyclist, but if it’s the relative effort that matters, it seems to me it sure could be.

(Sammy J Shuford) #11

Very successful visit at my general practitioners office.

  1. blood pressure medicine cut in half and working fine. Dr approved and ordered prescription at the 5 mg size… win one

  2. PT for my neck has been ordered, get some muscle soreness in back, making it hard to hold head up. I am still doing PT exercises from the last PT they work do them…

  3. oxycodone FOR LIFE. It’s a shame Southeastern Spine didn’t tell me, but this medicine would do to my gut. Tried green beans peanuts, nothing worked. The little red pill at double dose as prescribed worked too well… so now it’s been cut back to one pill

3 UP AND 3 DOWN FOR THE WIN