Demented Rambling

I've had enough. I'm tired of this whole shoulder thing, I want to ride my MTB. I did a fast road ride yesterday with some guys from Team Louisville, we got in 38 miles and it's the first time in a while that I really pegged it. Amazingly, I seem to be slower than I recall. I need to work harder. I logged 57 hilly miles on Saturday on a nice ride with my buddy Sean in a visit to the tiny burg of Westport. That was followed up with a leisurely 26 miles on the Tandem with my wife on Sunday. All good time on the bike, but I feel really slow. I need to work harder. If not, this upcoming race season will be very disappointing. I've looked the the times put up by some of the guys I've raced against and I'm not sure what to make of them. I won't really know how pathetic I've become until we can go head-to-head. I am still planning on Park Mammoth or DINO Warsaw on May 5th being my debut.

I see my doc again in 2 days and hope to be back on the trails after that. Too bad it doesn't look like the weather is going to be cooperative, so even if I get the green light it looks like I won't see any trails for a little while longer. I'm 6-weeks post injury and I think my recovery should be further along than it is. It may be that the damage was worse than thought. Everything I read says 6 weeks recovery for a grade 2 AC joint separation, and that's up on Friday. Grade 3 recovery is listed as 12 weeks - that would not be good.

I was looking at the pics below of Anthony and Rowbear - those boys are dead sexy on their Scalpels. That motivated me to go down into the basement and mount the new Kenda Karmas on my cooler-than-rowbears' Scalpel. I liked Karma's in the past but had problems flatting with them. I hope the tubeless version holds up a little better. I skipped adding some Stan's to them as the Kenda website says not to, but we'll see. First time I flat, bam - it's Stan's time. They're 1.95's and look really skinny. I hope they hold up as well as I think they will.

Just in case you have missed it, this is what my Scalpel looks like:

Is that hot or what? Click the picture to see a larger version

I'm really not worthy, but I plan to ride the heck out of it anyway. Red hubs and black frames are just too cool.