Bikeforums.net is a forum about nothing but bikes. Our community can help you find information about hard-to-find and localized information like bicycle tours, specialties like where in your area to have your recumbent bike serviced, or what are the best bicycle tires and seats for the activities you use your bike for.twahl
07-23-04, 07:49 PM
Greetings from the land of the wet...at least right now.
My name is Tom and I live in Manassas, VA. My wife and I are, after many years, finally getting "serious" about cycling. More on that later. I'm 36. My kids and I BMX raced for a while, but were never very competitive. I never rode a track until about 1998 I guess, and was never really in "BMX condition". I took a fall in 1999 and semi-ruptured my spleen. The lining remained intact, at least for a couple of weeks, then it let go. The organ itself got to heal some in that time, but when the lining let go I bled internally pretty badly and ended up in a critical care unit for a few days. It nearly killed me, and the followup testing was CAT scans, first once a week, then every other week for a while, then once a month, etc. and I was told not to even look at a bike for at least a year. In 2001 I was cleared by the docs to race again. Unfortunately I took a fall in the first turn in the first round of the state championship and tore my jersey off my back, doing a lot of skin damage, and a concussion. Thank God for the BMX helmet rules. I managed to ride the rest of the race, although I don't remember the second round at all, and finished with enough points to take 2nd in the "old guy rookie" 20" class. The champ in the class was half my age, but I was all done with BMX racing. The recovery was taking too long.
We've always had mountain bikes for more casual riding with the kids, and have always enjoyed it although mild trails is as serious as that's ever been.
My wife is active duty Air Force, and the fitness tes she has coming up has her a little concerned. Combine that with an asthma ride coming up in September, and we have found ourselves deciding to get serious about cycling. Geometry is an issue for both of us as we've both had carpal tunnel, so we settled on getting comfort bikes. We'll be picking up her Expediton Sport tomorrow, and mine is on the way. We've decided to set the goal of doing the metric century for this ride in September, and are riding a 3 day on, 1 day off schedule, starting with a somewhat flat 4.3, a more challenging 3.8, and fairly easy 6.9. We did that last week, and I plan to increase the distances. Time constaints restrict what we can ride in the morning so we may have to add an afternoon ride, but I want to get to where we are doing a couple of 9-10's a week, a couple 12's, and 20-30 on the weekend, for 60-70 miles a week. That's for this year.
Wow. I got off track there, sorry. Anyway, hello from Manassas! :o
My name is Tom and I live in Manassas, VA. My wife and I are, after many years, finally getting "serious" about cycling. More on that later. I'm 36. My kids and I BMX raced for a while, but were never very competitive. I never rode a track until about 1998 I guess, and was never really in "BMX condition". I took a fall in 1999 and semi-ruptured my spleen. The lining remained intact, at least for a couple of weeks, then it let go. The organ itself got to heal some in that time, but when the lining let go I bled internally pretty badly and ended up in a critical care unit for a few days. It nearly killed me, and the followup testing was CAT scans, first once a week, then every other week for a while, then once a month, etc. and I was told not to even look at a bike for at least a year. In 2001 I was cleared by the docs to race again. Unfortunately I took a fall in the first turn in the first round of the state championship and tore my jersey off my back, doing a lot of skin damage, and a concussion. Thank God for the BMX helmet rules. I managed to ride the rest of the race, although I don't remember the second round at all, and finished with enough points to take 2nd in the "old guy rookie" 20" class. The champ in the class was half my age, but I was all done with BMX racing. The recovery was taking too long.
We've always had mountain bikes for more casual riding with the kids, and have always enjoyed it although mild trails is as serious as that's ever been.
My wife is active duty Air Force, and the fitness tes she has coming up has her a little concerned. Combine that with an asthma ride coming up in September, and we have found ourselves deciding to get serious about cycling. Geometry is an issue for both of us as we've both had carpal tunnel, so we settled on getting comfort bikes. We'll be picking up her Expediton Sport tomorrow, and mine is on the way. We've decided to set the goal of doing the metric century for this ride in September, and are riding a 3 day on, 1 day off schedule, starting with a somewhat flat 4.3, a more challenging 3.8, and fairly easy 6.9. We did that last week, and I plan to increase the distances. Time constaints restrict what we can ride in the morning so we may have to add an afternoon ride, but I want to get to where we are doing a couple of 9-10's a week, a couple 12's, and 20-30 on the weekend, for 60-70 miles a week. That's for this year.
Wow. I got off track there, sorry. Anyway, hello from Manassas! :o