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Being the hard headed fool that I am, I couldn’t stop riding even with my lego hip. So since the last post I’ve been on the trainer doing tons of intervals and beating my hip into submission. 

I’ve been mixing up my outdoor rides with the café club and Han Solo. I’ve also been spotted by a few of you while out on rides.

So other than being known as the cripple on group rides and a nagging pain that is just a part of life now, I’m good. 

Regular readers of my blog will know (shoot it’s the post prior to this) that I took one nasty fall Saturday morning on my bike that resulted in fracturing my hip.

To say a life changing ride would be an understatement. The surgeon that operated on me gave it to me straight, I really jacked up my hip on that fall and will need a new hip in a few years. It wasn’t an option, as I will need a new one. Yeah I really jacked up my body.

With that, cycling will have to take a back seat for a very long time while I recover from this and get on with walking then eventually going titanium. Crabon is out of style as I was told.

Since this blog was focused on my cycling and I won’t be doing any of this for the foreseeable future I will no longer be updating this blog.

I thank all of you through the years that have kept up with my antics on the bikes from riding tarck on the street to racing and beyond.

It’s a hard thing to end as I really enjoyed cycling and most of all the people I’ve met from cycling. Be it from tumblr, at the races or just mashing up Diablo.

I’ve read that people still continue to cycle even with complete hip replacements but I don’t think I’m at that place in time where I can be in that zone just yet.

Just knowing that my walking will be slowed and filled with pain from now till the eventual replacement is something I just need to deal with.

I try to make light of it because frankly what can I do. Maybe I’ll take my weighteeenism to my cane.

Who knows.

Till next time, ride strong and ride safe and dedicate that next whip skid to me ok?

So here’s the thing. I built this do all dirt bike and really enjoy it. So today I headed out to meet the café club as they road the bears.

My plan was to break off before papa bear and cut across Briones. Now everything was cool and was making good time.

As I got to spregenrs trail it was a downhill and a few more km to the trial head. But on sprenfers the grade got super steep and with last week’s rain was super rutted.

So I picked up so much speed and was bouncing all over the place. Nearing the apex of the turn their was a rock poking out and I hit it causing me to go over the bars and summersaulting in the air as I smacked into tree branches as I flew over 100 meters down eventually laying on my back in a rocky dry creek river bed.

As I lay there in pain I reached for my phone but it had fell out somewhere along the flying portion of my ride.

I tried to get up but felt some serious pain to my right hip. I looked down and my right left was sorta angled towards my left.

Alone, covered by trees off the main trail and injured I yelled for help but none came.

I found a large branch that I tried to use to help scoot me up but the pain was so unbearable that all I managed was maybe half a meter.

As I looked back I could see my bike hanging from a tree.

With no food, my bidon about a meter further down I seriously though I would be overnight camping.

I would yell help and just hear my echo I tried to Rambo it and attempted to see maybe my leg just needed to be pop back in but as soon as I separated my legs the pain was so much I let out a primal scream.

Eventually a hiker heard my call and was able to locate me and find my phone (he didn’t have one) and dialed 911. It’s a hard location to get at with the trees but eventually the guys in helicopter found me and then it was the issue of getting into the flight bag.

They shot me up with some pain killers and after much screaming made it in the bag were I was airlifted to the hospital.

Turns out I had dislocated my hip so they tried to pop it back but the hip kept on popping back out. They mentioned because I have so much muscle there (hey I have a w/kg of 4.5w) it made it hard so eventually after more pain meds they put me under the knife.

I finally came too after the surgery where I’m now recovery and will stay here overnight.

I think my dirt bike is trashed, helme(n)t cracked and my kit cut to pieces and a bag on my thigh collecting all the the blood dripping out.

I asked if I would be able to ride tomorrow, the doctor laughed and said no.

It’s Friday and it’s mix road ride today. I found a good gravel climb. A few kilometers with average of 4% so not to steep and not too long.

I also found some nice fire roads to hammer around on. Was hoping that I could take a bunch of trails back to the main road but they weren’t connected so I had to hop on a B road to make the connection.

The dirt bike is a blast to ride as it’s a good road bike as is and then I can go through a cattle gate and hammer through some fire roads like a mountain bike.

The more I ride it the more I’m starting to pick at things I need to change or wish it had. Like I wish it had a stronger spring on the derailleur, like a 1x, as the constant chain slap is annoying.

And again I need to get tires with some knobs as the bike almost broke loose on an off camber while trying to rail a berm.

Went to the store today to pick up some food for later and used the dirt bike instead of the mountain bike that normally gets the running around town duties. 

Was in the shower then noticed I ran out of shaving cream, so off to the store.

The plan for today was to do a mix road/gravel ride on Mt. Diablo but we're finally getting rain in the Bay Area and not wanting to be those guys that destroy the trail when it's all muddy we opted for an all road ride today. 

The first part of the ride had light sprinkles which eventually stopped but after our café stop the rain started to really pour. It was at that point we decided to head for the mix use trail to avoid becoming road kill with all the cars on the road not really sure how to operate safely once it started to rain. 

While I did have one of those quasi rear fender to keep my rear somewhat dry, I did wish for a front fender because the spray was just way too much. Also my shoes/socks were all soggy at the end. 

It’s like I’m floating in the air because the camouflage pants hide my legs. Now imagine if I had the whole outfit, it would be like the bicycle was rolling down the trail all by itself!

Did the whole road & gravel route today by cutting across Briones Regional Park via the Old Briones Trail which then meets up with Papa Bear at the archery staging area.

Old Briones isn’t particularly difficulty but getting there was another story as the trails that lead up to it have sustained 20% climbs that I wished for a larger cog than a 32 out back.

I couldn’t really stand as the surface was loose which caused me to break traction a few times. So I’ll need to look at some tires with some knobs if I want to continue taking these types of trails.

Also I must have been out the same time they let the cows graze which meant watching out for cow pies.

Frame: Specialized Crux E5

Group: Sram Red 22 HydroR

Cockpit: Zipp Service Course SL

Pedals: Shimano XT PD-M780

Saddle: fi'zi:k Arione CX

Wheelset: American Classic Terrain 27.5

All my bicycles share one similar feature, only the drops are wrapped.