Towards the end of my Tuesday dirt road ride, I found that I was getting some of the hip pain that I usually get when mountain biking. It wasn’t enough to make the ride painful, or get me all pissed off, but I knew it was there. I put it out of my mind and made some plans to ride the Fatterson on Sally’s Trail on Wednesday, since I had to go down the shop to get my Superfly that was getting some love from Napper who was fixed the pedal threads one of my crank arms. Yeah, only I could jack up the threads on the crank installing/uninstalling pedals. I shouldn’t be allowed to touch tools.
It was hot as balls, and I was sort of on a tight schedule, but I figured a couple short laps on the fatty wouldn’t be to bad for my schedule or my back. I was right on the schedule but wrong on the back. Despite the Fatterson not bothering my back too bad on dirt roads, the singletrack brought back the all too familiar hip and back pain. The trails were so fast and dry though it was hard to think too much about the pain. The sub-4 mile loop has so may twists and turns that you can get almost get dizzy. For someone like me who already corners like a wet turd running down a wall, and riding a fat bike, it’s was challenge for sure. Which makes up for the 3 feet of elevation gain and brevity of a the lap.
The trails were fast, dry, sandy, and dusty, and the new Bontrager Rougarou rolled nicely on the buttery singletrack. Since I don’t often ride the Fatterson on singletrack I found myself in a no mans land of air pressure though. On dirt roads I’ll got up to 15 PSI or more, and on snow down to about 5 PSI. But on hardpack singletrack I found that 15 had me bouncing up and down like a Vegas hooker and that lowering the PSI on my second lap had things hooking up better but feeling a bit too soft when braking in all those corners.
The rolling resistance is a lot faster than the Hodags, which as a bonus, but it will take me more than two rides on them to figure out my PSI Happy Place.
The heat and humidity were so bad that the flowers were wilting, the sweat was flowing, and I was thanking the Bike Gods that I was in the shade of the woods for the most part and not out on the shadeless dirt roads.
Even after just a quick 7 miles I was covered in dust and sand (as seen above) and glad to be done. Things were so hot and humid yesterday that even B’s soccer training got cancelled for the eventing. Freaking Michigan; in the winter things get cancelled because it’s too cold and snowy, in the summer because it’s too hot and humid.
After a quick visit to Alma Stonehenge (which is surely just cinder block camp circle for underage teens drinking Busch Light and not built by ancient Druids) I packed up and headed over to the shop to fetch the Superfly and take my semi-weekly dose of insults from my friends there. At least Napper didn’t ask me if I wanted to “see something beautiful” on this visit.
I wasn’t happy that even a short ride on the Fatterson produced the hip pain yet again, but it did motivate me to seek further treatment.
I’ve been to the doctors; I’ve had x-rays, and MRIs; I’ve been through ten sessions of PT with no relief. So I decided to go with what has worked in the past, yet I seem to always use as a last resort–I called my chiropractor and got an appointment for today.
Once she reviewed my x-rays, and MRIs, and talked to me about my symptoms, she said she was pretty certain that the pain is actually sciatic pain radiating from my back and into my hip and top of my left quad. She talked to me about what my treatment will be, and is pretty optimistic that she can help it. The only thing I really didn’t enjoy hearing was that for the time being she would like me to dial back my riding a bit (could it get any less I thought?). Not sure how much that will happen, but I guess for a couple weeks I can supplement hiking in for riding. I’m hopeful that after already spending hundred of dollars (multiple thousands if I didn’t have insurance), I can finally get relief and get back to my crap riding without pain. I should have done this from the start, but thought that I would go legit this time, talk to my PCP, and avoid everyone warning me about chiropractors. Shitfuckmotherbuckingfuck!!!
Get ready for this blog to be even more crap than usual. I apologize in advance.
Later.