Something Eddie Merckx once said...

Hey all! The time has come to choose the new rocket and I welcome your thoughts and opinions. Not sayin' I haven't made up my mind 90% wise but still would like to read your thoughts.

I am definitely going with a 2014/ 11 speed but have a semi-difficult choice to make. At 53 years young I can say with surety that I'm done with pack racing. Been there, done that. It was swell but the swellings gone down. I'm looking to do more distance events ala Gran Fondos and such, maybe back into Tri and likely a few Time Trials which I have always enjoyed.

I own a:
1981 Fuji Royale II 12 speed; My nostalgia bike.
A Dawes touring bike, very basic 9 speed economy bike.
A Bianchi Pista track bike that has been customized with a rear brake and carbon riser handlebars into a hipster dufus fixed gear.
A Guru Trilite Tribike
and a Giant TCR Ltd full carbon road racer.

The TCR is the frame onto which I flipped all the useable components from the Giant TCR Formula T Mobile frame that got trashed in the accident. The T Mobile was a super-aggressive racing frame.

I am looking at a Specialized Roubaix Expert or a Tarmac of the same level. Basically full Ultegra. I've debated DIU ( the DI2 version of Ultegra) but don't think I need it and on the fly repairs would be easier with regular Ultegra.

So, with the sort of longer distance riding I have in mind should I forego the aggressive frames like the Tarmac and opt for the less rigorous Roubaix? I still fancy myself a speed demon but I hear the new Roubaix's, with 6 more years of bike technology on my TCR will be lighter and super fast.

Part of the issue is misplaced ego/vanity, to be sure. But with the climbs we all know are inherent to our local riding maybe the Roubaix is the way to go. So post up, let me read what you think. I plan on getting mileage in the mega range because as the great Eddie Merckx once said, "RIDE LOTS..."

Eric J

Something W.W. Jacobs once said...

I've been wanting, waiting, wishing for the time when I could start training again... and for my sins that time arrived this past Monday.

My first Physical Therapy session started with assessments and a heat treatment. Fairly benign despite the weight of the heat blanket on my sore shoulder causing some pain. "No so bad." Thought I, "When does it get as rough as I've heard?"

The answer came swiftly...

The Therapist entered after an assistant was kind enough to remove the heat blanket and went over what we would be doing. Again I thought, "No so bad.When does it get as rough as I've heard?" Then came the first exercises...

"Remember", says the Therapist, "Passive! You must not use your shoulder to rotate your arm, just inertia."

So we start;
30 clockwise, 30 counter clockwise.

30 side to side... repeat

Hhhhmmm... I'm a bit fatigued and in some discomfort...

Lie down, use your good arm to raise you injured arm, but do not use the injured arm. Relax it completely.

10 reps, hold the stretch for 5 seconds... Okay.

Holy crap! This is PAINFUL!

"Doing great, " Says he. "Remember p-a-s-s-i-v-e"

Last exercise; Grab the bar in your good arm while holding the end with your right and push the injured arm at a right angle, hold for 5 seconds. 20 times.

Arrrrggghhh.... What the hell??? I'm exhausted already!

Then I'm done. Time for some ice and electro-stimulus. Had this before with my knee, no biggie...

After a few minutes my shoulder started feeling like a milkshake, in mid shake! The muscles, so long unused, now felt as if in a blender.

Breathe.... Breathe.... Breathe...

Finally an assistant came in saying I was almost done. Just over a minute left.

A MINUTE IS A LONG TIME!

Finally I was done, freed from that infernal draconian contraption!

I was glistening with a fresh coat of sweat, sodden from the workout... exhausted... but satisfied.

I now have a training schedule; At the Therapist 3 times a week and must perform the exercises 3 times a day. On three of the off days from the Therapist I walk run until I am allowed back on a trainer. To say its getting tough is an understatement.

So... As W.W. Jacobs once said in his wonderful, "Tale of the Monkey's Paw" from 1902;

"Be careful what you wish for..."

Eric J

Something the Gimp once said...

This is me on the run in my first tri up at Westpoint some 6 years ago...

I was close to peak fitness. Not quite there but stronger than I had been in years. Whatever pain I felt was the pain of the endurance athlete;
The fire in your quads when the pace becomes close to unbearable and you fight for which part of you makes the choice as to slowing or pushing ahead, your head, your heart or your lungs.

We, all of us for whom a ride, run, swim is more than a casual Sunday pastime know the pains of searing lungs, flaming legs and roaring hearts. But these are pains we endure, if not welcome with enthusiasm born of the knowledge that the more we endure the better we become.

It brings with it, also a kind of narcissism. We are fit, and hard and part of a community which prides itself on pushing limits.

And so it was with all this in mind that I would train out on the road and would sometimes pass another athlete or ride with a fellow cyclist in some sort of distress from injury or illness. I would think to myself, "Wow, poor bastard. That must suck." Safe and secure in my armor forged by training and more training. We are so easily detached from what might be...

But at work last week, a day or so before being released from my sling a customer, mistakenly thinking he was funny asked one of my employees to, "Go tell the Gimp to come talk to me."

I was so incensed, so angry and indignant that I walked off the floor asking another manager to deal with the pigeon brained customer as I was in no state to do so properly.

Yeah, I was P-I-S-S-E-D!

A day or so later I was out of the sling and went out for my morning walk/run. On my worst race days I would end up running for 5 minutes and walking for 30 seconds. On this day I walked 5 minutes and ran staccato like for 10 or 15 seconds.

The scar tissue in my leg keeps me hopping/limping along while I have to keep my right arm close to my chest so as to minimize shoulder movement. I hop along keeping eyes down or on my GPS watch so as not to see the faces of any I pass or the cars shooting by as they stare at the gimp.

I am self conscious for the first time.

I am angry at the hurt, ashamed of my progress and the staggering impact of the pain that limits me to a degree I have never before accepted. I'm the guy who starts trouble on the ride by going off the front while the others talk about last night's dinner. I'm the guy who rushes to every town line sprint! I am the guy that pukes rather than stop no matter how tough the climb.

I am dangerously close to the abyss. And then perspective slaps me hard across my self indulgent face when I come across a book about Mark Zupan who said this;

 “Most people fear pain. I've learned that not feeling pain is a much more frightening proposition than feeling it. In fact, there are times when I'm playing when I actually enjoy it.”
― Mark Zupan, GIMP: The Story Behind the Star of Murderball

Oh, he is a former Olympic level athlete who was paralyzed in an accident and went on to become a Murderball champion...

It is tough some days. Every day that I drive to work and pass a cache of cyclists on the road I feel the hole in my heart and miss it. Every single minute of it...

But my condition is temporary. And as when we train for Gran Fondo, Lake Placid, West Point or a swim around NY, I will endure this pain as well. And be stronger for it...

Eric J

Somethig Forrestonce said... Life is like a box of chocolates..

There she is... My newly rebuilt full carbon Giant TCR Ltd. Ltd as to the one time paint job. Toga, my ONLY bike shop flipped all the components from my damaged (beloved) T Mobile Formula TCR to the frame you see above.

As she was rolled out to me I started grinning like Charlie after opening that last Wonka bar. And run home I did with a bike that evoked so many memories.

Did my first Tri on her up at Westpoint:

 My first Century, first real bike race (took a top ten with her at Bethel Crits) and countless thousands of joy filled, soul restoring, life enhancing miles with her. She became more than a tool. She took on a personality. Which is why, despite the goading of some I could never ever have sold her on Ebay like some neglected power tool sold to the lowest bidder...

I love this bike and I was more than a little excited that she would be waiting for me when I got home from the Doctor SLING FREE and ready to RIDE!

Well, today the sling came off and I walked to the car holding my wife's hand in my right hand for the first time in five weeks. Tonight I sleep unrestricted! Today I type with two hands and can finally eat with fork held in my dominant right hand minimizing the amount of food left on my shirt and lap!

But what I will NOT be doing tonight, today or for the next 3 weeks.....

..... is riding my newly rebuilt Giant TCR Ltd full carbon bike.

Doctor's orders are PT starts Monday but no bike, trainer or otherwise for the next three weeks.

Free of my sling but still trapped in a pedestrian prison.

Life certainly is like a box of chocolates... Bittersweet....

WUUuuuuuuuuuuSSSAAAAAhhhhhhh..............

Eric J

WELCOME! Again... a skootch more than 4 months ago I was hit by a car  while training for the 2013 GFNY. What followed was pain, fractures, torn muscles and surgery. Going from 60 to 0 in a nano second changes things a bit.

In two days (if all goes as the Doc has planned) I will be out of the sling that has become my prison of frustration these past 5 or so weeks. With that being so close now I decided to resurrect my blog and chronicle my journey back to the start line with GFNY 2014 as my first solid goal.

Below is an piece I wrote that still resides on the interwebz as published on Beginner Triathlete. Then, some eight years ago, as now I find myself with a mountain to climb and mental fortitude to regain. Enjoy the piece, comments welcome and come back frequently. I'd love to take this journey with you...

SALVATION

By Eric J Goldstein

If you had told me several months ago that I would find salvation from the seat of a 20 year old Fuji RoyaleII bicycle I would have laughed but it would have been a somber, desperate laugh. At age 45 I found myself lost and disconnected, unable to find joy in family, friends, work or recreation. A horribly lonely feeling that keeps you up at night, finds you sobbing uncontrollably at any random time and scrapes at your soul with talons of utter hopelessness.

Stay with me, I promise this has a happy ending….

I am a forever adolescent married father of two amazing kids who has more toys than his children. I have been blessed with a wife who has been my friend and partner through twenty three years of marriage. I have a nice home, good friends and while I’m not wealthy by any means we are quite comfortable. So how did this happen? What is it that brought me to my knees one Sunday morning and then kicked me into a hole of self loathing and apparent depression from which I saw no escape?

I still don’t know, I only know that I was suddenly a guest at a banquet that had gone bland and colorless. Everything seemed the same but I could find no joy in any of it. Game night with the Fellas became a chore, so much so that I started to avoid going altogether, making up all manner of excuses. It became harder and harder to hide my unhappiness, okay my Depression if that label defines what I was going through any better.

So there I was, a formerly athletic, outgoing and energetic guy whose pant size now threatened to enter a new decade and who breathed heavy after 10 steps, with no answers in sight but the one very plainly in front of my face. It was a Wednesday morning. I was off from work and looking for something, I can’t recall what, in my garage turned storage room. Suddenly there she was, as if I had not seen her before. My Fuji 12 Speed, unridden for the past several years but still in good shape.

I don’t know why I decided to roll her out of the garage and hop onto the saddle, I don’t know what made this day any different from the hundreds of days I’d pushed the bike out of my way while cleaning the garage. But still, I threw my leg over and slapped my Vans into the toe clips and… I sailed.

This was the spring-back from the bottom of the bungee cord. I was a kid throwing off my training wheels and riding free for the first time, again. I stood up in the pedals barely able to contain myself, grinning open-mouthed and laughing at the wind rushing past me. I sailed past my neighbor’s houses, gliding through the streets around my development in a long circle back to my driveway. I jumped off the bike giddy and excited and all out of breath from a quarter mile ride.

That night I dug deep into my closet and found my old canvas and rubber Bata cycling shoes. They were worn and ragged and hinted at far away days of long rides when the Batas were a lot newer and less worn, as was I. Cradling them in my hands I blew the dust from them and tried one on, an improbable Cinderella but just as excited to see they fit.

Two days later on a beautiful spring morning I crammed my old frame into the car, the bike in the back seat and drove to the State park a quick three miles down the road. The park is a Mecca of sorts for runners, skaters and cyclists as it affords two oval roads, an inner and an outer that are relatively free of any motor traffic.

I was completely oblivious to new technology and “proper” clothing. I didn’t know from clipless pedals or Index shifting. The one piece of equipment I did purchase before the ride was a helmet, concussions I knew about… I wore my Bata shoes, a pair of Spandex shorts and a baggy T-shirt I made certain would cover my gut.

I saddled up as riders whizzed, wheezed and flashed by me, standing upright in the pedals frozen for an instant just before starting that first revolution on my bike in the park and my heart and my soul.

Everything creaked, me the bike, everything. But I pushed on thrilled and exhilarated to be out and riding. I don’t remember a whole lot of detail about that first ride outside of feeling the blood in my veins pumping hard and fast and the wind rushing past me and my lungs working overtime. But I do remember the first time I attempted the relatively small hill in the park. I had to stop twice on the way up what is less than a 1/4 of a mile climb.

That then became my first goal. I didn’t really, consciously know it at the time but that first goal and the many small ones that followed were the building blocks of my healing process. I conquered that hill, small victory maybe, but I read and questioned and trained, and I conquered that hill and the few others beyond it. But there was one I could not yet even begin to attempt.

The climb is a mile long stint of a major artery called 9w whose steepest grade is barely 8%. This 2 lane thoroughfare has wide shoulders and stretches that run for miles without lights or stop signs. Every cyclist traveling north from NYC or South from, well almost any point north of the George Washington Bridge has ridden 9w at some point. The climb was the bridge from my town to the town below and the rest of the cycling world.

I had found the local bike club online and set myself the goal of joining my first group ride only after conquering this monumental climb, the emphasis on “mental”. I could not allow myself to be a potential burden to others. Little did I know of the incredible people I would soon meet but for now I was stuck in my own prison attempting to scale the walls to freedom.

My first attempt was hardly any kind of attempt at all. After filling the atmosphere with enough Co2 to clear a planet size hole in the Ozone I collapsed in a heap using my bike to hold me up. Riders of all description rode past; Pannier laden touring cyclists, spandex wearing speed junkies, mountain bikers with chain ring tattoos on their arms, casual hybrid riders out to enjoy the sun. I chose a Saturday morning for this. I guess I love an audience.

I did not attempt again that day but worked on the smaller hill in the park and found, by accident, what became the precursor to the 9w imitation of Everest. It was an approach to a golf course from the smaller hill inside the park. This added another half mile to the climb at a manageable 5% grade until its crest at about 8%. I rode that over and over again. Day after day after day. Let me tell you I mastered that Ventoux!

The following week, on a Wednesday that promised of later summer heat to come I went at 9w again. I rode down 9w building up a bit of speed, and believe me it was just a bit of speed, and hit that hill with everything I had! I hammered and crushed those pedals, spinning over and over, my heart pounding, lungs bursting and my thighs…. I won’t swear to it but I’m sure I burnt through some spandex!

But I got over that Hoover Dam of a hill and the descent was the sweetest mile I have ever ridden. Until I realized going back up was the only way home…

I didn’t consciously know it then but I had broken through. I had made it past the point of no return. I finally joined the local bike club, The Rockland Bicycling Club and eventually went on to become a Ride Leader and Board Member. I have been blessed to ride alongside incredibly inspiring individuals. Many have become ride partners and some more than that, friends.

This past August, thirty five pounds lighter than I was that first day on the Fuji, I participated in my first Road Race. It was 50 miles of tough grueling work, and I am hooked. I am committed to a full season of racing for the next year with the help of my club and the coaching prowess of my local bike shop. I am happy again at work finding worth in what I do where I couldn’t before. Everything that was old is new again and I celebrate life again as I did when I was twenty and the future was wide and deep and open.

I now own a fancy Carbon Fiber racing bike and a Fixed gear Track bike but every once in a while I take out my beloved Fuji RoyaleII and just go for a ride around town. She wasn’t very expensive. She hasn’t ever been updated. But she is priceless to me and I would never change a thing about her. My greatest pleasure is seeing that she still gets use. She has become my son’s to ride now and if he meets his goals we’ll go shopping for something new that maybe one day will be there for him when life gets in the way and a little salvation is needed.