Ride on down the highway...
Sep. 10th, 2006 06:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunrabSince after tomorrow's surgery* I won't be able to ride the bike for a few weeks, we decided to do a bit of riding today, so we went down to Laurel to eat at the Silver Diner. Lovely weather for riding. I'm the one who was singing "House of the Rising Sun" at the top of my lungs.
Our bikes are "standard" models, the increasingly rare sit-up-straight-and-ride kind - not cruisers where you lean back with your legs stuck straight out in front, nor crotch rockets where you hunch over the gas tank. Sit up straight and ride is not actually quite perfectly straight, of course; for best control of the handlebars there is a very slight forward lean. What I've noticed is that on my particular bike, for my particular height and mass, about 75 mph seems to be the perfect speed at which the wind pressure supports me completely, no effort needed on my part to sit at exactly the right posture, nor to keep adjusting my shoulders and elbows. For all I know, 85 may do as well in a sheer physics sense, but that's fast enough that I would be tenser; wind support or no wind support, my shoulders would be stiff at that speed for more than a few seconds. I'm most comfortable in the 55 to 75 range when I'm on the highway (and frankly, 40 to 50 mph on a curvy back road, a leisurely scenic ride, is just fine with me, too).
*Monday at 7:30 a.m. I get my new pacemaker/ICD - I have to be at the hospital at 6:30 a.m., ugggghhhh. It's really simple surgery, should not be any complications this time. Just because of my history, they'll keep me overnight for observation, but I'll post when I get home Tuesday, to let you all know I'm OK. I have the doctor's solemn promise that if the third lead does not go in on one ordinary try, they will not keep trying; they will just do the rest of the device as usual, and sew me back on up, so that I don't have any extra exposure to hospital bacteria, nor will I worry anyone by having extra doctors come in and give it a try, taking extra time. (It worries a spousal unit when one is in surgery 2 hours longer than expected...) So, straightforward and safe. Usually, they only use a local anesthetic plus Versed to make one sleepy, rather than a general anesthesia; even so, Versed makes me a little less than completely alert for about 24 hours - awake but not alert, prone to doze off and to not remember conversations real clearly. So I don't bring any knitting that requires thinking with me to the hospital. Sort of the whole "don't operate heavy machinery while taking this medication" thing, except it applies to light machinery that happens to require very careful fine motor control plus concentration, as well. Stuff knitted while under the influence of morphine and related compounds tends to be good only as cat toys, and even the cats are a bit scared of those blobs at first.
So, see you all Tuesday.
Our bikes are "standard" models, the increasingly rare sit-up-straight-and-ride kind - not cruisers where you lean back with your legs stuck straight out in front, nor crotch rockets where you hunch over the gas tank. Sit up straight and ride is not actually quite perfectly straight, of course; for best control of the handlebars there is a very slight forward lean. What I've noticed is that on my particular bike, for my particular height and mass, about 75 mph seems to be the perfect speed at which the wind pressure supports me completely, no effort needed on my part to sit at exactly the right posture, nor to keep adjusting my shoulders and elbows. For all I know, 85 may do as well in a sheer physics sense, but that's fast enough that I would be tenser; wind support or no wind support, my shoulders would be stiff at that speed for more than a few seconds. I'm most comfortable in the 55 to 75 range when I'm on the highway (and frankly, 40 to 50 mph on a curvy back road, a leisurely scenic ride, is just fine with me, too).
*Monday at 7:30 a.m. I get my new pacemaker/ICD - I have to be at the hospital at 6:30 a.m., ugggghhhh. It's really simple surgery, should not be any complications this time. Just because of my history, they'll keep me overnight for observation, but I'll post when I get home Tuesday, to let you all know I'm OK. I have the doctor's solemn promise that if the third lead does not go in on one ordinary try, they will not keep trying; they will just do the rest of the device as usual, and sew me back on up, so that I don't have any extra exposure to hospital bacteria, nor will I worry anyone by having extra doctors come in and give it a try, taking extra time. (It worries a spousal unit when one is in surgery 2 hours longer than expected...) So, straightforward and safe. Usually, they only use a local anesthetic plus Versed to make one sleepy, rather than a general anesthesia; even so, Versed makes me a little less than completely alert for about 24 hours - awake but not alert, prone to doze off and to not remember conversations real clearly. So I don't bring any knitting that requires thinking with me to the hospital. Sort of the whole "don't operate heavy machinery while taking this medication" thing, except it applies to light machinery that happens to require very careful fine motor control plus concentration, as well. Stuff knitted while under the influence of morphine and related compounds tends to be good only as cat toys, and even the cats are a bit scared of those blobs at first.
So, see you all Tuesday.
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no subject
Date: 2006-09-11 12:25 am (UTC)Best of luck with the surgery. Is it easier to do crochet than knitting while under medication, or do they come out equally terrifying?
no subject
Date: 2006-09-11 12:35 am (UTC)Any bike with an engine 250 cc or better would deal with Pgh hills just fine, and if you get one with shaft drive or belt drive, the weather wouldn't damage it; rain and snow are tough on chain drive. Most of the larger scooters - Honda Helix at 250cc and then the ones that go up to 650 cc, same size engine as my bike - have belt drive and watertight luggage space...
no subject
Date: 2006-09-11 12:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-11 09:42 am (UTC)no subject