Knee Replacement Day October 12th 2021

Two week check in. Goal 0° to 90° Rang of motion.
Left is 0° to 88°
Right is 0° to 100°
In house PT finishes on Thursday then on November 4th, I start going to a physical therapist torture chamber.

 

Lookin' good Mikie. Keep up the good work!

 

We are so glad you are doing well!!
PT is where chit gets real…it’s ok to drop F-bombs. Please remember to bring ear plugs for everyone else. If your screaming and crying your doing it right. Be well & stay positive.

 

With the drop of 1.5 inches of rain last night on my Mom’s homestead and my feeling saucy after PT today, I was itching to take the new Drive out for a spin. The dirt is hero and you just can’t let that go! So I hit the dirt.





So the Drive is under biked with 5 inch wheels on the front end. With hard plastic as opposed to pliable rubber, Maxxis would be a huge upgrade. Good news… the bar width is solid for the size of the unit. Leaving you confident in corners and high speed straight-aways.


Starting a gradual descent past the barn making the first left starts a slightly steeper drop along Fence line 1.
Next left is a drop and hole shot on to main drag (this is where you can let go of brakes you ain’t got) and let the hoodie whip in the wind!


Then the work comes. Left turn 3 is off camber and starts the major climb. Grinding it, the Drive seemed to work effortlessly to kill the 23 feet of elevation gain.

Life behind… uh, bars.


Looking forward to pulling some PR’s and maybe even som KOM’s on this little known loop.

 

Hah! Sounds like words of experience! Will do Amigo!!! Thanks man!

 

That’s pretty amazing that you’re able to do that already.

 

Post up a trailhead invite!

 

I'm bringing my bike and hoping I can keep up....

Awesome progress!!

 

Spectacular!!!! This makes my heart happy!

 

Cmon we need some specs, front tube angle, rear tube angle, reach, etc.!!!! Tubeless?

 

Fabulous progress and report!!! TFPU. Keep up the strong work, Mikie.

 

Excellent progress! Quicker than you expect, you will graduate to the cane and then "NO HANDS". What a rebel!

 

They replaced his aging knees with Tailwind.

 

All the leftover green tea! Now it makes sense...

 

Small Folgers/MJB can. Wifes good dish towel wrapped around a 24oz beer & lowered into can. Then Duct tape towel around Folgers can then can to the walker leg. Beer holder/cooly cup.. Damb Rookies.

 

Wow. That is a helluva incision. That scar is going to need a story!!

 

I was airborne, looking back at the top of the cliff thinking This is a bad day to forget my knee pads…after the eight count I slid it out halfpipe style until I hit the talus field, judo rolled over a few car-size boulders and saw my bike land next to me on the lower trail. Straightened the bars and rode to the ER where they replaced my kneecaps with a couple of river stones I picked up on the ride out…

 

…Another day in the lap of paradise. We got coffee afterwards.

 

Feeling frisky cuz I actually climbed into the 5th wheel last night, I went for a early (for a recovering Oxy user) putt on the Drive. To be honest, I’m a bit underwhelmed by the Drive. The 6° of rake on the front end in combination with 5 inch plastic wheels does not inspire much confidence when your hitting the speeds I am already achieving. In addition, I have discovered two riding techniques once obtaining speeds of 1.1 mph and higher. Technique one: you forego the front wheels altogether and utilize more of a dual cane action more or less pogoing on the rear posts out in front of you. This is best when moving into soft loamy dirt. Technique two is sort of a low profile nose wheelie letting the wheels hug the trail and the rear posts are elevated. This relates more to “spinning” on a road bike giving more fluid motion to the leg action. Carry on!

 

Okay 3 laps this afternoon did a little azz kicking. Half an Oxy and iced knees, cooling down to get my afternoon stretches in.
I’m not sure why STRAVA goes wonky like that. I rarely use my phone but have in recording my White Fence Loops. The cool thing is White Fence Loop 1 was 1 mph average. White Fence Loop 2 was 1.2 mph, and White Fence 3 doing 3 loops averaged 1.4 mph!

 

@UPSed - Still looks like he's taking the shortcut... He's probably going to give us an excuse like there's a fence to hop or something...

 

So… apparently some people (two) reached out to the UCI and complained about me “cutting” the course. . I have my suspicions.

I got slapped for being an over-achiever yesterday. My knees ached at the end of my 3 laps and I still had to do my stretches. So this morning I focused on 3 things, 1) NOT cutting the course 2) NOT focusing on speed 3) focusing on “form” as opposed to looking like some guy walking on stilts.

I am submitting a protest to the UCI to contest the course cutting “claims” when I designed the course in the first place…

 

I hear there is video of a pedestrian almost hitting you while you were on your circuit. Not sure why they were on the race course.

 

Obviously poor situational awareness!

 

Yeah! About time you didn't take the hippopotamus of that right triangle!

 

There might be something more to that route

 

Since you were out by your mom in northern Canada I thought I would give you a lift: from the SCV historian
The name "Lebec" commemorates one Peter Lebec, a French voyageur and trapper, who was killed in 1837 under a tree near Fort Tejon by a grizzly bear that he had shot and wounded. He was buried beneath the tree by his companions who carved a brief record on the tree trunk. Later, the bark grew over these letters, reproducing them in reverse order and this section of the bark was removed and placed in the Beale Library, Bakersfield, for preservation. The old tree is still standing at the northeast corner of the old parade ground.

Across the highway from Lebec is Castaic Lake a pool of highly alkaline water, which during dry years, dries up, leaving a hollow lined with choking white dust. According to a local legend, this lake was once the scene of a wholesale massacre. A cook and a boy had been murdered at Fort Tejon and suspicion having fallen upon a local tribe of Indians, the exasperated white men drove the entire village, men women and children alike, into the lake. Their bodies mummified by the mineral salts in the water, are said to have arisen to the surface at intervals for a long time afterwards.

 

Fiction and Fact from Cagey’s almanac!
Thanks!
The pool of highly alkaline water across from Lebec is actually named Castac Lake. At one point Tejon Ranch was going to rename it Lake Tejon. For years it had been fed by “claimed” artesian spring water, which more accurately was wells in the field leading up to the pond in effort to preserve the essence of a beautiful lake for high dollar home development around it. Unfortunately, several years ago when the drought hit and the water table began to decline in Lebec and lower Frazier, said wells pumping unscrupulous volumes of water cascading across the field to the pond was discovered by others and miraculously they got turned off. Castac lake has been dry ever since. Huh.

 

I think I see the connection!

 

Aw, bummer. No more place to drown a bunch of families we accuse of murder without a trial.

Back to bright and cheery recovery!!! Keep cranking, Mikie. Don’t go crazy, though, bud. The long game.