Clipless pedals rock!

I've been doing quite a bit of biking of late, trying to get back into shape after the winter woes of my sore joints etc. Yesterday afternoon, I finally got around to trying 'clipless' pedals (the sort you have to 'click' into with special cleated shoes). All I can say is, I don't know why I didn't do this sooner.....these things are absolutely awesome!

I went for a set of Shimano M520 SPDs and a pair of Specialized Sport MTB shoes. My bike (Giant VT3) actually came with a set of cheaper SPDs, but after a bit of research online I decided not to use them (bit dangerous....can be hard to get out of apparently).

On my first ride yesterday, I couldn't believe how much more power I can make. I can easily hold one gear higher than before, although one thing I noticed is how much more it allows you to thrash your legs....my quads were demolished when I got home :-)

If you haven't tried SPDs before, give it a whirl.....it's definitely worth it!

Joint pain and back pain is bad, mmkay?

I've been struggling recently with some pretty bad joint and back pain. Pretty much constantly since the post I made in March about the wrist pain that I suddenly started getting for no apparent reason. Knees, ankles, wrists.....you name it, it's been hurting. It stopped me from doing anything over the winter, so my muscle tone quickly disappeared and left me with debilitating back pain as well :-(

I eventually got sick of my GP charging me $49/visit to take wild stabs in the dark about what might be wrong with me, so I went and saw a rheumatologist, who told me that my condition is more than likely the result of a particularly nasty gut bug I had back in August last year, the night before we left for a hiking holiday in Girraween National Park (where I ended up with crippling knee pain). A gut bug which.....and there's simply no tactful way to say this....gave me the worst case of the shits I've ever had in my life. For those of you who've seen Trainspotting, the scene with Renton in 'The Worst Toilet In Scotland' was a walk in the park compared to what I ended up with. I was out of commission for the entire 7+ hour drive down there and had to stop at virtually every service station toilet we encountered on the way. Not pleasant at all. But anyway, the other side effect is apparently this crippling 'poly-arthritic' pain that can last 6 to 12+ months! Nice huh? Can flare up at any time, for no apparent reason.....perfect one day, agony the next. A complete pain in the arse (and everywhere else).

To top things off, during the course of trying to find out WTF was going on with my back, I insisted on getting it CT scanned (something that my GP assured me was a waste of time and money I might add.....). I discovered that I have 2 bulging discs in my spine (L3/4 and L4/5), plus 'degenerative arthropathy' at the L5/S1 level. Excellent....*sigh*.

Luckily, the joint pain is slowly starting to taper off. I still can't run, but I'm told I shouldn't do that anymore anyway because of these bulging discs. I've been told I shouldn't really do *any* of the things I like to do (like mountain biking and kitesurfing), but I've been doing both of those and my back pain also seems to be slowly going away......fingers crossed I'm finally coming good!

Moral of the story? Be very careful what you put in your mouth! If it's that easy to catch something that can totally fuck up your lifestyle for over a year, I'm tempted to never eat anything that doesn't come out of a can from here on in!

I decided to push my luck.......

I went for a kite today.....for the first time in over a month.....and it felt good :-) I probably shouldn't have.....my wrist is a bit more sore than I'd like right now, but it's certainly better than I thought it might be. One of the other guys I kite with wasn't so lucky though. While the rest of us were packing up, he managed to crash heavily on his ankle and may have broken it. It might be just badly sprained, if he's lucky.

I tried backroll kiteloops for the first time today. I've come to the conclusion that I need to either only do these on my 10m or 8m kites, or buy myself a much faster 12m kite. My Airush Lift ('04 model) just doesn't turn fast enough to do these without getting *well* spanked, even in moderate winds. It loops way too slowly for me to even consider using it for that again! Maybe when I've got some more practice at these and I can handle more power.......certainly not good for learning them anyway :-) The first couple I tried on the 12 resulted in a couple of spectacular superman impersonations, which has left me pretty sore from the impact on the water. I managed to land a couple, but I crashed more than I landed on the 12. The 10 was a whole lot different.....much faster through the window, so I got yanked a lot less and managed to actually land most of the ones I tried on it. I'm looking forward to heading out again tomorrow with a bit more wind to see how it goes, depending on how the wrist is when I wake up. There's a strong wind warning in effect for tomorrow though, so I might have to chicken out yet :-)

First R/C flights in 2 years!

Given that I'm not going to be able to kitesurf again until next season (thanks to my wrist tendonitis), I decided that I might dig out my radio controlled planes and helicopter for something to fill my spare time. I dragged them out and checked all the gear out, only to discover that the receiver pack in the helicopter had give up the ghost. Everything else seemed to be perfectly fine though, much to my surprise, considering I hadn't bothered to cycle any of the packs while they were in storage. Nor did I do any storage preparation on my engines.

Anyway, I replaced the receiver pack and gave the heli engine a quick test run in the back yard the other day and it ran fine, so I took it all to work with me the following day so I could go flying after work. Of course, it rained the next day. I went to the field anyway and had to stand around for nearly 2 hours waiting for the rain to stop. When it finally did, I got organised to fly but for some reason the engine decided it was going to play up on me and not run past about 1/3 throttle without suddenly stopping. It did this about 5 times, after which it started to rain again anyway, so I went home.

Next day, I decided I would try to sort out why the engine wouldn't run. I had it in the yard again, trying to start it, and my power panel blew up. No warning....just suddenly died. So, I went to get another one from the hobby shop. By the time I got home, it was too late to try again though. So, I packed the car for a day at the field today instead. When I got there and tried to start the heli, the brand new power panel also blew up! Not having much luck here! So, not to be dissuaded, I hunted around in my car until I found a couple of 1.5v batteries. With some electrical tape, 2 banana plugs and some aligator clips, I had myself a makeshift glow plug igniter :-) It worked a treat, so I was *finally* able to get airborne.

I tell you what.....after 2 years of not flying anything, you certainly get a case of nerves when you lift off with the helicopter!! But, after a couple of flights my thumbs remembered what to do and all was well. I took my World Models Super Sports Senior to the field with me too. No such problems with the YS.91FZ.....started immediately and ran like it had never been sitting in a room for 2 years under a sheet. I hope the YS1.10FZ in my Ultimate Bipe behaves as well when I head out later in the week with it!

What a fantastic afternoon too....clear blue skies and light winds. All in all, a very enjoyable afternoon :-)

Wrist pain.

Just recently, I've been starting to get really sore wrists.....the right much more so than the left. I put it down to too much computer work, but it's been steadily getting worse and worse. I tried to go for a kite a little while ago and had to come back in after only 2 short runs because the pain was unbelievable :-( I went to the doc....he tells me I've got Tendonitis. Great. He tells me I shouldn't kite for 6 to 12 weeks. Awesome. I'm supposed to be spending a week at Elliott Heads with the rest of the local kite crew in the week before Easter. Given that's only 3 weeks away now, that's not looking good :-( I figure I won't kite at all in the meantime, so I just *might* be ok to kite at Easter. Fingers crossed!