It’s been rough year so far.

Many have probably wondered why you haven’t seen us on the road lately. Well there is always the excuse of too much to do and not enough time to do it. There is the excuse of having to wait until our custom frame arrived. One of the other reasons that you don’t see us on the road very often these days is, like all of us, we are aging.

It seems with age the only sure thing is that problems arise. For us it isn’t any different. Last year it was heart problems. Heart surgery to place two stents took care of that. This year it is nerve pain. As I write this I am just about to leave to get an MRI on the base of my neck. It seems that time has caused another little complication, compression between the sixth and seventh vertebrae. There is also considerable spinal arthritis along with some bone spurring. All this has pinched some nerves that manifest symptoms of pain, numbness and tingling in the left shoulder, arms and hands.

Needless to say, this pain and numbness makes riding harder and unsafe. While I can ride for a few miles, and that number gets smaller and smaller as the pain persists, I start to lose feeling and strength in my left arm and cannot safely control the bike as shifting and braking are compromised.

We are going to start treating with some oral steroids and either physical therapy or traction. This is just a temporary fix as even if it does relieve the pain eventually the compression will continue and surgery will be my only option. I will know more about the alternatives over the next few weeks as I start on the steroid regimen.

Of course if it works, even temporarily, I will be back out on the bicycle. After all, cycling is a non-weight bearing sport, with your weight supported by your arms and legs and no banging of joints. It certainly can’t worsen the condition. When we do get this figured out, we will essentially be starting from scratch.

Base miles in June/July, can you believe it! Slow rides until we build up our strength. Short rides until we have some miles. Lots of spinning.

Well all is not bad, at least I can watch every stage of the Giro on-line and then there is the Tour de France. At least the summer won’t be all bad.