Race Report

Now that's a race report worth reading! Good stuff.

rms

"Bob Schwartz" wrote in message
...
We are the only tandem entered so we win our division.

On May 2, 8:46*pm, Bob Schwartz
wrote:
There is a local time trial that has been part of my early
season program for many years. 16 miles, gentle rollers,
always windy. When my daughter was 7 it became her first
non-kids race. We have an mtb tandem that dates to the
1980s. It's a real beast but it was fairly simple to adapt
it to a stokid, all it took was a pair of crank shorteners.
We didn't produce a great time, but she had fun.

We rode the tandem for many years, but a couple of years
ago she decided she wanted to ride solo. One of those land-
marks of parenting. I rode my race and then turned around
to reverse the course back to her. I remember finding her
at the half way point. She rode it in, and was very pleased
with her age category winning time. Even though she was the
only one entered in it.

Last year she had a new road bike, and was discovering the
fun and efficiency of narrow tires on pavement. She came
into the race with pretty good form. She had had a decent
ski season. She was in the middle of the Middle School
results at the state championships, better at freestyle
than diagonal stride. She won her division at the Rib Lake
(I am not making this up) Hinder Binder, so named because
of it's date just before the American Birkebeiner.

The time trial's traditional date was in late April. Looking
back that would have been the time we first went to the
clinic to get the swelling in her neck looked at. They ran
some tests that didn't show anything. The swelling was her
lymphatic system, but that by itself didn't mean anything.

This year we were back on the tandem. She hasn't ridden on
her own since June of last year. Her balance isn't that
good and her leg strength is still coming back. So we've
been riding the tandem. A couple of days ago I asked if she
wanted to do the race. We've been doing it for years, she
wanted to go. She hasn't ridden since June. There are things
that you might think are obvious, but they didn't figure
it out until they pulled out a lymph node and looked at it.
By then she was showing some fatigue. Not obviously, but I
noticed. We would ride trails and I suspected her energy
was dropping.

She's lost a lot of weight in the last year. Steroids will
do that. Not all steroids make you bigger. Cortico steroids
have the opposite effect, they break down muscles and make
you smaller. So she's smaller this year, and has lost a lot
of muscle mass. She tells me she doesn't really care about
our time.

It's windy. It's always windy at this race. We start with a
head wind and it's slow going. We make the first turn and at
about the 5 mile mark she asks me if we can coast on the
downhills. "My butt hurts" is what she tells me.

This is no idle complaint. Like I said, she's lost a lot of
muscle mass. One of the jokes we tell is that her gluteous
maximus is now a minimus. As a practical matter this means
she doesn't sit on a bicycle the same way she used to. Like
years ago with the crank shorteners I've adapted the bike.
Bumps are a very real problem, and I added a shock fork and
a gel seat cover. The bike is old enough that it has a 1 inch
steerer, and the fork could have only happened through ebay.
It helps some, but it isn't made for a tandem. So it doesn't
have a lot of travel left, especially once the fat guy gets
on the front. But it helps some. The gel seat cover helps
more.

But even so it isn't enough and I coast on the downhills.

Eventually we hit the tail wind and I alternate between
winding it up and coasting. Because of the tail wind there
are spots where we can coast downhill and not lose so much
speed. At one point I ask her how her butt is doing, there's
nothing we can do about it is what she tells me. There are
many times when I've wished I could suffer through whatever
she was suffering through and save her the discomfort. It
doesn't work that way though. But today I can do what I can
to make the finish line happen faster.

There was a 7 month period where she hit the emergency room
a whole bunch of times, and maybe 2 of those 7 months were
spent in the hospital. A lot of the time there isn't a hell
of a lot you can do except drive her to the ER and be the
information portal about all the **** that is going on with
her and who they need to consult with at Mayo about it. I
remember when she had been in the hospital for two weeks and
they suggested a transfer to Mayo because her immune system
had flatlined and they suspected some stuff that I googled
and thought, holy ****. So in a sense it felt comforting in
this case to be able to do something involving intense
physical effort that would help.

When we finish I know she wants off the bike right away, so
I drop her off at the registration area. I'm thinking she'll
head inside where the tables and chairs are, but she ambles
over to a patch of grass and that's where she lands. I head over
to the car and load everything up. When I get back she hasn't
moved. I grab her under her armpits and heave and she is able
to head inside where the food is. She says we need to go out
later and look for her butt, she thinks it fell off.

We are the only tandem entered so we win our division. She
has some peculiarities to her gait and as she walks up to get
her award the presenter asks if her legs are sore. It isn't
really the time to explain about neurological side effects
from the treatment, so she just nods yes, sore legs. Her hair
started growing back and while it is still quite short it is
long enough to pass as something intentional. This race is
full of people we see once a year so most don't see anything
amiss. Just short hair and sore legs.

But it's been an eventful year and sometimes courage shows up
in ways that aren't very obvious.

Bob Schwartz

Bob,
Bon courage to you and your daughter. Keep on keeping on.

Bob Schwartz wrote:

Bumps are a very real problem, and I added a shock fork and
a gel seat cover. The bike is old enough that it has a 1 inch
steerer, and the fork could have only happened through ebay.
It helps some, but it isn't made for a tandem. So it doesn't
have a lot of travel left, especially once the fat guy gets
on the front. But it helps some. The gel seat cover helps
more.

1. Try a suspension seat post for your stoker. They're very popular
items and available for a wide variety of seat tube sizes. It's an
affordable solution for you.

For lots more money, consider also a softride beam stoker compartment -
here's one:

http://www.sandsmachine.com/a_cot_t1.htm

2. There are tandem-specific suspension forks although I don't know
about the 1" steerer. The folks who made our tandem excel at solving
bike fit issues, here's their web site: http://www.bilenky.com We own a
custom single, a custom triplet, and a production tandem from Stephen
Bilenky - the single was my "dream bike" and, a decade later, it still
is - rides and fits me like nothing else, and I cannot recommend these
folks highly enough.

You might consider a Viewpoint, which has a front, recumbent stoker and
an upright, rear captain, see

http://www.bilenky.com/viewpnt.html

3. Consider subscribing to the tandem email list, here's a link

http://sdcc3.ucsd.edu/home-pages/wade/tandem.html

The list subscribers include several tandem dealers and manufacturers as
well as a bunch of us who just ride the things. Like any such group, it
has its share of nonsense but the overall signal-to-noise ratio is very
high.

Hope that helps.

-S-

"Bob Schwartz" wrote in message
...

snip


Good luck to you and your family.

Steve Freides wrote:
Bob Schwartz wrote:

Bumps are a very real problem, and I added a shock fork and
a gel seat cover. The bike is old enough that it has a 1 inch
steerer, and the fork could have only happened through ebay.
It helps some, but it isn't made for a tandem. So it doesn't
have a lot of travel left, especially once the fat guy gets
on the front. But it helps some. The gel seat cover helps
more.

1. Try a suspension seat post for your stoker. They're very popular
items and available for a wide variety of seat tube sizes. It's an
affordable solution for you.

For lots more money, consider also a softride beam stoker compartment -
here's one:

http://www.sandsmachine.com/a_cot_t1.htm

2. There are tandem-specific suspension forks although I don't know
about the 1" steerer. The folks who made our tandem excel at solving
bike fit issues, here's their web site: http://www.bilenky.com We own a
custom single, a custom triplet, and a production tandem from Stephen
Bilenky - the single was my "dream bike" and, a decade later, it still
is - rides and fits me like nothing else, and I cannot recommend these
folks highly enough.

You might consider a Viewpoint, which has a front, recumbent stoker and
an upright, rear captain, see

http://www.bilenky.com/viewpnt.html

3. Consider subscribing to the tandem email list, here's a link

http://sdcc3.ucsd.edu/home-pages/wade/tandem.html

The list subscribers include several tandem dealers and manufacturers as
well as a bunch of us who just ride the things. Like any such group, it
has its share of nonsense but the overall signal-to-noise ratio is very
high.

Hope that helps.

-S-



Thanks. The obstacle that cannot be overcome is that the
bike isn't worth much to begin with. The other is that
much is only temporary. The neurological problems will
go away and as her recovery progresses her willingness to
ride in the rear admiral's seat will wane as well.

I am totally hosed on the fork. Suspension forks with 1"
steerers are obsolete and very hard to come by. If I were
to pursue that it would be to replace the stock springs
with something beefier. But even that would be a lot of
blind investigation since obsolete forks tend not to come
with documentation.

I've thought about the seat post. If we rode more distance
I think I'd do it. Most rides are just back and forth to
school. I had one once, and having a variable seat to
pedal distance really bugged me.

Bob Schwartz

Bob Schwartz wrote:
Steve Freides wrote:
Bob Schwartz wrote:

Bumps are a very real problem, and I added a shock fork and
a gel seat cover. The bike is old enough that it has a 1 inch
steerer, and the fork could have only happened through ebay.
It helps some, but it isn't made for a tandem. So it doesn't
have a lot of travel left, especially once the fat guy gets
on the front. But it helps some. The gel seat cover helps
more.

1. Try a suspension seat post for your stoker. They're very popular
items and available for a wide variety of seat tube sizes. It's an
affordable solution for you.

For lots more money, consider also a softride beam stoker
compartment - here's one:

http://www.sandsmachine.com/a_cot_t1.htm

2. There are tandem-specific suspension forks although I don't know
about the 1" steerer. The folks who made our tandem excel at solving
bike fit issues, here's their web site: http://www.bilenky.com We
own a custom single, a custom triplet, and a production tandem from
Stephen Bilenky - the single was my "dream bike" and, a decade
later, it still is - rides and fits me like nothing else, and I
cannot recommend these folks highly enough.

You might consider a Viewpoint, which has a front, recumbent stoker
and an upright, rear captain, see

http://www.bilenky.com/viewpnt.html

3. Consider subscribing to the tandem email list, here's a link

http://sdcc3.ucsd.edu/home-pages/wade/tandem.html

The list subscribers include several tandem dealers and
manufacturers as well as a bunch of us who just ride the things. Like
any such group, it has its share of nonsense but the overall
signal-to-noise ratio is very high.

Hope that helps.

-S-



Thanks. The obstacle that cannot be overcome is that the
bike isn't worth much to begin with. The other is that
much is only temporary. The neurological problems will
go away and as her recovery progresses her willingness to
ride in the rear admiral's seat will wane as well.

I am totally hosed on the fork. Suspension forks with 1"
steerers are obsolete and very hard to come by. If I were
to pursue that it would be to replace the stock springs
with something beefier. But even that would be a lot of
blind investigation since obsolete forks tend not to come
with documentation.

I've thought about the seat post. If we rode more distance
I think I'd do it. Most rides are just back and forth to
school. I had one once, and having a variable seat to
pedal distance really bugged me.

Bob Schwartz

Still, suspension seat posts are a no-brainer. T@H will undoubtedly
have someone looking to get rid of something suitable for your bike and
your budget if you ask. I'm happy to ask for you, btw, if you just give
me the seat tube diameter and tell me if it's got any sort of weird
clamping mechanism. There are plenty of perfectly healthy stokers who
won't ride anything else.

-S-

Bob Schwartz wrote:


But it's been an eventful year and sometimes courage shows up
in ways that aren't very obvious.

Thanks for sharing and best of luck.

Bob Schwartz wrote:


I am totally hosed on the fork. Suspension forks with 1"
steerers are obsolete and very hard to come by.

By a weird coincidence, I was outbid on a used Suntour suspension fork
with a 1 inch steerer a month or so ago. I'd like to think it was you
that did that!

K. Fred Gauss wrote:
Bob Schwartz wrote:


I am totally hosed on the fork. Suspension forks with 1"
steerers are obsolete and very hard to come by.

By a weird coincidence, I was outbid on a used Suntour suspension fork
with a 1 inch steerer a month or so ago. I'd like to think it was you
that did that!

Nope, not me. Mine was a Buy It Now.

1" threaded steerer, and I needed it the full length.

Bob Schwartz

Bob Schwartz wrote:
There is a local time trial that has been part of my early
season program for many years. 16 miles, gentle rollers,
always windy. When my daughter was 7 it became her first
non-kids race. We have an mtb tandem that dates to the
1980s. It's a real beast but it was fairly simple to adapt
it to a stokid, all it took was a pair of crank shorteners.
We didn't produce a great time, but she had fun.

We rode the tandem for many years, but a couple of years
ago she decided she wanted to ride solo. One of those land-
marks of parenting. I rode my race and then turned around
to reverse the course back to her. I remember finding her
at the half way point. She rode it in, and was very pleased
with her age category winning time. Even though she was the
only one entered in it.

Last year she had a new road bike, and was discovering the
fun and efficiency of narrow tires on pavement. She came
into the race with pretty good form. She had had a decent
ski season. She was in the middle of the Middle School
results at the state championships, better at freestyle
than diagonal stride. She won her division at the Rib Lake
(I am not making this up) Hinder Binder, so named because
of it's date just before the American Birkebeiner.

The time trial's traditional date was in late April. Looking
back that would have been the time we first went to the
clinic to get the swelling in her neck looked at. They ran
some tests that didn't show anything. The swelling was her
lymphatic system, but that by itself didn't mean anything.

This year we were back on the tandem. She hasn't ridden on
her own since June of last year. Her balance isn't that
good and her leg strength is still coming back. So we've
been riding the tandem. A couple of days ago I asked if she
wanted to do the race. We've been doing it for years, she
wanted to go. She hasn't ridden since June. There are things
that you might think are obvious, but they didn't figure
it out until they pulled out a lymph node and looked at it.
By then she was showing some fatigue. Not obviously, but I
noticed. We would ride trails and I suspected her energy
was dropping.

She's lost a lot of weight in the last year. Steroids will
do that. Not all steroids make you bigger. Cortico steroids
have the opposite effect, they break down muscles and make
you smaller. So she's smaller this year, and has lost a lot
of muscle mass. She tells me she doesn't really care about
our time.

It's windy. It's always windy at this race. We start with a
head wind and it's slow going. We make the first turn and at
about the 5 mile mark she asks me if we can coast on the
downhills. "My butt hurts" is what she tells me.

This is no idle complaint. Like I said, she's lost a lot of
muscle mass. One of the jokes we tell is that her gluteous
maximus is now a minimus. As a practical matter this means
she doesn't sit on a bicycle the same way she used to. Like
years ago with the crank shorteners I've adapted the bike.
Bumps are a very real problem, and I added a shock fork and
a gel seat cover. The bike is old enough that it has a 1 inch
steerer, and the fork could have only happened through ebay.
It helps some, but it isn't made for a tandem. So it doesn't
have a lot of travel left, especially once the fat guy gets
on the front. But it helps some. The gel seat cover helps
more.

But even so it isn't enough and I coast on the downhills.

Eventually we hit the tail wind and I alternate between
winding it up and coasting. Because of the tail wind there
are spots where we can coast downhill and not lose so much
speed. At one point I ask her how her butt is doing, there's
nothing we can do about it is what she tells me. There are
many times when I've wished I could suffer through whatever
she was suffering through and save her the discomfort. It
doesn't work that way though. But today I can do what I can
to make the finish line happen faster.

There was a 7 month period where she hit the emergency room
a whole bunch of times, and maybe 2 of those 7 months were
spent in the hospital. A lot of the time there isn't a hell
of a lot you can do except drive her to the ER and be the
information portal about all the **** that is going on with
her and who they need to consult with at Mayo about it. I
remember when she had been in the hospital for two weeks and
they suggested a transfer to Mayo because her immune system
had flatlined and they suspected some stuff that I googled
and thought, holy ****. So in a sense it felt comforting in
this case to be able to do something involving intense
physical effort that would help.

When we finish I know she wants off the bike right away, so
I drop her off at the registration area. I'm thinking she'll
head inside where the tables and chairs are, but she ambles
over to a patch of grass and that's where she lands. I head over
to the car and load everything up. When I get back she hasn't
moved. I grab her under her armpits and heave and she is able
to head inside where the food is. She says we need to go out
later and look for her butt, she thinks it fell off.

We are the only tandem entered so we win our division. She
has some peculiarities to her gait and as she walks up to get
her award the presenter asks if her legs are sore. It isn't
really the time to explain about neurological side effects
from the treatment, so she just nods yes, sore legs. Her hair
started growing back and while it is still quite short it is
long enough to pass as something intentional. This race is
full of people we see once a year so most don't see anything
amiss. Just short hair and sore legs.

But it's been an eventful year and sometimes courage shows up
in ways that aren't very obvious.

Bob Schwartz

Best wishes for your whole family Bob.