I haven’t been feeling my best. Pretty banged and scabbed up. A little infection here and there. I’m still trying to get some form of fitness for this time of the year. Not sure what the best formula is for that, but something is usually better than nothing. Anyway, I’ve decided to just ride my bike. Go out and ride on the unbelievable nice roads here in Southern Wisconsin. It is very picturesque here. I am not worrying about training. No worry about wind direction, speed, hills, etc. Just going out and getting lost for few hours and then figure my way back.

Today I started with a tailwind. I felt bad right from the first pedal stroke. When I feel like that and want to get in some miles, I usually ride tailwind first. I put on my headphones and started riding Northeast. It got better after the first hour or so. Anyway, I ended up riding 40 or so miles NE and saw a sign for Waterford, Wisconsin. I hadn’t been there for quite awhile and thought I’d go by and visit Richard Schwinn and Co. at Waterford Bicycles.

I rode for the Schwinn Professional Team for 4 years, so I knew where the building was. I’d been up there for dealer visits etc. during those days. I got my team bike stolen out of my garage one time and Mike Farrell, the team director, sent me a plane ticket to Chicago for the next day and I went up to Waterford and returned with a new bike. That was pretty cool.

Anyway, Richard Schwinn was in his office and gave me the Tour. I have know Richard almost since I started racing bikes. He is an bicycle advocate through and through. Passionate for sure. He told me his daughter is working for Zipp and is carrying on the tradition. To me, it didn’t seem like a lot had changed since the Paramount days. They had a lot of custom lugs there for the Anniversary Paramount Framesets. They were beautiful. Hand made, hand welded stainless steel. Nice.

Last week I was in Waterloo at the Trek Factory. Now, this week at Waterford. They almost couldn’t be more different. Different for sure, but beautiful/functional in their own respective way.

Marc Mueller and Richard Schwinn.

Steel frames waiting for some rear triangles to be attached. Seems like there were a lot of cross bikes going out.

A cross frame just welded.

A box of mitered tubes. Check out the lugs. Pretty.

I made my 3rd visit to the Urgent Care in the past week today. My hip is infected and oozing pus from a couple places. I looked up the images on google and it looks exactly like MRSA staph. I don’t know where that would have come from. Probably from one of my other previous hospital visits. Anyway, I go out on a bike ride this morning to see how I feel. I stopped to get some coffee and I noticed that I have another problem under my right underarm. Where there wasn’t a wound. So I figure I should go by the doctors again. Long story short, they took some samples of the pus and prescribed an antibiotic cocktail. I told the physician that I wasn’t much into taking antibiotics because it makes me feel and ride horrible. I asked him if I could wait until the culture was back to start and he advised not to. Isn’t that the whole reason MRSA started. Over prescribed antibiotics?

Even the pharmacist asked me if I had a bad infection because these were really strong antibiotics. I went ahead and bought the pills, but am hesitant to take them. I’m driving back to Kansas tomorrow to race The Tour of Kansas City this weekend. Just two criteriums. It’s supposed to be nearly 100 both days again. It hasn’t even been in the 80’s hardly here the last week. So, I’m going to call tomorrow and see if they have the lab work back. If so, and it turns out positive, then I might as well write off the next month or so.