Done Swimming for Awhile

I’m packed up and heading back south. I might stop in Minneapolis for a bit and then try to round Michael Fatka up for a quick trip through the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines. I’m not sure my hip will be up to a long walk, but I haven’t been to a fair this year and the Iowa Fair is one of the best.

I swam 30 minutes straight yesterday. I think I might have swum more up here than rode my bike? But, now my shoulder, than I did rotator cuff surgery on last year, is a little sore. But not nearly as sore as it was after I got off crutches last month, so it is hopefully a good sore and not a bad sore. I have to build that muscle up some, so I need to swim more, but I don’t like swimming much in pools. Fresh water lakes would be my first choice, the ocean, my 2nd, and 3rd, but way down the line, pools. I dislike pools so much because of the repetitive nature and the chlorine. The smell of chlorine pouring out of my skin when I’m riding makes me think I’m poisoning myself while swimming. That is most likely not the case, but I don’t like it.

Bromont is a pooped dog. He barely crawled out of bed this morning and now is on the couch. He does 3-a-days here, so he’s pretty much just running, eating and sleeping. It is amazing how much more food he eats when he’s in full exercise mode. This is his favorite place in the world. We brought him up here when he was just a couple months old and he’s been coming at least a few times a year, ever since. He knows the woods like the back of his paw and has a million favorite places that he needs to check out all the time.

I’m coming back up real soon, maybe as soon as a couple weeks, but definitely before Chequamegon. Right now, I couldn’t race Chequamegon, and even if I get to that point, I won’t be competitive. I’m sort of thinking that I’ll start at the back and experience the mayhem back in the thousands. Or maybe ride with a friend that goes about my post-op pace. I’m not pitiful, just slow right now. It all might change in the next month, how would I know?

Okay, Bromont is staring at me, knowing the car is loaded, so I’d better get moving. The weather looks pretty great in Kansas this week, which will be nice.

Trudi and Cadel after Sunday’s stage of the Tour of Utah.

Bromont is on his back most of the time when he’s sleeping here. He is really tired when he does that.

6 thoughts on “Done Swimming for Awhile”

Bolas Azules August 12, 2014 at 9:14 am

Steve, not that this post has anything to do with what you just wrote, but I’ve been thinking about something I read posted on your site a few weeks ago and I wanted to say something about it.

I recall some young pup harassing you weeks ago after you crashed and the kids was going on-and-on about – “you suck; you are a dinosaur that knows nothing; time to hang it up…” and the one that kind of hit me – “how can you write about anything, you never even rode a Grand Tour…”

What a lot of younger riders don’t get is that prior to really Greg Lemond & Andy Hampsten’s success it was almost an impossibility for an American to just pack-up and make it in Europe let alone make it onto a tour team. And it took years after their successes to have Americans taken seriously enough to be allowed a shot. Sure Jock Boyer, George Mount and Mike Neel gave it a go but it wasn’t like the modern era where complete teams are rolling across the pond. Hell, pro licences really didn’t get a foothold in the US until ’81 or so and if riders took them out they were really limited in the number of races they could ride. I think the first year a ‘pro’ had about 10 US races that they could even enter.

For these perspective-less kids it would be like saying, “Why didn’t you do anything to tear down the Berlin Wall before the Russians took to it in 1987?” Why? You didn’t have a chance too and you know what else? Many quality riders of Steve’s era didn’t really have a chance to ride Grand Tours either. There I just wanted to get that off of my chest. Whipper-snappers be damned.