26 Days and counting...

I was watching Stage 3 of the Tour of CA, the peloton tackled the Bonny Doon climb tilting up and away from the Pacific Ocean and summiting just over 2,000 feet above the waves. Its gradient is tough, I've never ridden it, but it has to be. I mean there, spread across the television screen a handful of riders hit the accelerator, none of them slouches mind you - Zabriskie, Leipheimer, Rogers, Horner, Armstrong and Andy Schleck - and then pop, there goes Schleck out the back. This is the same Schleck brother that last year hurt the legs and lungs of every cyclist in the Tour de France except Contador, and here he was getting dropped like a continental wannabe.

Andy has had a tough winter and spring, between crashes and bronchial troubles he has struggled to capture the form with which he destroyed the field at Liege-Bastonne-Liege with last year and carried into July. His form has struggled in 2010 because he hasn't been able to find consistent bike time - wow, can I relate!

Sometimes one of the hardest things to hang onto is perspective, especially when you are in the middle of it - it - it can be anything. That's where I am now, trying to find perspective, regain focus, make sense of where this past 6 months fits into life going forward. I'm really lucky, I'm not afflicted with MS, or cancer, or battling some other life threatening disease. I just have a chronically messed up lower back and a series of bronchial issues that have made riding the bike - not racing - just riding the bike, a really frustrating challenge. And that's where Andy Schleck and I have crossing Universal paths.

Today was my 26th outing on the bike since the first day of this year - never more than three days consecutively - you don't build form like that, much less race. What you do eventually build is perspective on getting well - long-term perspective.

A couple weeks ago I came back from Paris feeling once again ready to make serious progress - then bang - the back popped and I was out again. For most of last week I rested with my new best friend, Mr. Icepack. This time it's different, the consensus is that I have actually dislodged my sacroiliac joint or SI joint from the jammed position it has been sitting in, which translates into short-term pain, long-term gain. The muscles and flexibility I have been building in the back are starting to take over and I should be better off - in the long-term. It's hard to have perspective when you are in pain, spending the days hanging out with Mr Icepack and his little friends Ibuprofens. Now a week later and most of the pain has abated - just a bit of morning stiffness in the lower back - I'm back to workouts and feeling mentally and anatomically stronger.

According to Booby Julich (currently the technical director for Team Saxo Bank), from CycingNews, "he [Andy] wasn't good and Bjarne [Riis] told him to pull the pin on the climb so that was what he did." Andy was frustrated having to pull back from chasing the three - Zabriskie, Leipheimer, Rogers - that eventually would crest Bonny Doon and stay away to the finish in Santa Cruz, but Saxo Bank's goal is July, the Tour de France. Sometimes it takes outsiders to keep perspective, illuminate the long-term goal, and most importantly pull the plug occasionally.

Perspective is sometimes a very hard word to swallow; races missed, rides with friends missed, trips rescheduled, simple activities postponed. I finally got out yesterday, Phil gave me the green light to ride easy, even up hills, I got in 55-60 easy miles and met a new rider, Larry, who may be out there with me from time to time. I rode up Rocky Point and thought of a blog entry I made here last August. I thought about my opening paragraph, "Sometime hills are the best way, the only way to return to where you began. Throughout history hills have been there, pinnacles from which we see the world more clearly, personally, biblically, politically, metaphorically, they teach us how to humble ourselves and we are once again reminded that climbing always gets us out of the valley we're in." Then like now the climb gave me some perspective - I may rename that climb. It was such a joy to ride yesterday - like being a man release from detention. May be that's part of the re-occuring theme of this year - the joy of riding, regardless the where or the when, the how slow or how fast, personally or in a peloton. This year I cherish and remember exactly every day I have been on the bike - 26 days and counting.

"strength of a 7 year old girl"

Strength of a seven year old girl!! Flattery of that kind will rarely get you anywhere, but just once in a while, 'bout as often as a Hincapie classic win, it's gets you further ahead.

That's how today's workout session went - tell ya anything?

Now to be fair, Coach Phil did preface it with, "Ger, you're a bit of a strange case, you have great strength in some places, but in others..." and then game the lil'girl shot across my handlebars. But today it was deserved. After a great Monday workout, back on the big blue balance bubble, feeling on top of it all, not a pain on the horizon (or my back), I felt like I had built a new engine room and was call'n Paul Sherwin to check it out. That was on the heals of Saturday's 105 miler-O-fun ride with the 'kids'. So, ya, feeling good. Then boom today.

But this is what it's all about, good days and not as good days. Bottom line is the overall curve is upwards, I have legs, and after tomorrow's X-ray and check up I hope to report lungs in ready to roll condition. So an occasional workout where the back decides not to play along is acceptable at this stage of the ride. Believe me it's frustrating, but I'm really rethinking the season and success points along that journey. Racing is clearly backseat - and I'm starting to face the serious reality of it just not being part of the game plan this year - between writing and interview obligations for the new cycling book in Europe, try to stay consistent in rehabing the body, and then getting in quality training on the bike, too many non-tangential paths ahead.

The above paragraph is a huge part of the answer to "Why a coach?" Perspective. It's very difficult, with or without experience, to see where you are. Today I would have pushed harder, tried to push through the discomfort, and the result? - an ice bag, some ibuprofen, no cycling tomorrow, and a big mistake. A coach plugged into you sees the long-term, the long-range goal - not only this week, this racing season, but life. Phil and I are constantly talking about what I do now changes my life fitness and health.

I think that's where you have to be careful, while Phil Claud is called and is known by many as a cycling coach, I'm not working with him for the bike, but in many ways, because of the bike. He is helping me re-train my body to move, that proprioception thing. Cycling is a highly repetitive activity - what other sport essentially plops you into a single position and then says go at it like that for the next 3, 4, 5, or 6 hours, and in a race you do it without a break. I never learned early in life how to move correctly (ps - I can't dance) and then you combine that with an injury or two, lugging around 50-70 camera packs for 20 years and what happens is the body learns how to do things its own way, unfortunately the wrong way - at least for life long health. So that's how I got here, "...great strength in some places, but in others you have the strength of a 7 year old girl."

Another thought regarding "Why a Coach?" There is an article that popped up as I was writing this - 10 Signs You Need A New Trainer - by John Berardi, reading through the 10 points he has some valid and not so valid point - at least relating to me. My guy, Phil, doesn't look like Mr Atlas, since his pro cycling days a couple decades and pounds have been added - BUT - ask the dude to do some agility drill and that turkey can move with the grace, agility and swiftness of top athletes. I wish he would drop a few pounds, jack up his cardio, but that's because over the past few months he has now become a friend and I care. But what I pay him for is noticing the little things, talking to me, and making adjustments, his mental agility on the fly when I need it - that will change my life in time, and over time, and for all time.

So back to the back and the workouts. They are clearly at a new level despite the occasional slide like today. When the little girl shows up she screams and pouts a lot, but doesn't hang around too long. Phil ebbs and flows my workout subtlety tracking my body and making inner-workout adjustments as well as stopping for honest conversations about how my back or hips or lungs are doing. Today we both had to admit we needed to be nice to the little girl.


One note on our friend George:
Ronde is this Sunday (live on the web@Steephill.tv ), and after a fine s.t. 4th in last Sunday's cobbled Ghent, let's all pray Big George stays upright and gets a clean set of wheels for the finish - with a new tougher route, as blessed by the King Pave Boonen himself in this VN article, maybe the cobbles will shine for George.

Going slow to go fast...

So my coach Phil constantly repeats - the mantra to my building a stronger me. Well, now it appears it may be stopping to go slow, so that eventually we can go fast.

Somewhere in a time-warp between last Friday morning feeling really great and going through a progressive work out in Session 5 since back from India, and racing Sublimity circuit road race (Saturday - photo above as I roll out in search of my lung - maybe I should have noticed the arrow on the ground pointed the other way?) and the Jack Frost TT on tandem with Hammer (Sunday morning) I managed to do some damage to my lungs/ribs (??) it appears. Severe enough I ended up in the local ER at 2 AM Monday morning having trouble breathing with one of the worst pains imaginable drilling into my left ribs just about the base of the heart... yes, that alone scared the shit out of me! (and Jenn)

After over 6 hours in ER which included EKGs, x-rays, CAT scans, full blood tests,, other tests, and a whole lot of some cousin to morphine (thank you chemistry!), I was able to breath with reasonable comfort and eventually wheelchair it into a car to go home - and here I sit or partially lie down - which ever position let's me dodge the pain.

So what they think they know is this -

Pleurisy is swelling (inflammation) of the thin layers of tissue (pleura) covering the lungs and the chest wall. (according to WebMD)

Appointment with a pulmonary specialist tomorrow - hopefully pleurisy is all it is, a week or so to heal and back to going slow, but well know more later.

It appears I may have pushed the lungs and body too hard too fast trying to get into race shape. In other words, didn't go slow enough to go fast (later). The price is no Banana Belt series opener this weekend - with any luck a nice long pain free walk with Jenn.

Congrats to friend Jeff Otto for the win in Mstrs 40+ and to teammate Matt Slater for a great 3rd!

Weekend results (besides the pain): Sublimity Road Race and Jack Frost TT
Photo: Jenn Loren

Keeping the Proprioception Going: Session 5

I did in fact recover from Session 4's freezing finally, although I'll admit it was a long day of serious body recover - like bonking almost - body weak, queasy stomach, lethargy. By night fall I was coming around, and by the following morning I actually, yes Phil you were right, felt better. Going into Wednesday's session 5 I had energy and worked through the warm-up exercises it great shape; Phil was back to picking on details of posture and execution rather than abbreviating the routine to save my spine.

Post warm-up we focused on what I can do to not lose my proprioception gains. I'm heading off to India for three weeks and simply put, it's not the best timing for my workouts. But since no one pays me to ride my bike, I have other obligations. Always part of the strategy of this growing older and trying to stay fit and active - managing time, and focusing on health, nutrition - life balance. Trying to avoid what the Hopi people call Koyaanisqatsi - 'crazy life, life in turmoil, life out of balance, life disintegrating, a state of life that calls for another way of living.

Right now my body is physically out of balance - a little internal Koyaanisqatsi you might say.

Phil gave me simple marching orders - try to get in the basic warm-up routine at least three times a week and do one balance exercise - a foam pad or pillow on the floor, then stand centrally positions on one bare foot at a time (we are working to develop better structure in my feet to assume part of the load off the back so much of my work is now done in bare feet), bending at the knee slightly, back straight, reach over and touch the floor (without supporting on the floor or pushing off) , then return to stand (remaining on one leg). Repeat left hand to right hand 10 times, then switch legs. Two sets each.

If all goes well my initial proprioceptor launch will continue successfully into orbit and I'll return from India ready to build on this base.

And of course we had to finish things off with the ICE BATH!!!! I won't go into it again - read session 4 if you want those frigid details. ps - it was fractionally more tolerable this time, sorta, kinda.

Burrrrrrrrrrrrrr! Session 4

I'm writing this the morning after. I've finally recovered. My eyes have cleared, my speech is coherent and my brain has confirmed I am still alive. Yes, this is about workout Session 4, not a post-ride, pub-crawl, pint-fest with the boys.

After a weekend of struggling with low grinding pain in the back and upper right hip Monday's session four was destined to be slow. I could only make it through a partial warm-up as anything forcing the deep stretching of the lower back was just to difficult or near painful. So a lot of time was spent sitting or laying on a large inflated ball. I have one of these at home and use it daily for a variety of stretching as well as a chair at my computer desk. Everyone should own one of these exercise balls - one of the best overall exercise resources I ever adopted (and my new love for the foam roller :")

Now, the fun began. Ya know, there is a saying attributed to Goethe, "until one is committed there is hesitancy, always ineffectiveness..." so until something seems totally insane I have to trust guys like Phil and Dr. Jason. Phil's worked with athletes like David Zabriskie and Danny Pate (ok, maybe Pate, from what Tyler Farrar says, isn't a good choice), he was a USA Cycling coach, even a juniors coach, I mean c'mon, they wouldn't let him coach juniors if he was insane... would they? What Phil was about to suggest was tip-toeing right up to the precipitous ledge of insanity. Ice Bath!

He says come here and strip down to you shorts, you'll need your dry clothes for after wards - hell ya, and some thermals and a down suit as well as an electric blanket!! All the while he was dumping three bags of crushed ice into a large black bathing tub.

"Climb in there and slowly (remember we do everything slowly) submerge yourself up to your neck", with a smile as he stirs the ice like a giant slushy drink. "go ahead, and it's ok, call me anything you like, I've heard it before." Now wait! Doesn't this seem strange that someone would do this to someone knowing someone will then want to call someone profanities? He knew, I would be so frigg'n freezing that profanities (other than the initial shit!) were the last thing on my mind.

"Gerry," pausing I think to see if I'm still alive, "now go to a happy place" he says in his animated style. Are you crazy, I have no happy place that is this cold!

With shaking deep breaths I tried to think of a hot place - the deserts of western Egypt maybe, I've been there - burning sands, baking heat,... great, ... go,... quickly, get there! breeeeeath.

According to some the benefits of an Ice Bath are (from After Exercise Ice Bath & Recovery & SpeedEndurance.com):

• Helps promote neural system recovery.
  
• Promoted cardio-vascular system recovery.
  
• Helps reduce pain around joints and muscles.
  
• Enhances muscle fiber remodelling and regeneration
  

The logic [this is still being debated] behind ice baths relates to the muscle damage that results from hard workouts. This damage is actually a good thing, because the “microtears” are what stimulate new muscle growth, says Greg Wells, an exercise physiologist... in Toronto who advises several Canadian Olympic teams.

But the damage also produces muscle soreness, which peaks one or two days after the workout and can interfere with subsequent training. Ice baths cause blood vessels to constrict, forcing waste products out of the affected area. “It’s almost like wringing out a sponge,” Dr. Wells says. Then, when the area warms up again, new blood rushes in to help the healing process.

I have a general hatred for cold - most have to do with malaria - and some evolutionary hard-wiring for survival. Ice bathes are not going to be my favorite part of the reality show Me & Phil.

As Phil advised it would take a few hours for my body to fully come back around from this initial ice bath - apparently according to him and the things I have since read your body gets better at recover after future dunkings in the slushy tub - brrrrrrrrrrrrr! It did take part of the day to recover - I felt as though my entire body had been whacked.

Session 3: Going slow, to go fast

Good session 3 today - not so sore - less thinking and more focus.

The warm up is starting to make sense - about half of the 16-steps are committed to mental memory, inchworm, toe-flicker, prisoner walk, over-under hurdle,... still working on the kinetic memory.

Phil occasionally says, "them" in referring to the body or parts I'm not use to talking to. "open up - teach them , open up - teach them", he says. It's all about doing things correctly - good spine control, good body position. I'm still rushing things a bit, and when he says, "relax, slow it down" I get too mechanical - old habit of thinking the movement rather than moving through the movement. Did someone say "white boy ain't got no rhythm"?

"Going slow, to go fast", so he says. It's all about teaching my body the right things to do, while my head is still muddling around in the past 50 years of bad habits and compensation. We're going at this three days a week. Consistency is critical to building body memory and to give Phil a chance to see response, not negative or positive, just response. It's clear he is looking at me in a far different perspective than I can see myself; there in lies the value of a coach. I have never had a person coaching just me. Ya, I have been on some teams and as a runner had enough success to garner some individual coach's attention, but a coach actually focused on the whole me? No.

So going slow to go fast is like learning to drive a car. He's got me in the parking lot of the Formula One race track. For now, confined, I'm little danger to myself. It's in there I can safely knock a few things over as I learn to get control of the whole body. Mentally, I long for the open road. Right now it's about, "Going slow to go fast".

We spent a bit of time on the wobble board's (see session 2) cousin - the "eye ball", as he calls it. A big circular board with a half rubber bubble on it. Like the wobble board, in the short-term you are reminded of how unstable you are, in the long run, core stabilization and strength are at the heart of it. In various two-footed and single-footed slightly squatted positions my objective is to balance. At first it's akin to watching geese land on an ice covered pond. Every movement feels like a semi-controlled crash. Frankly one of the toughest things was standing there, arms spread, on one leg, and having Phil just nudge me in the slightest manner - little more than breeze-like - my hips, legs, arms, hands, etc., staying still was a ridiculous challenge. In the back of my brain I start asking myself "what the hell have I been doing (or not doing) all these years to be so... so... unbalanced? I have some work to do.

The back got a bit inflamed today. We're communicating a lot about that - trying to find that balance between constructive rebuilding and tipping the scale into damage. There again we are going a bit slow now, until we both know my body better, so later we can let the F1 out on the streets.

Every session is a learning lesson - my body relearning to move, my brain learning to stay out of the way - but proprioception remains the over arching concept. I still need to create a body that communicates with all its parts.

Then it was roller time. Still discovering my body with the roller as well. Funny how a hard piece of foam can be so enlightening.

Rebuilding the Back: Session 2

Today's session was tough - the body was sore coming into it. After back-to-back 80 plus milers and then Monday's initial workout session I was really feeling it - especially the legs. But there are no excuses with Phil - so I barely slip in the door and he slides out of his animated (a word I will use often in connection to Phil) conversation to tell me "four laps when you are ready" which meant now.

Despite being sore as hell, especially hamstrings that felt like a twist-tie on a bread bag after an NFL lineman had made a sandwich, I actually felt mentally more connected to the warm-up routine than I thought I would. Now, that doesn't mean that I didn't need Phil, with a smile and an intro mime routine, reminding me of each of the exercises, but still, a few new synapses were firing in that proprioceptor part of my brain.

Today I also discovered my new friend - well, I hope we will be soon - the wobble board, or balance board (photo above). Trying to balance on this thing is a sobering experience under normal conditions - probably not improved by the number of pints I had at Alex's birthday fest last night. The idea is you stand, at first with both feet spread and try to maintain a balanced position so the platform remains parallel to the floor. Oh, so much easier said than done. But after a few tries I got the basic hang of it.

Now comes the fun part, something new. Phil hands me to sword-looking things - flexible metal blades about five feet long with a centrally placed rubber handle. They looked less like a battle instrument and more like a strange musical one. Okay ready, squat, balance, and start gyrating these sword blades up-n-down - YES - while continuing to maintain balance on the wobble board. Quickly I was wobbling out of control and Phil says, "relax" and I try, "relax" again he says, now I'm trying to be a jellyfish of relaxation while holding on to two gyrating blades on this tipsy little board... "RELAX... get off the board", he says. OH, I get it! relax equals - get off the board. Ya, I guess I was more tensely focused than I realized. So we start again only with the sword blades vertical - not any easier trust me.

Finally we try the "dragonfly" version. This one has me standing on the WB, squatting with one leg while extending the other leg out behind me (ala the dragonfly's tail) and then gyrating the sword blades to imitate the beating wings. Mostly I got it, except for my dragonfly's tail has trouble remaining aerial. Of course I have watched plenty of dragonflies over the years and females depositing eggs on a pond do exactly what I was doing, although after several reminders to keep my "tail" up I assumed Phil wasn't interested in my natural history acumen.

All this gyrating is about stregthening my core - and anything else in the neighborhood of my L5 vertebrae. If that fails maybe I take my egg-laying dragonfly routine onto some reality talent show.

During the cool down with the roller it was clear the soreness from the weekend and Session 1 had not flown the coup - maybe it was that grimacing expression while doing little more than lying on my side that gave me away? That's when Phil breaks his animated monologue of cycling in the early '90s in Europe and says, without missing a breath, "that's good [the pain part] Gerry, we're going to rebuild you from head to toe" and then he tosses this in, "we're tak'n it down to basics, peanut-butter and jelly stuff". Well, basics like crying for your mother might be another version!

Then it was off to icing down the back and ten more minutes of colorful life at the back of the pack pro racing in northern Europe stories; Phil has forgotten infinitely more about what I like to call the "beasty boys days of cycling", those pre-1993 times, than I will ever discover - but my anecdotal archive keeps growing with every session - hopefully so will my core strength and proprioception.

Back to the Back: Session 1

As promised I'm going to try and post after every session of my back rehab and overall rebuilding of the body - for cycling and life. Today was the first real workout with Phil. After time for the holidays and giving Phil a chance to analyze an approach, we got down to actual gym time this morning. I was coming in as a blank slate - mentally letting go, putting my body in Phil's hands and focusing on building this body into something better than it was before.

A focus of today was a new term to me - Proprioception. It's something that I'm, ...well, maybe more accurately I'm not. Ya see, I can't dance (except that silly excuse for a thing Jenn is kind enough to laugh at with great kindness) or anything else that requires independence and rhythm from my arms, my hands, feet and brain. Coordinated communication is proprioception:

"Proprioception (PRO-pree-o-SEP-shən) is the sense of the relative position of neighbouring parts of the body. Unlike the six exteroceptive senses (sight, taste, smell, touch, hearing, and balance) by which we perceive the outside world, and interoceptive senses, by which we perceive the pain and movement of internal organs, proprioception is a third distinct sensory modality that provides feedback solely on the status of the body internally. It is the sense that indicates whether the body is moving with required effort, as well as where the various parts of the body are located in relation to each other."

Today's first session was about dumping old data, and rebooting Ger's mental hard-drive so we can start reprogramming the new Ger. According to Phil that's the first step before we can ever get to rebuilding what 50 years of active living on this planet has damaged.

This first session was about "bookend" as Phil called it - teaching me how to warm up properly, and cool down. As he says, "We're gunna go slow, and do this right". That began by telling me he was going to break me of the habit of stretching before warming up. See how little I know - I thought stretching was warming up?

We began with a light easy (a word I'm going to become reacquainted with) with a few laps of jogging. Then a series of walking, then walking while bending, walking lifting legs, and walking swinging arms, etc. None of these to any length or extreme. C'mon how tough could thsi be? After 45 mins of stopping and starting to focus on my back position, proper body alignment, proper movement and technique I finished extremely "worked" and completed the warm-up that someday I'll do on my own in 10-12 mins max. For now that was it.

Then he pops out the "roller" - I thought I knew about this - a 6" x 15" hard solid foam tube. But like everything else today, it was time to learn. We started with the IT band (Iliotibia band). Ouch! This is good, I kept telling myself, Phil called it, from where he was comfortably sitting, "pain is your friend", and then remind me to slooooooow down. The goal here was to sit for 15-20 secs on pain spots in the IT band before rolling slowly on up towards my hip. If stoping at pain was my goal, then I wasn't going to be making swift progress - but "slow is good" Phil kept reminding me.

After the IT band was adequately mutilated - so it felt - we moved on to the interior of the upper leg and the same slow roll from interior knee. It's truly amazing the body parts and pain you can find when you go looking for them. OUCH! Slowly I was reminded. Repeat on left leg with equal pain and then it was off to ice the back for ten minutes - more on iceing later.

Session 2 on Wednesday..... think proprioception

We can rebuild it, we have the technology

No, not the environment or Tiger Wood's reputation, I'm focused on something simpler and closer to home. In fact, it can't get any closer and more personal - my spine.

Specifically I'm facing a degenerative disc (see x ray - not mine but similar) and I have what's referred to as Spondylolisthesis: The word spondylolisthesis derives from two parts - spondylo which means spine, and listhesis which means slippage. So, a spondylolisthesis is a forward slip of one vertebra (i.e., one of the 33 bones of the spinal column) relative to another. Spondylolisthesis usually occurs towards the base of your spine in the lumbar area. And then there are a range of issues, some from previous bike crashes (broken ribs, clavicle, scapula, etc) and the wear-n-tear of 53 very active years on this planet as a photographer, as I found out yesterday.

Spondylolisthesis can be described according to its degree of severity. One commonly used description grades spondylolisthesis, with grade 1 being least advanced, and grade 5 being most advanced. The spondylolisthesis is graded by measuring how much of a vertebral body has slipped forward over the body beneath it.

I have grade 1 Spondylolisthesis, painful, but good news - we can rebuild it, we have the technology... now I need the patience and determination to stay focused.

So I'm dealing with two phases - recovery and reconditioning

I initially started seeing a chiropractor, Dr. Jason Lindekugel, who has initiated the recovery portion - with regular visits to correct alignment, and egoscue static stretching as well as yoga.

And today Jason and I met with cycling and fitness coach Phil Claud. It was Jason's recommendation I (and he) meet with Phil to be part of my back rehab team. Phil became a professional cyclist and joined the USA national team, eventually racing in Europe for five years. More about Phil.

What is clear from our first meeting Friday - I have a lot of work to do. Phil's first objective is going to be to try reteaching my brain/nervous system to be more adaptive. He does know I can't dance (dance lessons may also be in my future - more on that later).

Funny - one of the last things he commented on was my saddle alignment - I had ridden my race bike over in case - he said, see that saddle position, nose is down, we'll get to that later, we have other things to work on first.

Over the next several weeks and months, maybe years, I'm going to try, with the help of some very skilled, experienced folks, try and rebuild this anatomy into something that will motor me more efficiently, faster and pain free on the bike, but also my life. If you are interested I hope to share as much as I can - please feel free to comment here or write me. I'll post all of these entries with the Label: Cycling pain free