BikinginLA

Fourteen months after my infamous bee encounter on the beach, and I’m still dealing with it.

As I’ve written here before, I’ve managed to recover from my injuries — for the most part, anyway — and after a lot of hard work, managed to get myself back into shape. But a couple of nagging problem just haven’t gone away.

Take my hip, for instance. While it looks nothing like the picture in the second link anymore, there’s still a little discoloration, and some residual swelling that causes occasional pain and/or numbness.

Then there’s my right butt cheek, which seems to have developed a semi-gelatinous, subcutaneous mass that looks and feels like I sat on a catcher’s mitt. After all these years of riding, I may have the deeply dimpled derriere of a Roman gladiator on the left, but alas, not so on the right.

(Think of it as a 10-point buttocal scale, sort of like this: 10 Greek God; 9 Michelangelo’s David; 8 Roman Gladiator … 3 Roman Galley Slave; 2 Catcher’s Mitt; 1 Dom DeLouise.)

I feel kind of like Two-Face, but lower.

So my orthopedist sent me in for yet another MRI last week, which only confirmed my own self-diagnosis. He gave me a steroid shot in my hip to help the swelling, and he’s sending me to physical therapy to see if they can break down the fibrous tissue that’s keeping that ass mass in place.

Meanwhile, I try not to be self-conscious about it. Really, I do.

It’s not all that noticeable when I’m dressed, and my wife is the only one who sees me naked these days. And she usually tries not to laugh, though I sometimes think I catch a suppressed snicker or two.

So I packed my semi-lumpy, bi-polar butt into my skintight spandex cycling shorts and went out for a ride this afternoon.

And I’m sure it was just my imagination that the women I passed on my left turned and smiled, while those on my right quickly looked away.

 

Researchers at Perdue University point out what every Californian already knows — speed limits don’t count if there’s no one around to enforce them. New York imagines what a neighborhood designed for cycling would look like. Seattle cyclists are confused, as the city promotes cycling while the police harass them. The newspaper in New Haven tells cyclists to stay off the damn sidewalk (personally, I love the 3rd comment.) Bike Fixation gets action after losing the local parking meter/bike rack. Gary Reports of Obama’s new Office of Urban Planning, something that could benefit all of us. Finally, my friends at Altadena Blog report the San Gabriel Valley is being targeted by U2 spy planes. Anyone have an explanation?