Making Progress On Tibial Plateau Fracture

Went to Suita Hospital today solo. This is me riding our elevator on the way out.

My dear wife wrote me notes just in case I got into trouble w/Japanese language issues.

 

Beautiful day, took a taxi over.   The driver was quite chatty, telling me about his trips to the U.S.

Here is the entrance to Suita Shimin Byouin, aka Suita Municipal Hospital.

This Nakamura-sensei, my orthopedist.

They have some pretty neat tools for removing old cast. Saws right through the tough fiberglass cast, but is gentle enough to hold up to your face. 

 

After getting the cast off, you can see the remnants of my "fracture blisters", which are giant blood blisters from hell, basically.  Now they are dried up, itch like crazy.  My leg is still considerably swollen up as well.

The verdict is a shorter cast for at least another 2 weeks.  I was hoping for full parole on the cast, perhaps unrealistically, but this is maybe like getting a transfer from a supermax prison to a medium security one.  Better than nothing and certainly nothing to complain about.

Nakamura-sensei and her able assistant get me fixed up in no time.  The lining material they use on the cast is really comfortable and the team applies typically extreme Japanese care and neatness employed in wrapping and packaging things:

 

 

 

 

So I've ended up w/a below the knee cast for at least two more weeks. Nakamura-sensei sez still no weight bearing, keep doing whatever I'm doing, see you in 2 weeks. She also wrote a fairly long note to my wife which will be decoded later today.

As I leave, I admire the hospital's pleasant aquarium in the entry area.

I can bend my knee some now. It is amazing how stiff and tight my quadriceps is. But overall, this a a great improvement, much smaller cast, I may be able to even start wearing long pants now.

I then catch another taxi home.  This driver is friendly again, but a little less talkative.  

Back home again, riding the elevator back to our apartment.  Can you tell the difference from the first picture?

Darn it, Another Accident

Well, I got hurt badly on July 2, 2010.  Now, less than three years later, on 12/23/2012, I broke my leg skiing in Hokkaido (that would be in Japan) on Niseko mountain.

Getting around on crutches is a LOT of work....

I'm getting a lot of good nap time in.  I'll be returning to the U.S. in the beginning of March and I'm determined to finally ride the Greenbrier Rail/Trail, it will be part of my rehab program.

For the enquiring minds, I have a Tibial Plateau Fracture, Type 1, non-displaced.  This is very fortunate, so while these are pretty serious fractures, I got off without surgery/hardware, although I have to wear a cast for somewhat longer.

And no, I wasn't doing anything stupid when I broke my leg. Actually, I think one of the bindings was a little faulty or maybe set to release at too low a tension and gave way when I did a hard cut....

But unlike my last accident, I don't have a police report or anything to help me deflect blame onto someone or something else.

The Japanese ski patrol guys were really great, I was near the top of the mountain, they packed me into a sled and skied me down a long, long way.  They didn't stick to the bunny slopes either, which I found pretty impressive.

Here they are packing me into a leg brace and a sled, could almost be passed off as an Everest rescue...

Happy New Year to all and I hope to be a more active blogger in 2013 than I was in 2012.

Fun Bicycle Song

A little late, but better than never:

Japanese Tire Irons

My son got a flat on his bike the other day, a first for us here in Japan. So yesterday, on our way back from the Katayama Municipal Pool, we stopped at a bike shop to get the fixins for flat fixing.

The first joint had a patch kit, which we purchased, but no levers. We then stopped at another shop, they also didn't have any levers. At this point, I'm detecting a trend & I ask my wife to query the shop proprietor about "WTF is w/the no tire irons in Japanese bike shops?" as this sort of interchange is still a little beyond my Japanese abilities.

The proprietor said he just uses screw drivers, like apparently most bike shops in Japan do and I did on my first bike when I was in second or third grade.

Berthoud Aravis Saddle

Finally got an official ride in on the 1985 Trek 620. I've been on about some 30/40 miles, but they were just pottering around. Today I rode about 50 miles, only stopping for a couple of water breaks.

Overall, the bike performs well. The 35mm tires do slow one down, no doubt about that.

On my previous rides, I had observed that the Berthoud Aravis saddle is absolutely rock hard. In addition to this, it is very flat longitudinally along the top, not having any sag.

By about mile 35, this was starting to severely bother me. In addition to general discomfort, the flat along the top was making it impossibly painful to ride the drops.

You do the geometry.

I pedalled along thinking about this, in the way that saddle discomfort demands attention and thinking about all the Brooks B17 saddles that were comfortable right out of the box. I was also thinking pessimistically about how long it would take to break in a saddle with leather as thick as that of the Berthouds.

Finally, I remembered observing that the saddle had come w/some built in tension, not fully loosened the way Brooks customarily are when new. So I stopped, pulled out the 5mm allen wrench and backed off the tension a full turn.

This had a pretty dramatic effect. I'm not going to say everything was immediately sunshine and lollipops but it was a lot better. After another 5 miles, I gave it another half turn of loosening which further improved things.

On this ride, it was a little hard to tell if this will yield an acceptable comfort level, as I was pretty beat up and sore by the time I got around to detensioning the saddle a bit. But I am a lot more optimistic about it than I was midway through the ride.

The Grizzly Roars To Life

Regular readers of this blog may be wondering what ever happened to my 1988 Bianchi Grizzly that was nearly completed back in July.

The short answer is nothing at all happened, the bike has just been sitting in a corner.

Until today when I resolved to do the 30 minutes of work necessary (cable fitting mostly) to get this thing on the road. And my resolve was undaunted as I was then able to take this out for a short hop on some errands:

The biggest unknown for me was how would the drop bars work.  Periodically, I get tempted into making some sort of rugged duty, urban commuter/utility whatever out of a mountain bike.  This is all well and good until it comes time to actually ride it and I rapidly lose interest because of the flat bars.  I seem to be able to abide flat bars only in a true MTB situation.

So this time I decided to put on some drop bars and while it was only a short ride, I would give the geometry and feel a go at this point.

The stem shifters I installed are fun and quite convenient, but you have to be secure in your manhood (or just plain be in your senescence) to enjoy them:

This bike has bio-pace chain rings.  I couldn't really tell any difference in the feel between these and normal chainrings.  They still look utterly dorky, though.

Overall, I think the drop bars on this are a winner.  I haven't done much else to the bike so far because I wanted to ensure that I was ok with the drop bars before doing much other work.

The Phoenix Project - MKS Custom Pro Pedals

Background on The Phoenix Project is available here and here.

I love the looks of a classic road pedal.  But the nib most of them have on the outboard edge of the cage interferes with using street shoes when necessary.

Fortunately for us, MKS (Mikishima = "Three Islands") has a fairly new, very high quality release with a subdued, almost vestigial nib, called the MKS Custom Pro:

These pedals share the same body with the MKS Custom Nuevo:

Here are the hints of a nib:

The cages are bolted on, just like in the good old days:

Incidentally, the MKS site (www.mkspedal.com) helpfully explains that in MKS-ese, sealed bearing indicates sealed cartridge bearing whereas sealed mechanism means good old fashioned loose cup and cone bearings with some sort of seal in the equation.

Street Cred

MKS has been making pedals for decades along the full spectrum from dirt cheap models up to very high end.  All have a stellar reputation for toughness, serviceability, and reliability.  I've never heard a complaint about them other than the cheap ones can be stingy on the grease when delivered from the factory.

Gizmo Lust

Other than the excellent finish, which includes much beloved chromed spindles, how excited can one get over pedals?

Well, when I unwrapped these and spun those precious chrome spindles, I was floored.  They spin as smoothly and evenly as some precision machine tool, sort of the platonic ideal of a rotating axle.  No resistance and no play detectable whatsoever, it is almost eerie.

They are also nicely, but not insanely, light at 293 grams.

Crimethink

With these pedals, it is official.  The 1985 Trek 620 has no traditional, repackable, cup and cone bearings in any component.

Tweed Factor

Tweedies love MKS, but are traditionally much more likely to go in for cheapo MKS Sylvan variants.

In recent years, MKS has been an enabler of the increasing weirdness in this quarter with things like these "Grip Kings":

If the stock situation isn't enough for you, there are little aftermarket screws to put in all those holes to make them into a real bed of nails.  This is just the thing for cruising around in the aftermath of an oil spill, I suppose.

Phony Accent

Racing pedals?  Cycling vanity, thy name is slow middle aged guy.

Lily Gilding

There is no excuse at all for the price I paid for these.

Honorable Mention

I really like Specialized Touring Pedals produced by MKS back in the late 80's or so:

These have a traditional road pedal look but with the support of a platform pedal.  Further, the rear cage and platform is slightly curved.  This conforms to one's foot and is supremely comfortable.

However, they had sealed mechanisms instead of sealed bearings.  Furthermore, they were a gross violation of the "no vintage parts" and I couldn't think of a reason to grant them a waiver.

I sure wish MKS would bring back a modern rendition of these.  The guy I sold my last set to is actually contacting MKS (info@mkspedal.com) to inquire about this.  Maybe if enough readers out there in Fuji Otaku-land join him in this, we may see it happen.  It would be a great part to get back into production.

Another pedal I considered was the White Industries Platform Pedal:

I've been intriqued by these for a while.  But the urban/commuter vibe didn't quite fit this project.  Plus, I have some reservations about the durability of the extremely cantilevered flip tab when rendered in alloy.  That is in a pretty exposed position and one good whack seems like it would break it off.

Running Tally

$3981 USD

We bring forward $3839 USD.  The MKS Custom Pro pedals were a whopping $142 USD inclusive of shipping from benscycle.net.

The Sausage Factory

Always grease those pedal threads, always.  Future generations of bike collectors will thank you.