Missing the Bike

Chainring??

It's just a couple of days short of two weeks since my unfortunate tumble and I'm really starting to miss the bike. For that matter, I'm also missing going outside as well. I've been locked up in the house since I escaped from UMC. On the plus side, there is at least a faint perception that what's broken is beginning to heal a bit. Over the past few days I've discovered a few other remnants of the crash that I really hadn't noticed before. One of the ribs or costals on my right side where #3 meets the sternum has been painful and swollen since day 1. That feels a bit better today. Yesterday, when taking a shower (a rather difficult ordeal all in itself) I noticed the scrape marks on my left ribcage that look suspiciously like they came chainring teeth, which would suggest an explanation for the broken ribs underneath. The bottom inside of the right ankle, while not painful, has been black and blue, so I guess I did something around there that caused some bleeding. Likewise, there's been a swollen area just below the inside of my right knee. Overall, though, I'll give myself a slight upgrade over how I felt a few days ago. I have been able to get around OK with the crutches. Surprisingly, there is no pain at all in my pelvis when I am standing up straight, even if, and perhaps especially when, I put some weight on that left leg. What hurts, however, is when I completely un-weight that leg or twist while it has any weight on it. Fortunately, it doesn't hurt (much) when I'm sitting. Most of the pain seems to be coming from my back, where the ribs meet the spine. Whatever, it is all progressing, albeit at a far slower rate than I'd like.

Bizarre daytime scene in an empty French Quarter

So in the midst of the CoVID-19 situation I've been rather involuntarily quarantined the whole time, looking out the window at what appears to be perfectly normal traffic volume out on South Claiborne Avenue. But of course it's not normal. Nothing is normal right now. Restaurants and bars are basically closed, some offering take-out only, others just shuttered with employees laid off. Schools are closed, Tulane students are mostly gone, lots and lost of people are working from home. On the plus side, we're seeing lots of families walking and riding bikes in the evenings. As I'm writing this, I learned that Dr. Reynolds, a family friend, passed away yesterday afternoon. He was living at Lambeth House which is where the main cluster of COVID-19 deaths have been, although I don't know if they had yet gotten confirmation that is was indeed COVID-19. There's an article in nola.com about him. My sister has been a good friend of his daughter, Mary, since childhood.

Yesterday morning I contacted Stuart at USAC to see what they were thinking about possibly extending the event cancellation window. He told me confidentially that it was going to be pushed out to May 3, which was the date of our Time Trial and a week after our Westbank Speed Fest date. So I spent a fair amount of time yesterday morning dismantling those two events, cancelling the Westbank race entirely since that was the only date we could ever get the track, and officially postponing the Time Trial to a yet to be determined date. The Tour de La is still on the calendar for June, so I'm holding out some hope there. Yesterday evening USAC made the announcement. Of course there will be some event promoters who will be really pissed off about this action, and it will cost USAC a lot, but at the moment it seems the right thing to do. Had we run our two events I have no idea if they would have been well-attended by riders hungry for some competition, or sparsely attended for obvious reasons. There's really no way to tell where we will be a month from now.

This morning I'll pull together some lobbying expense numbers for Tulane's 1099 filing. Rather un-exciting stuff. Candy is again at her office where I can only hope she's limiting contact with other people and using lots of hand sanitizer.