Loosing my religion...

I'm not exactly a religious guy. I always claim to be a bike riding Satanist whenever some relgious nutcase rings the doorbell to show me his watchtower or to make an appointment for the end of the world. That is of course only half the truth I'm not really a Satanist. I guess it must be quite a thrill though, to attend a black mass surrounded by all these fine naked women wearing animal masks, but I guess L would object, as would my mum.
This only leaves me with bike riding which is of course no real religion, after all there is no biking God is there? Let's get real; who would adopt a religion where your God is a cheating lying muppet with shaven legs, drugged up to his eyeballs?
Luckily there is the omnipresent holy trinity of Av, Mx, and the holy Odo. Undeniable facts and figures brought to us through the miracle of electronics and bicycle computers. This holy trinity makes biking a never ending competition with an unbeatable opponent; yourself. Always faster, better, further, no prize money at the finish, only heavy breathing and burning legs.
But I've been loosing it lately; I can no longer be bothered to speed through every traffic jam to get my average speed up, to bomb down the hill to beat my maximum speed and I don't need to ride that extra kilometer today, tomorrow is another day. Don't get me wrong, I luuuuuuurve ma bike and it is in my opinion the most optimal mean of transport in the city, but I don't want it to break my neck, biking is way too much fun for that.
I fooled Death once but He won't be fooled twice.

The boy(s) (is)(are) back in town...

It's good to ride again after more than a month being off the bike. The first days went a bit sketchy, but it seems like my legs still work as they used to, and my bike rides smoother than ever. My lbs did a nice upgrade on my machine; new gears and hydraulic disc brakes and they already paid of twice this morning. The legs might still work but I surely need to hone my traffic skills, 'cause riding the city is definitely no cruise down the beach.
The sun is shining, SUV's burn red lights, traffic is clogging up, horns are honking, I taste the pollution... It's good to be back.

Ride safe.

3...2...1...

I went for a medical checkup last week, to see how I'm recovering from my operation of last month, and it seems everything goes according to plan. The best news is that I got the all clear to start riding again. So once I get my bike back from the shop I can start to cycle into work again. Looking forward to that.

What does not kill you...

It's been a while without blogging but it's also been a long time without biking. I started to have stomach trouble around the same time as I picked up my bike to commute into work. Not a little bit of stomach pain but the serious **** that keeps your awake at night and feels like someone is pulling a roll of red hot barbed wire through your intestines. Needless to say that my consumption of painkillers reached an all time high, and my sleep levels reached an all time low. The local pharmacist was considering to give me the customer-of-the-week-award and L got so worried about me that she made me go to the doctor. The doctor did a couple of blood tests, made me go to the hospital to get an endoscopy but none of that really helped; they did not find out what was wrong with me, nor did the pain go away. I started to wonder whether it was stress or perhaps even bike related.
About one month ago everything climaxed; one morning I collapsed at work, colleagues found me under my desk curled up crying like a little baby of all the pain I was in. I got rushed to hospital (first time I caught a ride with an ambulance) where I was given these serious painkillers. But the pain would not drop, they put me under the scanner and all of a sudden everything got crystal clear; they pulled me from under the scanner and I went straight to the operating room. It turned out I was suffering from a intestinal torsion. An emergency operation was performed to pull everything out and put it all back in working order. After a week in hospital I was sent home for further recovery, and up to now I haven't ridden my bike.
But hey .... it only makes you stronger right? Right?