The Mystery of the Wobbly Wheel is Solved

Swift is still in the shop. That's no big deal: the Allez will provide. However, we learned that the source of the rear-wheel wobble that has plagued Swift for some time is, in fact, a bent axel. Parkside didn't have the right size in stock, so they've ordered one. They expect to have Swift back on the road this weekend, good as new. Maybe I'll even get to take him for a little spin...

I am suffering from one heck of a terrible longing to take the Allez out and put it through its paces. That's currently a no-go: a little easy riding on the flat should be okay, but there are no hills and no sprinting in my immediate future. Taking the race horse out for a walk is not the same thing as putting it through its paces :)

I'm trying to be patient and baby my leg — neither of which come naturally to me. I am also trying to break a lifelong habit of being stone-faced and stoic where pain is concerned. It's worth noting that I apparently can't fool PT guy, who has education, experience, and intuition on his side (I hope he finds my stubborn pride charming, rather than annoying). He catches the subtle nuances of movement and facial expression that give the lie to my, "Oh, I'm fine!" routine.

Which isn't to say that I'm not feeling great, relative to a week ago. My leg has progressed from enormous and purple-black to more-or-less normal sized (my ankle gets pretty puffy by the end of the day) and sort of orangy-with-darkish spots.

I have some pictures from a couple of days ago, though they're not very good; I'll try to remember to post them later on. I had a whole series, but lost most of them when my phone's battery died (apparently it no longer saves photos to the SIM card ._.). I may have remembered to send a few to my home email, though.

I'm really pretty surprised how quickly the leg is healing, all things considered. Perhaps I should take away from this experience a deeper understanding of the fact that, sometimes, rest really is the best thing for an injury.

Soon enough this should get back to being a bike blog, instead of a blog about my banged-up leg and how much I miss riding :) I'm also planning on replacing my current phone, since it's on its last legs anyway, with one that takes better pictures (it's a 2 megapixel camera — good enough for my purposes, and much better than my current one, which is sub-1mpxl). That will mean never having to carry a separate camera to document my rides. Woot!

Edit: Forgot to mention this. Every now and then, I run across a product that really deserves a plug. Since nobody knows who I am, all three of you can rest assured that I am not being paid to say this. PT Guy turned me on to an awesome and fairly inexpensive pain-relief gel called Biofreeze. You can find it here, at Amazon.com, in a six-pack for $48.61. If I ever get back to the gym, I think I'll bring them a box of the little sample-packs (can't say that move would be entirely selfless).