Pit Crew Rehab Tour Extended

The last update on the #33 pit crew (Cheryl) had her hobbling along on crutches for an estimated 4 weeks as recommended by the doctor.

4 weeks came and went so it was time for another trip to an Urgent care in Montana for another x-ray to find out how the foot was progressing. Well the news was not as good as we had hoped. The fractured bone was healing but not at the rate we had expected. So the physician sentenced her to another 2 to 4 weeks of crutch time. The idea is that there be no weight bearing on that foot until the fracture was deemed healed enough. So that means 2 to 4 more weeks of carting around a huge wrapped foot or wear the oversized splint/boot they apparently repossessed from some basketball player with a size 16 shoe.

Fortunately we have a buddy, aka Montana John, who spent a great many years working in the prosthetic profession making and fitting people with prosthetic devices so that they may live a more normal life.  Montana John or M.J.  offered to make an insert that would do the same thing as the monster boot and could actually be worn in a tennis shoe. It would offer the needed support without the exaggerated size and bulkiness of the boot.

M.J. takes me and the shoe down to his shop and proceeds to bust out a custom insert support. He does it by shaping leather, hard special purpose made plastic and some glue along with a short stint on a machine that he uses to grind and shape the pieces until he is holding a finished product. It doesn’t take him long either, I would guess he had it together in less than an hour. I think he has done this before!

So for the next few weeks #33’s pit crew can hobble around  with a more normal looking shoe, but the crutches are still a dead giveaway that living in the mobile ghetto can be dangerous!

I wonder if I should get her a helmet while she is on crutches………………just sayin’

#33

“Aspire to Inspire before you Expire”

Group Hug!

Group Ride/Hug!

The past week or so has seen a variety of riders show up for a ride with #33. They all brought their own personalities, much to my benefit.

It was a fun filled and entertaining week for me with such a wide variation of riders. Guys ranging from 40 yrs to 72 yrs of age.

The young group (the 40 and 50ish riders) rode at a much quicker pace than you would expect from a bunch of aspiring Geezers.  Rod, Mark and Kevin made up the group and rode their normal trails at what was probably their normal pace which makes a card carrying Geezer like me have to huff and puff to chase them around the trails all day. But they did take me on some of the coolest single track trails this side of Idaho. It was my good fortune to be allowed into their local playground and be shown the way around because I could have ridden the same area for a month or more and maybe not stumbled onto some of their best stuff. It is not exactly marked or on the map. Kind of gives you an idea of how much fun it was doesn’t it? Thanks guys!

The next group had a couple of qualifying Geezers at 65 and 72 years old. Doug (aka Senor Kirby) and Kerry (aka El Guapo) both of Baja fame. Since they were visiting and riding somewhere they had never seen before with me now becoming the guide, the pace took on a more ooh and aah pace to be able to take it all in. Of course there was the occasional pick up the bike after a tip over break built in. One time the bike did go down an embankment and had to be hauled back up onto the trail and since I was leading the ride and out in front I didn’t see the carnage. When they failed to show up a little ways down the trail I went back to see what was holding them up. I obviously had waited just long enough before I went to check on them because they had JUST gotten the bike back up on the trail and were exhausted. So they sat down on the side of the trail in the shade to catch their breath and have a drink. I wasn’t really tired but I sat down anyway. Hee Hee.

When we continued on we had a great time and took in some awesome views from a couple of fire lookouts. The photos just don’t do it justice. By the end of the day we had covered 82 miles with single track, fire roads that the boys just loved sliding the corners and views that allowed us to see all the way to Mt. Lassen from Red Rock Look Out. As Senor Kirby and El Guapo rolled up to the truck and put their bikes on the side stands I was to witness one final act of bike handling. Or mishandling, if you prefer. I watched as Senor Kirby attempted to dismount his KTM 500 exc. He apparently forgets on occasion about the fender pack on the rear of the bike. As his leg snags on the pack the bike tips and down he goes in a heap! I am cracking up because he still had all his protective gear on and is completely dressed for the occasion. I ask him if he is alright and he mutters something I can’t quite make out, so he may have been cussing me out. That is when I burst out laughing and bust out the camera at the same time!  After I snapped a couple of pictures I did pick his bike up for him. I am not a completely heartless guy! El Guapo just stood there and chuckled.

The other group ride was just me and my buddy Ed. Now Ed does things a little different, he likes to be prepared. FOR ANYTHING. So that means Ed carries as much crap on his body and bike as I do. I do it because I am often out for several hours and sometimes 30 to 50 miles from any kind of help. To give you an idea of his preparedness, everything is wrapped up and stored in a separate container with labels as to what is inside. It takes about 5 minutes to go through and read all the labels to find what you actually need when we do have an issue on the trail. If he ever breaks those reading glasses he uses to find the tools and parts needed he is in deep trouble unless he has a spare pair of those too. I wouldn’t put it past him. His wife calls him O.K.  Sterken (his last name) if that is any indication. The OK stands for Over Kill. Ha! She cracked me up.

I think I will start calling him ‘Puncture’ since our last few rides have resulted in him getting a flat front tire. Of course this one was caused by the tire iron we found inside the tire after breaking it down. Maybe he should have had a label on the tire irons. Just an idea. I watched as he fixed his flat but was secretly putting the clock on him. It took a bit over and hour for the repair. After all he had to break out the reading glasses to be able to read all the labels so he could find the correct equipment container to fix the flat. Luckily he was able to patch it because when I asked him if he had a spare tube to change it out he got real quiet just before he used a cuss word directed at me.

Hey, OK/Puncture you may want to throw a spare tube in if you think you could find a container for it, oh and maybe another container to account for the tire irons used………….I’m just sayin’.

#33

“We don’t stop riding because we grow old, we grow old because we stop riding”

Rehab Tour Extended!

Just about the time I think I am making a little bit of progress on the rehab tour Murphy raises his ugly head!  Only this time it is not me, finally, Thank Goodness. It seems like the past year all I have been doing is trying to recover from some sort of riding related injury.

Well now I have help.  It seems Cheryl wants to make sure I don’t go through all this fun of rehabbing alone. Sometimes she is so thoughtful! She was walking along minding her own business………well actually she was disembarking from the mobile ghetto (Weekend Warrior) when she slipped and twisted her ankle. I am still waiting for the breathalyzer results before I pass judgment. I am also wondering who will get me my beverages now?

So a trip to the local E.R. was in order and the X-ray revealed a fractured bone in the foot. Since no cast is used on this type of injury, it is considered a ‘no weight bearing’ injury. What that means is that for the next 4 weeks she can’t put any weight on it until it begins to heal or it would require surgery and pins to keep it in place.

Now this is truly ‘The Rehab Tour’ with two gimps in the same trailer parked under a tree while the truck is in the shop for repairs!  I can’t wait to see what is going to happen next!  Oh well, it just rained so I am going riding and my therapy is still in progress.

#33

‘Happiness is not an absence of problems; but the ability to deal with them’

A Beary Good Ride!

The Rehab Tour Rolls Along!

The rehab tour has been interesting so far.  I have been on some awesome rides with some interesting people. Howard (The Mayor), Barry (the Janitor), Darren (Doo Rag) and Rodney (Bonk) Johnson. On some excellent rides like The Big Dipper, The Butt Rock trail, and Doo Rags favorite, The Helmet Rock trail that caused him to say, ‘I’m not riding my bike up that!’ when we came to a cobby granite outcropping of rocks.

But the most interesting thing so far was the dual sport on the KLR 650 with Cheryl. It started out as an excellent sightseeing tour to a place we were told about called the ‘High Lakes’.  A really cool ride with incredible vistas and remote roads that allowed us to ride for hours and never see anyone.  Right up to the moment a HUGE cinnamon colored Bear blasted out of the bushes about 50 feet in front of us. We were stopped at the time wondering how much further we should go because we were kinda lost and weren’t sure how much worse the road/trail in front of us was going to deteriorate. So far it had gotten very rough and rocky, especially considering we were on the KLR 650.

As we sat in a trough worn into the road in-between bushes lining both sides, the bike was running when the bear charges out of the bushes directly in front of us and thankfully turned and ran the opposite direction. As I sat there frozen, not believing what I was seeing, I realized if he had turned toward us there was nowhere to go and not enough room to turn around in that corridor of bushes with two of us on the bike. I would have had no choice but to pop a wheelie and dump Cheryl off the back as bait until I could get my .45 Officers model out of my pocket!

Thankfully I never had to and we just waited until he was well out of sight and continued on down the road. We stopped a few hundred yards down the road to take a photo and Cheryl was reluctant to stay around too long. She asked me if I thought he was gone and I said, ‘Sure, he was more scared of us than we were of him. He is probably still running’. I kept one eye on the surrounding area and the bike running while she took the picture!

We found our way out of there and made it back to civilization just in time to have an early dinner and head back to the mobile ghetto (our Weekend Warrior).

I can’t wait for our next outing, maybe we will see a mountain lion. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

#33

“An attitude is contagious, is yours worth catching?”

The Grand Geezer Award!!!!

The Trophy no one wants to win.

(The Fish)

Now that I have been absent from the OTMX race series with a long term injury it seems everyone has done their very best to avoid THE FISH!

A bit of background for those of you that may not know or maybe recipients that had just tried to forget. The Fish Trophy (aka The Grand Geezer Award) goes to the OTMX rider that makes the biggest bonehead move at the International OTMX races. It was started around 2004 when the realization occurred that there were a lot of gaffs going on at the International Oldtimer races all around the western part of the United States.  Crashes are off the table, no one wants any of us to crash and possibly get injured, there is nothing funny there.  But the list of things that have been done to qualify and cause a rider to earn The Fish are, missing the start of your moto, taking off on the wrong gate with another class, pulling off on the White flag lap, running out of gas during your race, pulling off and trying to sneak back to the pits before the end of your moto because you forgot to gas up, crashing in the pits on your way to the gate, showing up to the race on the wrong weekend and any other bonehead move that anyone catches you doing.

So if someone slips up and another rider sees it you can be up for the Grand Geezer Award at the end of the weekend or even the next race if no one tops your boneheadedness! I can hear the wheels turning as you read this, “but what if two or more riders pull a bonehead move on the same weekend?”  Alas, it has already been done, so we created ‘The Fish Council’ and will convene when necessary to take a vote and award The Fish.

On occasion the not so proud owner of The Fish must carry the burden for several races until another rider does something and gets caught. To bring you up to speed on the current whereabouts of The Fish, Mark Kaestner had owned it for a few months because he is Mr. Social and was so busy visiting he forgot to top off his bike with gas.  From there it went to Doug McCaleb, aka Senor Kirby, for showing up to the gate just about the time his race was completing their first lap!  Now Senor Kirby is all smiles, as you can see by the photos, because he just awarded it to Mike Harper (of Halls Furniture Store fame) because Mikey had total brain fade on the line at the Sierra Oldtimers race, which was being held at the Prairie City OHV park using much of the same track that was used for the outdoor National. The starter went down the line and told everyone that the moto was going to be split into two separate starts but somehow between being told and watching the 30 second board go up he forgot he was now on the 2^nd gate! Mikey got one heck of a start and battled in the front even leading for a couple of laps until he noticed he was racing with the wrong guys. Doh!

So Halls Furniture store in Citrus Heights, Calif. Is the current resting place for the Infamous Grand Geezer Award. It rounds out the display very nicely with the mounted deer head, the motorcycle awards/trophies and the marathon running plaques Mikey has hanging on the wall showing many of his accomplishments. Drop by anytime and check it out, I am sure he would love to show it to you. But don’t let him talk you into taking it, you gotta earn it!!!

#33

“Be humble, Or you’ll stumble”