Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Straightening things out

My defective hip and dead leg finally convinced me to visit a chiropractor. I'm not quite sure what I think yet, although yesterday while casually big-ringing a 12% grade into a headwind, I looked down to see that I was spinning out 400+ watts without breaking a sweat.

Ok, maybe that's a mild exaggeration, but the leg did feel better yesterday.

I have determined that most people simply don't understand cyclists. While he was doing the x-rays, I asked three times if I should take my shoes off. He said no each time, then later told me that my x-rays showed a 2mm leg length discrepancy. Not a big deal he said.

First, I'm a guy that's been walking around for a year with a crooked pelvis, and for my whole life with a deformed vertebra in my lower back, and you're comfortable assuming my shoes are even? How hard is it to take shoes off? How do you know that I'm even standing straight?

Ok, whatever, it's just 2mm. It's a good thing cyclists never get into 'discussions' about the merits of 175mm versus 172.5mm crankarms. Or never spend 20 minutes trying to get the saddle height exactly right by adjusting it 1mm at a time.

We're not that anal.

I finally commented, somewhat casually, that when you pedal 90 times a minute for 5 hours at a time, small things can be fairly significant. I don't think he understood.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

When was the last time you actually put in 5 hours?

Walter Mitty said...

Last Saturday was over 5 hours all together. I think I managed 4.5 hours in March during Spring Break.