Well Overdue

This has been an embarrassingly long time between posts, especially with the whole brain surgery thing constantly looming. Well, to get to the lowest point on this story time totem pole, I'm still here and still have a functioning brain. Actually- I told a joke that I thought was on point and no one laughed.... so let's blame my surgeon on that one.

I really don't need to go too deeply into brain related topics other than that my surgeon said "let's go ahead and consider you done with brain stuff" which is a statement I can get behind pretty strongly. Let's just avoid more brain things. The surgery recovery was an odd combination of way better and way worse than I expected all with a crunchy topping of tylenol and increasing-duration walks. I'm now something like 7 weeks post-op and I feel like I've recovered well.

And a reason to why a lot of you read, I am back on the bike! So that's great! I'd be lying if I said it were without hitches, but I'm doing what I can to pedal circles because that's an awfully fun thing to go out and do. Since pictures always are more effective than words, this is the major change that I've recently done to my bike to help that darn neck work a bit better:

Me all race-ready and aero and stuff with a 130mm stem 

Just chillin' all comfortable with a 70mm stem

Make sense? Yeah, I thought so.

More changes! Have you heard of food sleeping bags? When you fill up a sleeping bag or large burlap sack with a combination of delicious flavors and textures, you then are able to consume many different things of delight at once.

That's right, world! I ate that son of a gun with my mouth and didn't even consider using a fork or a knife! After just a couuuuuuple more hours in the dentist's chair, they gave me those sweet, peaceful, serene, and gorgeous words: "k we're done go eat snacks, kewl". Wooooohoooo! If you've never eaten a burrito before, they taste good and are an eating-world experience. I've done my time practicing for this world in the past, so I had some rusty skills that needed sharpening. I've eaten ummmm several burritos in the past 10 days. Judgement free zone.

Speaking of teeth, I was pretty devastated to watch Ben Jacques-Maynes crash out of his final and record-setting Tour of California. The poor guy smashed his mouth and lost a couple teeth. In a...happy?... way, I was glad to be able to offer up some words of wisdom on delicious ways to enjoy soft or liquid foods. Secret: rice pudding is amazing and blended chicken noodle soup is not.

That photo leads in well to the next series of events, which I guess reading back over what I've written, is technically not "next" but more prior events- I've been writing in reverse chronological order. That means in Early May, plopped right in between brain surgery and dental adventures, I got the opportunity to travel to Sacramento to spend time with JJ Haedo, Carine from Jamis, Wendy from Sutter Home, and the chance to see my teammates before they kicked off the Tour of California.

It was a really unique experience for me to see what happens on the other side of fence at bike races. It was very special for me to be able to see my teammates and staff and support them how I could all while feeling the bike race vibe.

It's been a wild ride. It continues. Thanks for reading!

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