Steve Dold

Hi Joel, I'm sorry it took so long to respond. I didn't see this until now. Did you ever get a ride?

I had no idea there were so many of us. I'm 54.

If you only knew...I can't believe this thread is still going! It's nice to be back.

When it's not snowing, that's what I wear. I don't care about fashion. This was interesting: "...4 to 7 of every 1,000 visits resulting in some type of injury" This is a lot less than I thought it would have been. And I always assumed wrist injuries were mainly the result of forward falls, not backward ones. I would like to know what percentage of those suffering wrist injuries were wearing wristguards. The rider looks very familiar, anyone know who it is?

Hi Suzi, I'm not doing any flying right now due to an impossible work schedule. My wife is unhappy right now because she loves flying and I haven't taken her up in about 4 months. Let's talk about it in the spring if he's still interested, it should have eased up by then. I haven't even been snowboarding once yet this season, and there have been some great conditions :( I'm hoping to get up at the end of the month sometime. I hate this. So I can't report on the orthotics, although I did pick them up finally. They are padded plastic, maybe 1/2 inch thick at the thickest part.

I still can't believe it, but my insurance paid for my podiatrist to make custom orthotics for my AF-600s! He made molds of my feet and mailed them, along with my hardboots, to a company that makes the things. I never imagined my insurance would pay for these. I guess they figure it'll be cheaper than an operation. So I'll try these and the shots before looking at the operation.

Hey Jon, I have an appointment to see the doc in two weeks, but in the meantime I've been doing this and it seems to help a lot! Thanks for the idea.

A friend of mine in Davis has a house that has a huge steel tank of water that makes up one wall in the living room. It's about two feet thick, 15 feet high and maybe 20 feet wide. It is heated in the winter by sunlight coming through skylights, and in the summer the angle of the sun keeps direct sunlight from hitting it. So the thing heats the house (a little) in the winter and cools it (a little) in the summer. He swears it works, and I guess it does since the place doesn't ever seem too hot or cold except when it gets below 45-50 or above 100. It seems like a great idea, but I always wonder what will happen when it finally leaks (it's about 30 years old). It's covered in drywall and paint, so it would be a real hassle to get to it, and it would probably have to be welded, like a ship hull.

That's OK. Usually when that happens, we get a big drunken lecture typed at 2 am about how we are worthless keyboard-carvers or some such. Yours was a refreshing departure from that. Happy B-day!

I bought a 2007 Forester base model with Automatic brand new. At 6,000 miles the radiator lost all of its coolant and had to go into the shop. Diagnosis: bad cap. Then, at 30,000 miles, leaking head gasket(s). Machined and replaced under warranty. My friend with a 2003 has had a lot of leaking of coolant, they never seem to be able to fix it. It's an OK car, but I like my wife's Honda CRV a lot better. Oh, throttle response (it's an auto) is weird, you stomp on it, it takes about a second to respond. Power is pretty bad at altitude, I was driving up a really steep dirt road at 11,000 feet once and it barely made it, full-throttle in low gear at about 5 mph. It's not a great off-road car, no low gearing, low ground clearance. Good snow handling on the flats, though, as long as it's not too deep.

Would it depend on a ground transmitter nearby?

I have a couple of GPS receivers and they aren't accurate enough to track our turns, they would calculate the average speed down the mountain, which is pretty slow for a typical carver. Unless you were making pretty wide turns, then I think they would work. But they still need a signal. You could probably wrap foil around it to keep it from receiving the satellites...heh

Hey, I can do that. Call me Rerun.This should be helpful. I'll work on this as soon as I get back to work on monday: http://www.wikihow.com/Moonwalk

We've been trying to do this in the office all day. You have to slide the flat foot backward while pushing yourself back with your other toe. It's just the opposite of what seems natural and is really hard to do, it's hard to fight the instinct to stand on the flat foot and slide the toe. You also need stiff soles. We should try to learn it for the SES.

Wow, Bryan. That's a lot of injuries! Are you doing OK now and will you be riding this next season? I was hoping to get up there for next year's OES and see Doug and Carol again and meet some of you guys. Thanks for the replies, guys. Maybe I don't have to live with this after all, that would sure be a good deal. I think I'll go talk to the doc about it. Meanwhile I'll try the golf ball thing. I get the pain while cycling too so I might see some results doing that.

Have any of you had problems with Morton's Neuroma? I just found out that it's what's been causing me some pretty impressive right (rear) foot pain for several years now (I put a lot of weight on my rear foot when I ride). It's great to finally know what the problem is, but now I have three choices: Do nothing, Cortisone shots, or surgery. Have any of you had the surgery? I'm wondering what to expect as far as riding in hardboots afterwards, if the surgery caused other problems, length of time before being able to ride, etc. Steve

If it's a man-made problem, we need to solve it. Let's all drive to the Black Rock playa in our CO2-belching art cars and burn down a big pile of wood and talk about a solution :lol:

The difference is that miners don't work mines because of the thrill of cheating death.

Thanks carverchick. I think I can speak for the rest of us here when I say we are now more motivated!

Stephane, I suggest buying a bike from an actual bike shop that has a reputation for putting people on bikes that fit them. You'll be a lot happier :) After a few miles, fit problems magnify themselves, like walking a long ways in shoes that seemed only slightly uncomfortable. Also I don't know how tall you are, there are a lot of women on bikes that are too long for them. 700C wheels make it hard to fit smaller women, and they end up stretched out or compensating with stems that are too short or weird seat positions. Also to me, quality of parts is more important than the name on the frame. If it doesn't shift well, brake well, stay in-adjustment, etc. it won't be fun to ride and will end up just sitting in the garage.

"This thread is worthless without pictures", it means that we would like you to please post a picture so we can see what a great job you've done in your weight loss effort. Your success will help the rest of us get motivated.

I was thinking the same thing. I'm pretty lazy, so for me to exercise, it has to be fun and easy. That sounds pretty lame, but I know I'm not alone. For example: Bicycle commuting sounds pretty fun, right? Well, it does to me too, except at 6:00 A.M. when I'm thinking about getting out of bed early to brave the cold, ride 28 miles and then deal with showering at work and not having my car all day. But what I finally realized is that even though I dread getting up and riding to work, all day long I'm looking forward to the ride home. So what I've been doing lately is bringing my bike to work in the car or having my wife take me to work and drop me off with the bike. It's so damn easy, I'm fired up about the ride all day, and when 5 pm comes I change into my bike stuff, no shower needed, and I have a great ride home. The difference is huge and it changes bike commuting from a big pain in the ass to a lot of fun. I don't save mileage on the car, but I don't care, it's more important that I ride. Anyway for me it made a big difference, because my problem is getting motivated. When I'm at work in my cube, and that bike is sitting out in the cage ready to go, I can't wait to get on it and ride. At 6 AM I don't even want to look at a bike.

" He is survived by his wife Sherry and daughter Ayla." It's very hard for me to keep my mouth shut right now.

That's like saying that seatbelts give a driver a false sense of security. I feel more "secure" when I wear the helmet but that doesn't cause me to take more chances any more than seatbelts do. I don't even think about the helmet when I ride. But I was sure glad it was there when I bashed my head on the ice at Slide Mt a few years ago.Bad fitting helmets on kids? The answer is education. Same problem exists with seatbelts and airbags and the work-arounds are now common knowledge and practiced. I don't think a helmet law is needed.

I hate to be a "me too" but these videos are great. I'd like to get one of these cameras and post some vids here and have people tell me what I'm doing right and wrong. Thanks for posting these! We've sure come a long way since 2000 or so when all we had here were a few still images and text articles.