Today I discovered that an ill-fitting mesh seat can cause almost saddle-esque amounts of damage to completely different parts of your body. I've got swelling on exactly one of my vertebrae, bruised shoulder blades and precision bashing to the inside of my elbows.
★☆☆☆☆ Would not recommend.
Wot teh blazes have u been riding, Kim? And, er, why?
Teh baraktacycle (minus the electrickery and plus some rock-hard Kojaks), on the basis that I might as well have a go at the whole multitrack
[1] thing for
the partially-arsed 2020 BHPC racing season, before unleashing the upgraded Baron in order to resume my usual failing-to-keep-up-with-John-Lucian service in 2021.
I couldn't apply sufficient ham-fisted monkeyforce to the tensioning thinger to prevent the mesh bottoming out against the strap in the middle of my back, knobbling the bony bit for the duration of Sunday's racing
[2]. 30 minutes of alternately shuffling up and overextending my left ankle and shuffling down and b0rking my knees into yesterday's 2-hour race, I was debating pulling over and stealing some extra padding from the pedal car girls. Then it occurred to me that I could try loosening it, instead. This a) provided instant relief and b) meant I could keep going without c) mugging any tweenagers but d) shifted the pressure to where my shoulder blades pushed against ...something hard.
The elbows were unfortunate, and could probably be rectified by a minor forward tweaking of the handlebars. I had no idea it was going on. Also, my medial nerves objected to the afore-mentioned rock-hard Kojaks, and it took a couple of hours for the sensation to return in my fingers. I think I need to take a leaf out of one of the handcyclists' book, and spend more time riding one-handed
[3].
Insult was added to injury last night when barakta, having inspected my back to assess this damage, decided to give me a friendly jab in the quads
[4]. Like I hadn't just been slogging my guts out on a mildy inappropriate recumbent to come 24th in the wacky races. Bah!
[1] On the dubious logic that I might Protect the NHS! by riding something I'd have to try a bit harder to fall off, and protect the untested timing software by not being in the fast race with Andrew.
[2] Where I was somewhat preoccupied by the gears being generally annoying, vis rattling noises, occasional slippage and too wide ratios.
[3]
[4] Read: Dead leg.