had to happen sometime

All spring I waited. I readied myself for seemingly inevitable. I'd finish up my 12 hour day, let the dust settle and head back out (or more accurately "in") the next day for more of the same.

What I'm talking about here people is the entire month of May that was spent getting the Mighty Mobile van decked out in all of its radness readying it for "battle". The battle of mysterious creaking bikes, building wheels, countless brake bleeds, suspension rebuilds... the list goes on. In the beginning, the van was an empty "blank slate". A blank slate that needed a work bench, shelving, compressor lines routed, a wall of tools..... shit tons of work really. Obviously, with all that needed to happen inside the van, I spent quite a bit of time inside the van. I'm not quite sure of the exact interior height of a 2008 Chevy cargo van, but take it from a short guy... it's less than you need to stand up straight. I'd crawl around inside, carry stuff in, take stuff out, measure, make layout lines.... I'd do this for days on end looking like the Hunchback from Notre Dame . "Surely you stopped to stretch?" you must be asking yourself. Sure. Here and there. But probably not near enough. In the end, the van got done and I got to work in an attempt to pay for some of the many, many, many bills I'd accumulated throughout the project with my back hanging in there the entire time.

Summer came and went so fast it made my head spin. The van worked out well and streamlined the day to day operations here at Mighty Mobile. When you set up and tear down up to 5 times per day stuff's gotta work without a hitch... which it did.

FFWD to last week. I've been riding. Tons! Like almost everyday. Throughout all of Oct and the early part of Nov the phones at Mighty Mobile slowed to a snails pace freeing me up for some time in the woods riding every trail I could as the onset of winter rapidly approached. "Surely you stopped to stretch?" you're still asking yourself. Yea, here and there, but again... probably not enough. My ride of choice these days is a Santa Cruz Blur LT. Riding a bike with endless suspension travel and more gears than you'd possibly need has GOT to be easier on your body. Maybe you don't need to stretch as much riding such a plush rig??? Other than moving the one speed from one area of storage to another, I haven't touched that bike since returning home from a road trip in early Oct. Everything was just "hunkey dorey".....

..... until last Thursday. While moving some stuff around in the storage unit at Mighty Mobile World Headquarters it happened. BAM!! My back finally locked up. Pretty good too. Good enough to force my into an awkward frozen kneeling position. I literally couldn't move! Funny, I wasn't lifting anything heavier than probably 15lbs all day. When things "locked up" I was just reaching for something to my left side that was sitting on a shelf about knee high. Soooooo, I grabbed a pair of ski poles, hobbled into the house and crawled onto the couch where I'd spend the next 6 hours solid before going the bed. The next morning things weren't much different. I'd spend most of the day on the floor where the conditions were nice and flat. To be honest, my entire body was ready for some "down time" and it felt good to be getting some rest. By Sat, everything but the televisions ability to have worthwhile content was showing some signs of improvement so I started working on some range of motion exercises and moving around a bit. It's amazing how quickly things got better. By Sunday evening I felt like I was back to 80% recovered so Monday morning I went back into the storage unit to try and pick up where I'd left off on Thursday.

Life goes on. My back is better. The storage unit is good... or at least good enough. And, I'm back to riding every chance I get.

"Surely you're stretching?" Yea, here and there... but probably not near enough.