Bobby Sweeting

I transferred over to cycling at the age of 16 after succumbing to Osgood Schlotters disease as a high school runner.  While my knee problems were unltimately what cut my running career short, there was another issue that I was dealing with long before that.  Towards the beginning of my sophomore year I began to get hip pain every time I raced or ran hard, usually on the left side.  This pain usually turned into muscle fatigue and spasms, effecting my hip flexors and side and causing me to lean my entire upper body to the left.  Needless to say I couldn’t run like this and it looked weird as hell.  I dealt with it for 6 months or so before the onset of Osgood Schlotters (caused by strained ligaments brought on by a large growth spurt) forced me to stop running.  My hip problem was never diagnosed and was eventually forgotten about.

Fast forward 1 year to a local group ride.  I was a cat 3 at the time and hadn’t encountered any setbacks like I had in running, which was refreshing to say the least.  A local racer was riding behind me in the pace line and noticed that something seemed strange with how I was sitting on the bike.  At first it seemed as though my bibs were simply twisted around my waste, but I was later told that I was sitting extremely far off of the right side of the saddle.  I was comfortable the way I was and didn’t think much of it, but a few weeks later I noticed it getting worse and worse.  Before long I would find that on hard efforts my left knee would become increasingly “wobbly” and sometimes so uncontrollable that it would smack the top tube.

For the last 5 years I have experimented with various amounts of shimming, gotten countless bike fits, and seen all types of doctors.  The consensus among most doctors (osteopaths, chiropractors, etc) was that it was functional and due to hip/muscle tightness.  Each doctor claimed to have the magic touch and after each visit I was told that I was in perfect alignment and to remove all shims.  Unfortunately for me I couldn’t ride like this.  My left leg felt like it would bottom out while I could barely reach the pedal with my right.  According to the experts I would get used to it after time, but more time made it worse.  As I cheated towards the right side of the saddle I developed back and hip pain, and even slight scoliosis in my lower spine.  I finally resorted to doing what felt right and put the shims back in.

As my problems persisted I became more and more interested in bike fitting so that I could asess things myself.  I found a lot of success using 2D dynamic bike fitting, which I liked much more than the 3D systems.  I was able to video boths sides of my body independently and compare different angles.  I shimmed my right leg until everything was symmetric (without the shims my left knee angle was 34 degrees and my right was 28) and left it at that.  The comments of all the doctors and bike fitters that I had seen still stayed in the back of my head though, and I couldn’t help but think that I might be doing permanent damage to my hips and spine with all of these shims.

Finally, after 5 years, I had had enough.  I went to the best sports orthopedic I could find and told him the whole story.  He measured each leg manually and found no differences.  Then he took some x rays, but it still wasn’t very accurate.  He told me that since I hadn’t been in a serious accident or broken a leg that the difference wouldn’t be significant.  Regardless, I took him up on the offer to head to the hospital and get a CT scan of my legs.  They can use the CT scan to measure bone length to within 1 mm accuracy, and I needed that peace of mind.

I went back in the next day and the results showed a 9 mm difference, 5 mm in my femur and 4 mm in my tibia.  The doctor shrugged it off, saying that he knew it wouldn’t be significant.   What!?  Apparenty the medical definition of a “significant” leg length discrepancy is over 4 cm, where you would have problems walking without custom orthodics.  Well, 9 mm was definitely significant for me and I went straight home to check the amount of shims that was currently in my shoe.

Throughout the last 5 years I’ve gone from no shims to well over 9 mm and back multiple times without ever knowing what felt right.  I’ve landed on right about 7 mm, which gives me a good symmetric feeling and equivalent knee/ankling angles (the video never lies).  I tried going up to 9 mm but it just seems like too much right now.  I figure that bone length probably isn’t the only factor in determining functional leg length in cycling.  I’m assuming that the gaps between joints, the size of foot bones, and even the thickness of the pads of your feet could all account for a few mm differences here and there.  The important thing for me is that I now KNOW that it is skeletal, that it can’t be fixed simply by stretching more, and that I’m not screwing up my spine every time I ride.  That peace of mind has been amazing and training has been that much better.

My dog’s name turned out to fit her more than I could have imagined.  I would bet decent money that she is the best dog in the world at destroying expensive toys.  We started with normal stuffed toys, tennis balls, and ropes.  The stuffing was taken out and eaten within an hour, squeakers were popped, tennis balls were de-furred, and ropes were ripped to shreds.  Most dogs like to chew on toys, Allie prefers to pick at the most vulnerable spot until she can eat it.

So no more tennis balls in the house, as I’m sure the fuzz can’t be good for her.  Ropes and stuff toys were banned as well.  We were told by the pet store lady that the stitched up animals with no stuffing would be perfect.  Nothing for her to eat, right?  Unfortunately the duck, raccoon, and rooster lost all of their fir, were ripped up, and eaten piece by piece.

My last trip to the toy store was to pick up anything labeled  “indestructible.”  Toys made of fire hose and high grade plastics seemed to be best.  They haven’t stood a chance, as Allie once again would rather pick at them than chew on them.  The plastic ball has a small hole to put treats into.  Guess where she attacked first?  The plastic stick has little nubs for grip, which are slowly being removed and eaten.

I am open to suggestions if anyone knows of a toy that will last more than a day!

Some toys came stuffing free. That didn't matter too much for this, duck?

I’ve gotten a lot of requests to begin a “coaching tips” section on my blog and I love the idea.  It will be a weekly post from now on, but my question to you is whether it should be on the main blog page or a separate “coaching tips” tab.  Please let me know your opinion so that I can make it as user friendly as possible!  Thanks!

At this point most of you probably know that I’m recovering from a bad crash on Saturday.  It was bad enough to hit the pavement for the first time this season, but doing it on a training ride made it that much worse.  I don’t think I’ve crashed on a training ride since my Dad chopped my front wheel on a group ride after only 5 months of riding.  I can’t help but blame you for that one Dad, since after 5 months I obviously already knew everything there was to know about riding.

So for anyone who hasn’t heard about my most recent loss of skin, here you go:  I was on my tt bike, a little over an hour from home, do some tough threshold intervals.  Towards the end of a 20 minute effort I was buzzed by a car who obviously had somewhere to be.  Normally that wouldn’t be a problem, unless my obscene gestures happened to make the guy turn around.  In this case, however, I was pretty cross eyed from the effort and swerved into the grass without thinking too much about it.  This would also be easily corrected on any other day, but unfortunately on this day the grass was strewn with decorative boulders.  I hit the first rock before being able to get out of the aero bars, dislocating my left shoulder.  I rode over a couple more rocks before finally going over the handlebars and landing on a driveway.

I’ll spare you the details, but the way my shoulder looked made me think that my collarbone was broken for sure.  I was relieved when it popped back in after a minute or so, allowing me to continue analyzing the rest of my body.  A bruised knee, probably from hitting a rock, and a stabbing pain in my ribs, from who knows what, was the extent of it.

The most amazing thing happened just moments after I landed.  As I sat there bleeding, with my shoulder slid over in front of my pec, two cyclists rode by in the opposite direction.  They glanced at me, then at my bike (which was upside down in the ditch), and continued on their way without saying ANYthing.  Wow.  I knew that I had a cell phone and probably wouldn’t need their help, but still, wtf.  I wished that I could jump back on my bike, chase them down, and crash them into a tree.

An elderly couple ended up finding me, probably because it was their driveway that I was bleeding all over.  They were great, and let me sit on their stoop while waiting for Lindsay to pick me up.  I love meeting good people like that, and they had plenty of great stories to keep me entertained.

Now, 3 days later, I’m really glad that it wasn’t much, much worse.  I have a cracked rib and bruised knee, but nothing that kept me off the bike for more than a day.  I’m just hoping that my rib heals sooner rather than later, because breathing is not so fun right now.  Keep the rubber side down guys, and I’ll try to do the same.

Not too much to report in this post, just a couple of interesting mailboxes that I found on today’s ride.  The pictures are a little fuzzy, apparently I need to clean the lens on my phone’s camera.

First, a super old school Cannondale with mailboxes mounted to the handlebars.

Then, a seemingly handmade mailbox that is an exact replica of the actual house.  A little strange…