As usual I haven’t updated my blog in a terribly long time. It’s been a busy year so far. Between racing, work and random side work, I’ve been very busy. Unlike this time last year though, it’s a good kind of busy. Work hasn’t been interfering with my riding as much, and I’ve had a good start to my racing season. I upgraded to a Cat 4 this year and have already gotten 5 points towards a 3 upgrade. That’s a pretty big improvement on last year.

I’ve been doing a ton of poster/side work this year. The majority of the posters have been for the bike team’s fund raising events but I also had an opportunity to participate in the CREHAITIVE RE/VISION Poster show to benefit victims of the earthquake in Haiti. I’m also working on an identity package for my moms catering company and an iphone application for Fat Heads.

I realized that my site is linked on the Steeltown Anthem website and thought it would only be right to get some more current work posted for any stray surfers that happen to stumble my way.

I’ll be entering some work in the Steeltown Stock poster show that being hosted by Steeltown Anthem at C-SPACE COLLECTIVE. I haven’t decided what to put in the show yet, but I should have that figured out within a week. Stay tuned for more details!

Geoff Roast
My most recent poster was a great project. The wife of everyones favorite Fat Heads manager commissioned me to do the invitation for said managers surprise birthday party. She wanted to do a Roast style party and I thought it would be appropriately obnoxious to do a caricature of Geoff. Anyone who knows him knows that he is quite a character so I had a lot to work with.

Iron City Bikes
I also recently decided to finally help out Bob with the bike shops website. With the help of Jacob’s web hosting skills and a little bit of love from Wordpress we were able to get the site up and running in just a few days. There’s still a bit of work to be done with it but they are just happy to have an updated site to help drive business. Take a look here.

Iron City Bikes Racing
I’ve also been hard at work trying to finalize all of the sponsorship contracts and jersey order for the 2010 season. Our latest sponsor deal to be worked out is with Magic Hat Brewery. They’ve come on board as our main beer sponsor/provider. We’ll be getting beer from them throughout the year to use in our fundraising events to help generate revenue.

Snowed In Black and Gold Sprints
Speaking of the race team and fund raising, the team and I are hard at work organizing our first event of the season. We’re going to be throwing another roller racing party at Over The Bar in January. I’m working on finalizing the poster for the event that will be printed by Commonwealth Press next week. There will be more information on the team site soon.  Here’s a little sneak peak of the poster:

I have some other projects brewing in the new year and maybe I’ll try and post updates about them. Keep an eye out for the printing of the Snowed In posters in the next week or two.

Things started to unravel long before the sun decided to bring its winter slumber to a fiery ending. In January I was committed to a solid training schedule with hopes of dramatically improving my racing results by the end of the summer. Work promptly stepped in like a bitchy substitute teacher who decided to teach her own agenda instead of following the lesson plans in a desperate battle for control over the giddy, misbehaving masses. With a cup of poor planning, a tablespoon of misguided expectations, and a pinch of naivety, a project that was to be resolved in early May took a lengthy turn for the worst. This lead to weeks of long hours that helped to derail my training regimen until it was little more than a optimistic New Years resolution. I knew my racing ambitions were in serious jeopardy when I’d ridden less then 100 miles by the time the Mingo Creek race series (which I didn’t do) arrived. When the dust settled at work it was just about time for the weekly criterium series to start. I knew I’d have some work to do to get into race shape and the crits are the perfect tool to do just that. Of course, just when I started to feel like my riding was on a steady path to improving my body decided to get in a nasty fight with 18th Street leaving me with a broken knee cap and little hope of racing for the duration of the year.

For anyone who has been reading my blog over the last few months, this is obviously just a reiteration of the ranting that I had a chance to do in my down time waiting for the bone to heal. The difference now is that I am attempting to write from the murky puddle of reflection. I thought that spending the majority of the summer trapped not only from my primary form of transportation, entertainment, excitement, and exercise, but also from all of the warm weather activities that make summer worth enjoying would have left a reflecting pool the size of Lake Michigan. After all, it’s the camping trips, bike polo, bike races, alleycats, drinking by the river, or just hanging out at the pool with Sarah that draws me toward the few short months in the middle of the year; It’s most certainly not the swamp ass, mosquito bites, and inappropriately dressed overweight Pittsburghers.

To my surprise, it wasn’t the time that I spent working towards regaining my social mobility, but the few weeks of getting back to my normal routine that have shed a little light on my appreciation for the mundane things that bring me a bit of pleasure and the people that I am able to share those experiences with. I have a refreshed appreciation for the things that had become almost boring in my everyday life. I don’t mind taking the long way to work, climbing the two flights of stairs from the grill to the kitchen, or walking down to Fat Head’s for a beer. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that I’m some seeing the world from some newborn/seen-the-light eyeballs. But I have noticed a certain enjoyment for the simple things that I couldn’t do while I was broken. Maybe I’ve just realized that summer is almost over and I haven’t had a chance to do most of the usual summer-time things so I had better get working on planning and enjoying what’s left of the outdoor weather while it’s still around. Now, on to planning a September camping trip. Who’s in?

As soon as my Physical Therapist put me on a stationary bike I’ve been testing myself to see how much pedalling I could do without inflicting any additional damage. Starting with short 15-20 minute casual spinning sessions and gradually building up to full speed 30-40 minute rides on the rollers, I thought I should start to venture out and start to build back some of the strength that I’ve lost throughout the healing process. I quickly discovered that I have a long way to go before I return to my previous form. On Sunday I decided to venture out for a casual 5-mile ride on the paved trail down the hill from my house. I knew that getting down the hill would be the easiest part of the outing, but I wasn’t really sure how I would fare on the way back up. The weather was perfect and there was very little traffic on the way to the trail. I know it probably sounds cheesy, but the feeling of the wind on my face was something that I really missed. The ride went very well and I really didn’t experience any trouble or any flats.

After doing a circuit of the trails I stopped into Fat Heads to celebrate my triumphant return to the road with a few beers. I had recently finished my 10th round of their “Frequent Flyer Beer Tour” which, after drinking 75 different beers (not in one day), rewards you with a Fat Heads bobble head and your name on the famous “Wall of Foam”. Instead of my name, I came up with an appropriate ride-themed message to put on my plaque*. Following a few of my favorite beers, I figured I would make my way up the hill before my legs, or knee started to give me any trouble. Although I couldn’t get out of the saddle to climb, my road bike provided me with enough gear options to stay seated and pedal back up 18th Street with little discomfort.

With the success of my Sunday ride, the next step was to start riding to work. Public transit has been testing the limits of my sanity so I was anxious to start traveling on my own schedule as soon as possible. My doctor cautioned me against jumping in too quickly and suggested that I try to keep things in a semi-controlled environment. My normal route to work doesn’t quite fit that description but using Pittsburgh’s trail system let me avoid most of the treacherous portions of the commute. Things went well on Monday but due to a new exercise routine at therapy my muscles were a bit sore on Tuesday. After taking the day off, I’m back on the bike again today. I noticed that my average speed went up from ~14mph to ~16mph this morning so I suppose I’m making some progress.

Next steps: pedaling out of the saddle. I’m not going to rush that one, but that will be the next sign towards a full recovery. Depending on how riding goes over the next month, I might try to race cyclo-cross this fall. Having a goal to shoot for certainly can’t hurt.

*Next time you’re in Fat Heads, see if you can find my latest plaque!

Despite the change in forecast, a few rays of sunshine have recently poked through via the acquisition of a cane. I’m not really sure if I’m supposed to be walking without my crutches, but using the cane has been making it much easier to get around. It’s not causing me any pain so I guess that’s a good sign. I haven’t had a chance to consult with my physical therapist about my new walking stick because the holiday weekend derailed my therapy schedule. Since I wasn’t able to get an appointment over the weekend I’ve been doing my exercising at home. Most of the stretching, bending, and flexing in my routine are easily replicated using a yoga strap and a little ingenuity. Thanks to the exercise my quad has started to regain some of it’s ability to do some real flexing and my range-of-motion seems to be improving steadily. I’m still wearing my knee immobilizer when I’m not doing the therapy to prevent my newly found mobility from injuring me further. Although, when I’m sitting on the couch enjoying a beer I do let the knee get a little air.

Adding to my mobility anxiety, the first few stages of the Tour have been nothing short of amazing. Armstrong, Contador and the rest of the Astana team had an amazing team time trial this morning (er I guess this afternoon in France). They now have five guys in the top ten with Armstrong tied for time (with the exception of a few tenths) with the leader Fabian Cancellara. I’m still pushing for my goal of riding somewhere to watch the final stage of the Tour, but if the racing maintains this intensity it’s going to feel like an eternity before I’m back in the saddle. I think I’ll set up a bike on the rollers tonight and give it a light spin, per the doctors orders of course!

IN OTHER NEWS:
My youngest sister Kelsey passed her NCLEX last week making her an official RN! Congratulations Kelsey!

Easily the most annoying aspect of my limited mobility is not being able to ride my bike. For a cyclist, especially one living in Pittsburgh, this is probably the worst time of year to be off the bike. Not only has the weather been great for riding, but this Thursday brings the start of the Bicycle Film Fest to the City of Champions. The upcoming holiday weekend also brings a number of other cycling related events including another installment of Black and Gold Sprints at OTB and a Bike Polo Tournament.

This Saturday also marks the start of the 96th Tour De France with the prologue time trial in Monaco. While I have started physical therapy—and have already noticed steady improvement—I don’t think that I’ll be back in riding form before the end of the Tour. I make this connection because one of my favorite things to do during the Tour is to go on long training rides that end at a bar to enjoy the replay of the days stage. There’s something to be said for the feeling of riding vicariously through the efforts of the best riders in the world. There is always a certain fire in your legs when you get back on the bike after watching an epic stage play out on the roads of France. This almost always leads to impromptu sprints down Carson Street on the way home.

Hopefully I’ll be able to harness some of that fire to put towards my rehab efforts. As I said, I’ve started on my road to rehab at the UPMC Sports Medicine facility in the South Side. So far things have been going well. I’ve mainly been working on range-of-motion and strengthening exercises that I can do with minimal impact or pressure applied to my knee. I was very pleased yesterday when my therapist asked how I would feel about trying the stationary bike. I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to pedal (very slowly) with minimal discomfort. My knee felt a little tight, but not really painful. Lame though it may have been, those ten minutes on the bike were a big moral booster in terms of getting myself back to normal. If my knee continutes to cooperate maybe I’ll be able to ride to a bar stool to enjoy the Tour’s cruise into Paris.

I went to see a Sports Medicine Specialist, Dr. Vonda Wright,  at the UPMC sports-med facility yesterday. Dr. Wright is going to be getting me through the rehab process in the coming weeks. Looking at my x-rays she said that it doesn’t look too(oooo) bad since the fractured piece is not displaced. I may experience some creaky knee problems later in life but I’ll jump off that bridge when I get to it. She also sucked a TON of blood out of my knee joint that had collected there after the fracture. My sister who is a nurse said that it looked like 60ml. I was going to post this photo here, but I’ll spare the squeamish and just post it here. Apparently the quad isn’t as resilient of a muscle as one might expect. I have to go in for electro-therapy to stimulate the muscle to prevent it from shutting down before I start doing range of motion stuff.

In the meantime, I’ve been working from home and sitting on the couch a lot. I can’t wait till this heals. Being in the house (and not being able to ride) all day is driving me crazy. And it’s only been a week!

Well, I fractured my patella (knee cap) last night on the way home. Oddly enough I was going up the hill on the way to my house when this occured. It had just started to rain so the roads were a bit slick. Additionally, gravel likes to wash down 18th street and collect on the side of the road. This delightful cocktail of ingredients led to an over torqued hill climb that ended with me going over the bars and landing on my left knee and elbow. I have some bruising on my right ribs so I must have hit my bars on the way  down as well. Fortunately, Pittsburgh is a great place to live for sports related injuries. I know a few people that are well connected in the orthopedic community so I should be able to get an appointment with a great doctor for my follow up.

The doctor at the ER said that I’d be out of commission for about 4 weeks. This is probably going to drive me insane. But, I’m going to try and utilize the down time on some projects that have been on hold due to my schedule. So hopefully it won’t be a total loss. I’ll be using my twitter feed to keep folks updated, so if you’re interested follow me @justinflagg.

::UPDATE::
I have an appointment tomorrow with a Dr. Tarkin. Apparently he is the guy to talk to when it comes to ortho-trauma. He had a chance to look at my x-rays and said that it doesn’t look too bad. Might be as simple as 3 weeks in a brace followed by 3 weeks of therapy. Lets hope thats all it takes.

For the last few weeks I’ve been unbelievably busy. Not in the sense that I’ve had an impossibly packed daily schedule, but in the sense that I’ve had something scheduled to occupy my free time for what seems like forever. If you’re reading this you might be wondering what could possibly be keeping me so busy lately. The truth is that there isn’t a brief way to describe it because it’s been such a variety of things.

The last time I posted I mentioned that i was heading down to Maryland for my little sister’s graduation. This was to be the first time in six years that the entire family has been in one location for any extended period of time. And I mean everybody: my Mom, Dad, Step-Mom, Step-Dad, my Grandparents, my Uncle Greg, my Step-Brother and Sister (Greg and Jackie), my Sister Nicki, her boyfriend Stephan and my other Step-Sister Sarah. We all managed to cram into Kelsey’s apartment for post graduation partying and I’m happy to say that everyone had a pretty good time. Although I think the booze consumption helped to lubricate the atmosphere, it was nice that there weren’t any arguments or awkward moments. I have pictures from the festivities posted here.

Fortunately, Sarah and I were able to get all of her stuff moved into my apartment prior to the graduation party trip because the following weekend we headed down to Richmond for a triathalon. This was her second year participating in this particular tri and we had a similar busy routine to fit into the short weekend. In case you’re wondering, I didn’t participate in the tri due to my apprehension towards running and my lack of interest in swimming anywhere quickly. It was a fun weekend, but I was glad to get back to Pittsburgh. Between the two back-to-back weekend trips we had spent a ton of time in the car.

Also adding to the chaos lately is the Penguins run for the Stanley Cup. You really can’t live in Pittsburgh and not be engulfed by the excitement that leads up to the finals. And, since hockey is generally played every other day during the playoffs, you end up with 2-3 post-work obligations a week. We managed to beat Detroit last night to tie the series 3-3, but we head back to the D on Friday to try and win it all. Honestly, I don’t care what happens but it will be nice when it’s finally over so I can have a few hockey free evenings. 

Of course, amongst all of this stuff, I’ve also been trying to train and race my bike. I had started off the year on a pretty good training/workout regimen but due to work and generally shitty weather I wasn’t able to continue my routine throughout the spring. This set me back a little bit but I’m finally getting into the racing season and finding the time to dedicate to riding. While I haven’t been doing particularly well in any of the races I’ve entered, I am having fun racing and I’ve noticed some improvements in my ability. As the year goes on maybe I’ll see some better results.

Well, as I said, there really wasn’t a brief way to sum up all of the things that have been keeping me so busy. And I can assure you that I’ve left plenty of other things out of this list. But since my lunch break is running short I’ll wrap this one up. I’ll be trying to post some updates about some new poster work I’ve done as well as some photos of the ICB team racing in our new kits. LETS GO PENS!!!

I realized Saturday morning that I had a full days worth of stuff to do to get ready for the bike team fundraiser that evening. We held the final Black & Gold Sprints that evening at Over The Bar Cafe in the southside. As a part of our sponsorship deal with Urban Velo, the team helped to organize a three race series to raise money for various expenses. Honestly, it was a lot of work to set-up so it was nice to get the final event finished. We had a less than excellent turn out of 21 racers, but considering the rainy conditions of the evening, I wasn’t particularly surprised.

On Sunday I finished moving the rest of Sarah’s furniture out of her old apartment in Bloomfield. Mark and Gus voluteered to help me out and Mark had even gotten a giant truck from his work. Sarah and I had already taken everything that we could fit in her car to the new house, so all that was left was furniture. There were only about 10 pieces to move, so we finished in about an hour. Of course, we went to Fat Head’s afterward to have a few beers and watch the first game of the Red Wings/Black Hawks series. 

I have a few things to wrap up at work this week before I head down to Maryland for my sister’s college graduation. Sarah and I will be driving down to my mom’s house on Tuesday evening, then we’ll all drive down to Salisbury on Wednesday morning. We’re all heading to a wine festival on Saturday, then heading back on Sunday afternoon. This will be the first time that the ENTIRE family has been together in about 6 years, so I’m sure I’ll have some tales to tell on Monday! In the meantime, check out my new “Schwat I did in ‘08″ set on Flickr.