Motodisiac

This story was not written by me, the source is unknown. I just feel it’s important to spread it over the net as a tribute to a hero.

The Mont Blanc tunnel ( http://www.atmb.net/atmb_hp.php?lang=en ) runs for 7-1/4 miles under the highest mountains in Europe, passing under the Alps to connect France and Italy’s highway systems. Opened in 1965, it currently handles about 1.7 million vehicles a year, including cars, trucks, and motorcycles. On an average day it sees 4,778 vehicles, including 3131 cars & motorcycles, 1602 trucks and 44 buses. It’s the shortest route between northern and south-eastern Europe…

On March 24th, 1999, a truck loaded with butter and flour caught fire just past the half-way mark, about 3-3/4 miles into the tunnel (750 meters into the “Italian” section). The blaze reached 1830 degrees Fahrenheit and burned for over two days. Of the 50 people trapped in the tunnel when the blaze started, only 12 survived. All 12 of them were saved by an Italian motorcyclist…

This is the story of Pierlucio Tinazzi.

Pierlucio was a quiet, unassuming guy living a pretty boring life. Loved to garden & to ride. He didn’t have a large contingent of friends. After his mother had a stroke and couldn’t run her little restaurant where he had worked any more, he had scored a “security” job at the Italian facility for the Mont Blanc tunnel — basically riding back and forth through the tunnel on his motorcycle to keep traffic flowing, dispatching tow-trucks and providing motorist assistance as needed. For this remote area of northern Italy, this was a pretty good paying job, but Pierlucio had turned down a promotion to work the control booth at the main Italian office because he preferred to ride over sitting in the office…

Pierlucio may have been like someone you know. Just another guy living his life in relative obscurity, nothing special going on. His wife had just up and left him a few years earlier and he had been in the dumps for a couple years. When the husband of a co-worker at the Italian facility broke his leg motorcycling, he started giving the coworker rides to the hospital after work every day (she didn’t have a driver’s license), and the three of them became firm friends, with the husband and him riding together once the leg finished mending. That was pretty much his inner circle of friends. Kinda sad…

Wednesday, the 24th of March, 1999…
At 10:42 AM a Belgium truck (Volvo FH12 cab towing a refrigerated trailer) was passed through the French toll booth. Nothing special, carrying nine tons of margarine and twelve tons of flour. As the driver went into the tunnel, he made his way along. After a couple miles, he realized something was wrong as cars coming in the opposite direction kept flashing their headlights at him; a glance in his mirrors showed white smoke coming out from under his cab. Normally this was no big deal, as there had been 16 other truck fires in the tunnel over the last 35 years, always extinguished on the spot by the drivers. Today wasn’t going to be that day.

At 10:53 AM the truck driver pulled over around the mid-point and climbed down in a cloud of dense white smoke. As he reached under his seat for his fire extinguisher (there were also extinguishers on the walls of the tunnel every few hundred feet), flames erupted from under the truck and he jumped back empty-handed. At this point, the smoke turned black…

At 10:55 AM, the tunnel employees triggered the fire alarm and stopped any further traffic from entering. At this point the tunnel was populated by at least 10 cars/vans and 18 trucks that had entered from the French side. A few vehicles from the Italian side passed the volvo without stopping. Some of the cars from the French side managed to turn around in the narrow 2-lane tunnel, to retreat back to France, but negotiating the road in the dense smoke that had rapidly filled the tunnel made negotiating traffic pretty much impossible. The other trucks didn’t have the space to turn around, and reversing out wasn’t an option. Most people rolled up their windows and sat tight, expecting the problem to be resolved shortly… after all, nothing serious had ever happened here before.

Within minutes, two fire trucks from the French town of Chamonix responded. The fire melted the wiring and plunged the tunnel into darkness; in the smoke and with the abandoned, wrecked vehicles blocking their path, the large fire-trucks were unable to proceed. The fire crews instead abandoned their vehicles and took refuge in two of the emergency fire cubicles (fire-door sealed small rooms set into the walls every 500 meters or so). As they huddled behind the fire doors, they could hear the burning fuel roll down the road surface, causing tires to pop and gas tanks to explode. They were rescued five hours later by a third fire crew that responded and reached them via a ventilation duct; of the the 15 firefighters that had been trapped, 14 were in serious condition and one (their commanding officer) died in the hospital.

Pierlucio had cleared the tunnel to the French side about 10 minutes earlier, had been taking a break, and was getting ready to make a run back through when the fire alarms went off. He had a two-way comm system in his helmet that kept him in contact with the Italian tunnel office. As soon as the word came, he grabbed breathing equipment and drove his BMW K75 back into the tunnel. As he came across people trying to get out, he stopped and told them to drop to their knees, stick against the wall (where the fresh air ducts fed up) and keep moving, stopping only to breath at the ducts. He rode on into the hell that was the tunnel fire, through the smoke.
Most of the truckers close to the fire suffocated or were poisoned by the gases within minutes. Pierlucio peered among the dead and found the occasional surviver. He’d put them on the back of the bike and slalom back out the French side as fast as possible, bringing out victim after victim, then going back for the next one. On Pierlucio’s fifth trip into the tunnel, he came across Maurice Lebras, a French truck driver who was unconscious but still alive. Too big and unwieldy to get onto the back of the bike unconscious, Pierlucio refused to abandon him. Instead he wrestled Maurice into fire niche 20 and closed the door.

The original fire doors were rated to survive for two hours. Some had been upgraded in the 34 years since the tunnel was built to survive for four hours, but niche 20 wasn’t one of them. Not that it mattered, the fire would burn for over fifty hours and it would be over five days before the tunnel cooled sufficiently for anyone to go back in. Pierlucio’s BMW melted right into the pavement a few yards from niche 20.

This fire raged out of control for over two days. The fire was so hot that the rock that forms the interior of the mountain was permanently changed in chemical form. To say it was hellish would be a gross understatement.

27 people died in their vehicles. 10 died trying to escape on foot. Of the initial 50 people trapped by the fire, only 1 dozen survived. Every one of the dozen said exactly the same thing: “That guy on the motorcycle saved my life.”

It took two years to repair the damages fully and upgrade the tunnel’s facilities. It reopened to car traffic on the 9th of March, 2002. These days the tunnel employs a permanent staff of 65 firefighters (about 20 are on duty at any instant).

On the anniversary of Pierlucio Tinazzi’s incredible heroism and tragic death, all bikers around the world are asked to carry a flower in remembrance if they ride that day… To remember the bravest biker hero you probably have never heard of before.

There has been many articles discussing this growing problem - people on cell phones driving in their cages, not paying attention to their surroundings.

As a motorcyclist, now that I’m used to them, I think they are pretty easy to deal with. Sure, they still pose some danger. However if you spot them ahead of time it’s pretty easy to predict what is going to happen. Treat them like they do not see you, and you will be OK.

However I noticed that there is new trend emerging, and it’s far more dangerous and unpredictable than simple cell phone talkers. I’m referring to drivers texting and playing with their smartphones.

Cell phone talkers drive on autopilot and even if their mind is somewhere else, they are still looking at the road so the brain registers and recognizes most dangers, sending signals to limbs to drive accordingly. This gives us a chance of recognition. All new cell phones come with a hands free option so there is no excuse to not use it.

Texters are 180 degrees different. Their eyes are off the road, and their hands are not ever covering steering wheel. Their behavior is erratic, they absolutely do not pay attention to what is going on around them. They drift from lane to lane with abrupt steering corrections. I have had few close encounters with these folks and every time they were awaken by my Stebel blaring in their ear few inches away. And every time they act surprised.

With a lot of states on brink of bankruptcy the government is desperately trying to find new sources of revenue. Registration fees get jacked up, state employees get fired, schools do not get the funding they need and deserve, and parking ticket fees are getting ridiculous. And yet nobody bothers to enforce “no texting of talking” laws that most states already employ.

If cell phone talking behind the steering wheel could be equaled to driving slightly drunk, then texting is like driving hammered and drugged, and it should be treated accordingly. Start giving out steep tickets to violators, and our roads will get a lot safer for motorcyclists and the rest of the drivers. How about $300 for first offence, $800 for second and license suspension +$1000 for third? With 90% of people guilty at the moment, I can imagine state cash bank will flourish. I would support this 100%. What do you guys think?
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A little update on my experiment. I have been riding R1200GS for two weeks. At first, I didn’t like it much. It felt really awkward. Then I started to get used to it. A couple of observations:

GS feels very long. Kinda like you are riding on top of a dolphin.

GS rocks on the freeway. I can cruise comfortable at 80mph all day long.

GS rocks for the passenger. Because it’s longer and the top case is
further away from the passenger, the pillion is able to lean back more and relax. Not to mention less wind from taller screen.

GS has very good ergonomics. Riding position is not as aggressive as on Multi, and you are comfortable at all times.

GS brakes give you a lot of confidence. So does the suspension, even though you have no idea what it’s doing, the bike is rock stable in turns.

GS is a lot stiffer than you may expect. You can feel every bump you are going over.

GS transmission is absolute garbage. I can bet they are still using design URAL allegedly stole from them seventy years ago. Clunky, long throws of the shifter, missed gears, false neutral, the whole package. Reminded me Russian cars of 70’s. You absolutely cannot shift fast, you have to baby the shifter and go ssssloow. I cannot believe something like this can exist in 21st Century.

After two weeks the bike actually grew on me and I discovered completely different aspect of motorcycling. Not riding for feeling of connecting with the road and the machine, but riding for seeing things, feeling the wind and getting somewhere without stress. My friend summed it up perfectly: “R1200GS is the Harley of Adventure bikes”

I got back onto my Multistrada with contradicting feelings growing in my head. Do I really like the GS or I just got used to it? Could I live with it on daily basis? And then I hit the starter button on the Multi.

Oh my God. I have been riding motorcycles for 10 years, and I have never experienced anything like this. I was grinning and laughing like a mad man for 40 minutes of my commute home. Multistrada is the best damn bike I ever had. I feels like it’s 3x more powerful, 3x lighter and 10x more flickable than GS. It has the character of lean welterweight kick boxer. This is what motorcycling is all about. Fun.

Summary MS VS GS

Components:

Engine - Multi
Suspension - Multi
Brakes - GS (if Multi had ABS option things would be different)
Ease of service - GS
Crash damage - GS

Riding:

Fun - Multi
Commuting - Multi
Freeway - GS
Off - Road - draw (depends on balls of operator)
Canyons - Multi
Track - Multi

Overall, R1200GS is not a bad bike, it just takes certain type of person to ride it. That guy either doesn’t care about emotions while on the bike, or hasn’t tried other bikes. Poor victim or marketing.

As for me, I will be sticking with Multi for now. I’m still alive and kicking.

Even though I’m in love with my Multi and it almost completely satisfies my needs, I have an itch to get new bike. I have been looking into R1200GS for quite a while and always wondered what makes this bike so popular.

So I had to have one to see what it’s like. Test rides proved useless because it takes a while to understand a bike. For example, my Multi grew on me in about 2 weeks, it wasn’t love at first sight.

How can one get to ride GS on daily basis without taking the plunge on the purchase? That is right, trade with your buddy who wants to convert you to big BMW. And so I did I will probably ride GS for at least a week, this should give me plenty of time to understand the nature of it.

Based on my short experience with the bike (2 commutes so far) my impressions are far from positive. However I would like to reserve my judgement till I get more miles under my belt. I will keep you posted.

Unbelievably, it has been almost two years since I quit my job to pursue my dream. It was arguably the worst time to start new business from scratch, but here I am, still around and kicking. Of course there are some things that I wish were different, but overall I’m very happy with where I’m at.

Every reputable company is on Facebook these days. I also signed up a couple a weeks ago, and I find it pretty addicting. No, I do not play Mafia Wars or grow my own garden there. I just enjoy sharing my quick thoughts with the world. Check it out for yourself and become a fan here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Marina-Del-Rey/Beach-Moto/111105122265174

I’m trying to promote this new dream product for any motorcyclist - TYREGUARDIAN Puncture Protection system. If course to sell it I would have to use it myself. So I take one can with me so I could fill my tires when I get home (no compressor at work). While transitioning from 405 to 101 freeway with my knee down, I feel the bike getting squirrelly. I write it off to pavement irregularities. Another mile down the road, and the bike feels even weirder. I keep thinking I imagine things. As I pull off the freeway at my exit and stop at the red light, a peek at the rear tire reveals that it’s way low on air. I got a flat goddamn it! By the time I pulled into my garage few blocks away, I was riding on a rim. So much for timely use of TYREGUARDIAN.

This morning I woke up two hours earlier to deal with the issue. Tire inspection reveals gaping hole right in the center. Luckly, I have a set of Michelin Power Race take offs waiting for such a moment. A bit of cursing and fighting with tire irons, and they are on. To say that the bike has been transformed in an understatement. I better put in the TYREGUARDIAN now

Here is the product that stupid me should have used: http://beachmoto.com/tyreguardian/tyreguardian.php

So here’s a little story. I have a friend who’s a surfer. He’s never ridden a motorcycle in his entire life (although he claims he did it successfully once when he was 10, and it was a piece of cake for him). I am obviously a motorcycle rider. Never surfed. The other day he sucked me into this argument about what’s easier to learn - to surf or to ride a motorcycle. I personally think that it’d be easier to be a beginner in surfing than in motorcycling. He of course thinks otherwise.

My reasoning is that motorcycling involves more things to be taken into account as an activity than surfing. Also the situation could change way faster in riding than in surfing. At least beginner surfer has almost zero chance of hurting himself, so that makes it easier. Generally you should progress faster if there’s less fear of getting hurt.

What my friend and a few of his backers were saying that you could teach someone how to ride a bike during a weekend course. And the same could not be done for surfing. Therefore it’s easier to pick up motorcycling.

While we could not find a true measure of complicity or ease of either of the sports we decided on the following. He’ll post this question on a surfer forum he’s a member of to get the feedback from surfers who ride. I on the other hand will do the same on a motorcycle forum to see if there are riders on here that surf who could share their opinions and experience with both sports/hobbies.

Of course we are not talking about professional and/or competitive levels in either of the sports. We both agree that pretty much any sport has virtually the same level of difficulty the closer you get to the top.

So there you have it. Please feel free to voice your opinion. I am not opposed to be proven wrong. It’s just so far I am not too keen on admitting that only because a couple of my friends told me so. They also tell me I am a douche because I ride a motorcycle to begin with, i.e. they can’t be trusted.

So while Sideout was looking for ugly and boring but functional V Strom, I was occupied with the idea that I need new bike. It has been almost a tradition for be to update my stable once a year, and my last bike purchase was done approximately 12 months ago. Combine it with the fact that my wife got nice Tiffany ring for our wedding and I settled for $40 special, I knew I was able to to get something special.

Last week Sideout sent me an e-mail: check out this dealer, he is selling out all his bikes. Of course it contained a link. The second I clicked on it, I knew this was the bike I wanted. Not needed, but wanted. Logic doesn’t prevail in this case. Sometimes you just have to say: “fuck it!”

So it’s sexy. It’s beautiful. It’s charming. It sounds great. It’s Italian. It’s pretty unique, I haven’t seen one on the street yet, and I just came back from Laguna Seca Moto GP weekend with about 50K bikes attending.  I will not spoil the surprise but everything you need to know is in the title.

We are flying to Memphis in less than 10 days to pick up 3 of these beauties. That is right, we are riding 3 exotic hand built Italian bikes across the USA on Route 66. Three friends living the dream and not listening to common sense. I think it’s a nice way to break in new engines and bond our friendship. So what are the bikes?

This is going to be a really long and very detail oriented post about an ordeal I just went to with the KTM dealer in Santa Monica, California. So please brace yourself if you want to share my pain. Otherwise please move along. No hard feelings.

My KTM 950 Supermoto was coming up to a big 10K mile service also known as the 15K kilometer or every 2 year service according to the owner’s manual. This is a major service that pretty much includes anything and everything. Namely an oil change, new spark plugs, change brake fluid, valve clearance check and adjustment, bleed fork legs and the whole bunch of assorted checks. After conferring with my rider friends we made a collaborative decision that it would be best if an authorized KTM dealer performed this big service. I did not feel like doing all this work in my parking garage with limited to no tools. Neither one of my rider friends is a mechanic skilled enough to perform the valve clearance check and adjustment. Also the owner’s manual suggests that “all service work on your KTM should be performed by a qualified KTM dealer”.

I made some research and found two KTM dealers in my area – KTM of Santa Monica and KTM of Thousand Oaks. After spending some time on the phone with both, getting price quotes for the service and posting on advrider about which of the two my fellow ADV riders would recommend the choice has been made – KTM of Santa Monica.

The person from their service department I was talking to reassured me that everything and anything that the 10K mile service entails would be taken care of. The price quote for this big service was 640 dollars in labor (8 hours of labor at $80/hr) and approximately $100 in parts. I was sort of surprised that the labor part had a fixed price independent of whether the valve clearance should be adjusted or not. Basically if you see that the valves require no adjustment the time spent working on a bike is way less than 8 hours. Oh well … I was told that they do not necessarily need to charge me for all parts as they might use something like brake fluid that they already have in their shop. That later turned out to be an outright lie. By the time I had to drop it off my KTM had developed an acute case of a clutch slave cylinder failure. I had also asked them to take care of that and replace it with the new Evoluzione clutch slave cylinder. That added another half hour of labor ($40) plus the cost of the part itself, roughly $200.

The stage had been set. I dropped the bike off last Saturday, 8 days ago. What happened next was something I would never expect from an authorized KTM dealer performing an almost 1000 dollar service.

I dropped the bike off on Saturday, 8 days ago and got a call the following Sunday. My service adviser told me that the big 10K service had been done. And all they need now is to order the clutch slave cylinder. However they could not proceed until I pay for it. That sounded slightly ridiculous to me. It wasn’t like I randomly called them and asked them to order a part for me. My motorcycle was sitting at their shop already. They just performed an $800 service that I would have to pay for. Yet they wanted me to prepay another 200 something dollars “just to be sure” I won’t back out of this deal. I asked my service adviser if it was absolutely necessary for me to come in person and pay for it. He promised to talk to his service manager and call me back. Never happened.

After waiting the rest of Sunday, Monday and half of Tuesday I decided to take matters into my own hands and called them. As before it had been confirmed now by the service manager that I did need to come in and pay. I promptly showed up at their front gate with my Visa out of its holster. I got presented with two invoices totaling almost $1100 – one for the 10K service, another for the clutch slave cylinder and half an hour of labor to get it installed. I paid everything in full and took off.

When I got home and looked at the invoices things stopped making any sense to me. First of all despite the fact that there is no sales tax on labor in the state of California the invoice for the clutch slave cylinder had sales tax added on labor as well as on the cost of the part. “Honest mistake”, - I thought. And then I looked closely at the 10K mile invoice and noticed something strange. The invoice listed oil, oil filter, some small items like 2 o-rings for like a dollar each. However some items that should have been present like a new air filter or brake fluid were missing. And I had a charge for … 8 spark plugs in there. Also there was no reference to whether shims were used or not to adjust the valve clearance. I became really suspicious. Just by looking at the invoice it pretty much seemed like I got a $640 dollar oil change. I refused to believe what I saw.

I was back at the dealership the next (Wednesday) morning. I wanted clarification of what had been done to my motorcycle under the 10K mile service as well as understanding why my bike needed 8 spark plugs. After a very few apologies I had received a $62 refund (6 spark plugs plus tax on labor). Then I got a chance to talk to the mechanic that worked on my bike. He told me that he had looked at the air filter and it looked clean enough. So no replacement was needed. Pretty strange given that my motorcycle endured a 1K mile trip to Baja and a 1K mile trip to Death Valley. He also told me that he looked at the brake fluid and it looked alright to him. Therefore he did not feel it had to be changed. Well, the KTM owner’s manual begs to differ. It clearly states that the brake fluid needs to be changed during this service. Both the mechanic and the service manager reluctantly agreed with my previous statement and told me that they’d do that as well if I WANTED TO.

I left the dealership that morning with mixed feelings. On one hand it seemed like things that happened were just honest mistakes. On the other hand they looked like a complete lack of professionalism. I was inclined to think it was the latter. If it’s in the book it has to be done. If you call yourself an authorized KTM dealer first thing you do is look in the book to see what is it you have to do in a given maintenance procedure.

I got a call few days later. Everything was completed and the bike was ready for me. I went to pick it up yesterday, Saturday morning. Upon my arrival I was presented with yet another invoice. This time it was for the brake fluid. I can’t say I was pleased. Just a few days ago I was essentially schooling these very employees of this very KTM dealer about the ways of the 10K mile maintenance and what that maintenance includes. I was expecting that I would not have to be charged for something they had forgotten to do. Especially in light of the mistakes they made the other day. Well, I was wrong. I began to slowly boil up. The tipping point came when I went to pay the invoice. The cashier told me that the service manager made a mistake yet again. The total for the brake fluid should have been slightly less than what the invoice showed. That was the precise moment I decided I was going to be very meticulous and pedantic with them.

My motorcycle was already rolled out of the service area when I got back with the paid invoice. My service adviser causally handed me the keys and began to wander off. As previously stated I had just turned into a meticulous and pedantic bastard. So I began checking every little bit of the motorcycle. What I noticed immediately was that both of the front orange fairings were really dirty. Also I spotted a scratch a few inches long on the rear orange fairing. And to top things off the tire pressure in the rear tire was 7 psi under what it should have been. That’s despite them telling me prior that they had checked everything and anything INCLUDING the tire pressure.

I kept my cool on the outside. However on the inside I was fuming. I brought all these three things to their attention. The mechanic rolled my bike back into the service area. Some 10 minutes later he had told me and shown me that I had a tiny cut on a rear tire. I could not legitimately say that the cut wasn’t originally there when I brought the bike in a week ago. So I decided to let that go. However I was not going to do the same with the scratch situation. We went back to the service manager. A few vague statements later I had him say that they will replace the part. He just had to look into the cost and availability. I am unsure why at that point he would want to look into anything other than making me happy. Whatever the cost is they have to be ordering it pronto and keep apologizing profusely for their terrible service. The service manager promised to call me as soon as he had any information. As of today, Sunday’s morning I haven’t received a call.

I am not going to let it slide though. I am really pissed off. And will keep the pressure on. Almost forgot one detail. As I was walking out the service manager said this: “Of course we are going to replace the scratched part. We are not a pop-and-mom shop; we are an authorized KTM dealer”. I did not feel like starting a pissing match. However the irony of the situation was that they did everything that would qualify them as nothing but a pop-and-mom shop.

Here is the bottom line to this story. I am utterly shocked that something like that could happen at an authorized KTM dealer. The whole reason I decided to to go to a dealer was to make sure all the little things and tweaks that this service entails would be properly done. I paid $680 in labor and my total was well over $1000 including parts. It is a lot of money to pay for a service. And when you pay that much money for a service you are not expected to double check what the dealer is doing to your vehicle. At this point I am absolutely unsure of what exactly was done to my motorcycle. Probably what they did do was just the oil change, the valve clearance check with no adjustment (the mechanic said I did not need one, however understandably I have to take anything those guys say with a grain of salt), clutch slave cylinder, clutch and brake fluid change and chain maintenance. The last two items though got included in the service only because I had explicitly requested them. And all of these things do not require 8,5 hours of labor.

At this point I am contemplating contacting KTM of North America and filing a complaint. This was a terrible brand representation on the KTM of Santa Monica’s behalf. This would not reflect on my love for the brand though. I still love my KTM Supermoto and still think KTM makes terrific motorcycles.

Fellow riders be warned – stay away from Honda, Kawasaki and KTM of Santa Monica.

Despite my enormous interest in all military and history related I am not going to discuss the actual battle known as the bloodiest in the history of the US per Wikipedia. Nor will I reflect on the whole Ardennes offensive alltogether.

Instead I will bring up a somewhat mundane subject - my health. I have been an athlete pretty much all my life. Going from one sport to the next I ended up falling in love with beach volleyball. Hence the nickname (Sideout). Lately however I have been experiencing some intermittent lower back pains. They were getting pretty annoying as they would resurface pretty much after every other weekend of volleyball. So finally I decided to get more insight into the matter and went to an MRI facility next to my house. A week later the verdict was delivered to me in a form of a phone call from my doctor - I had a disk bulge in my lower back.

If you ever been competitive in any kind of sport you would know that injuries are unavoidable and imminent. My collection of injuries includes but is definitely not limited to a fractured nose, cracked teeth, rolled ankles, fractured fingers, multiple cuts and endless number of bruises. However anytime I would get injured it would sort of rub off of me pretty quickly. And I would get back into formation like nothing ever happened. This current injury seemed to have stuck around longer than I had wanted it to making me utterly frustrated. I am no longer in my twenties. Don’t believe that thirties are the new twenties no matter how many times you hear it on national television. And this was a harsh reminder.

I was in the doctor’s office the next morning. Apparently the word concern was written all over my face. So he quickly pacified me by saying that this was in no way a “career ending injury”. I do not have a career as a professional athlete mind you.  However I do live a very active lifestyle. And would hate to see it slip away like that. Well, I would not have to. My bulge is very little - 3mm in size. That constitutes a small bulge as opposed to a severe bulge which would be over 7mm. And apparently had I not been an active bastard I probably would not have even noticed it ever existed. However I am an active bastard. Therefore measure should be taken.

The next couple of months I would have to be doing a lot of physical therapy and therapeutic exercises like back stretches and swimming. Now the last one creates somewhat of an issue - I passionately hate swimming. I have never been good at endurance sports. Explosive sports were my forte. Swimming much like running and cross country skiing is a tedious sport according to my book. If I were to run a marathon or a triathlon I would probably die of boredom before exerting myself into oblivion. However amends should be made. I told myself to suck it up and dove into the pool. I am swimming 2-3 times per week now while grinding my teeth in hate.

My doctor told me that in a few months of all this the MRI should not even show my bulge. This is the kind of thinking that should get me through the miles of swimming, hours of stretching and absolutely tasteless healthy food meals that I would endure in the next couple of months. I shall prevail in the battle of the bulge.