Time for the second installment of our cycling trip report. This is the trip report of the freezing climbs :) Which ends in super hot weather.
Here's part II of the trip report.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Tour of the Mostly-Swiss Alps, Part I
In 2010, Kekoa and I, Piaw and Lisa, and Phil Sung bike toured in the alps. The original plan called for touring the German Speaking Alps, but due to weather constraints, we ended up touring mostly the Swiss Alps.
Here's part I of the trip report. This included how we attempted to outfoxed the weather from Munich to Innsbruck and then to Bludenz.
Here's part I of the trip report. This included how we attempted to outfoxed the weather from Munich to Innsbruck and then to Bludenz.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Funny things we saw in Europe
Since I'm quite delinquent in writing my trip reports, I'm going to start with the funny signs and things we saw in Europe.
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No Smoking Ashtray?
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No peeing standing up?
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Very Exotic Sauce
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Dickmans??!?!
Nuts
No Smoking Ashtray?No peeing standing up?Very Exotic SauceDickmans??!?!
NutsWednesday, May 19, 2010
Road rash fun
What better blog post than to write about road rash.
Given that I had a fairly fun (NOT AT ALL) crash about a week ago, I feel compelled to write about road rash and treating it. Let me say I got most of my information off of xton's very helpful post on the same subject. I just wanted to elebroate more on the bloodiness, of course. :)
First off, if you aren't up for cleaning the wounds yourself. Go to urgent care the first day. Not the second... I did a shitty job the first day cleaning my wounds. The next day, while the wounds were happily oozing black/brown dirt, I got freaked out thinking I might have broken something, and decided to go to urgent care. Needless to say, they took one look at my wounds, and decided to tear off all my expensive tegaderm, and re-scrub everything. OWWWW. The nice part about urgent care - they do put lidocaine on your wounds to numb it before they scrub. The bad - they only put it on the deep ones (too much lidocaine is apparently bad for you), and it's topical, so once the top of your wounds gets scrubbed off, it starts stinging pretty bad. If you are ball-sy enough to clean it yourself, drugstores also sell this 2% lidocaine solution that should help numb wounds, which I've heard helps.
Bandages
The whole new moist wound care stuff is really awesome. I was told to use Tegaderm and then some folks recommended Duoderm. After a bit of research - I realized Duoderm / Tegasorb (not tegaderm) / Hydrocolloid are all pretty much the same thing. All this stuff is a bit expensive (Tegaderm is $3.75 for a 4" x 4 3/4" patch at drugstore pricing and Hydrocolloids are $3 for a 3" x 3" patch at drugstore prices) with the hydrocolloids being a bit more expensive. I recommend buying what you need for the day and then buying in bulk from some online medical supply store, even with the expedited shipping it's still cheaper.
Personally I used Tegaderm for the first few days, until the wounds started oozing less and moved to a hydrocolloid bandage. One thing to note about Tegaderm: if you are oozing a lot (yellow ooze is OK), do clean/replace often, else your skin might get irritated and itch a lot and add insult to injury. The ooze also smells really bad, it kind of smells like someone sweaty who hasn't showered in while... The wound can also ooze a lot and the ooze can "spill" out and seep through the edges of the Tegaderm, so definitely bandage it in with gauze so it doesn't leak on your clothes. You can leave these on for a few days. Until either the wound looks healed or the ooze has taken over so you have to change it.
Hydrocolloids are a bit more expensive than Tegaderm, but they are a bit nicer. The nicest feature is that it absorbs the ooze, so it doesn't leak everywhere easily, and just grows larger... it sort of looks like a GIANT whitehead. It does eventually ooze tho, if the bandage cannot absorb anymore. You can leave these on for ~7 days.
Anyhow, the best part about both of these is the ability to shower with big wounds over your body, with no pain as it keeps the water out. For the more surface type wounds, it took about 1 week for the oozing to stop, for the larger wounds, it looks like it's going to take 2 weeks... Moist healing also lets you completely bypass the "scab forming itchy" stage, and having no scab to pick on is wonderful. I didn't feel any itching besides from the ooze irritation (ew). I do believe that the moist healing thing works faster tho. I had similar sized wounds on my leg and arm, on my leg I chose to let it scab over and on my arm I put a hydrocolloid bandage on. Result at 1.5 weeks: arm has new skin already, leg is still scabbed up and itchy.
Ice
After a while, it won't be the bloody wounds that hurt, but the stupid bruises from falling and your body hitting random parts of the road! Icing within the first 24 hours is KEY. This will save you a lot of pain down the road (and make healing a lot faster). ICE A LOT (I wish I iced more...)
Moist healing is awesome. No more crashing for cyn.
Given that I had a fairly fun (NOT AT ALL) crash about a week ago, I feel compelled to write about road rash and treating it. Let me say I got most of my information off of xton's very helpful post on the same subject. I just wanted to elebroate more on the bloodiness, of course. :)
First off, if you aren't up for cleaning the wounds yourself. Go to urgent care the first day. Not the second... I did a shitty job the first day cleaning my wounds. The next day, while the wounds were happily oozing black/brown dirt, I got freaked out thinking I might have broken something, and decided to go to urgent care. Needless to say, they took one look at my wounds, and decided to tear off all my expensive tegaderm, and re-scrub everything. OWWWW. The nice part about urgent care - they do put lidocaine on your wounds to numb it before they scrub. The bad - they only put it on the deep ones (too much lidocaine is apparently bad for you), and it's topical, so once the top of your wounds gets scrubbed off, it starts stinging pretty bad. If you are ball-sy enough to clean it yourself, drugstores also sell this 2% lidocaine solution that should help numb wounds, which I've heard helps.
Bandages
The whole new moist wound care stuff is really awesome. I was told to use Tegaderm and then some folks recommended Duoderm. After a bit of research - I realized Duoderm / Tegasorb (not tegaderm) / Hydrocolloid are all pretty much the same thing. All this stuff is a bit expensive (Tegaderm is $3.75 for a 4" x 4 3/4" patch at drugstore pricing and Hydrocolloids are $3 for a 3" x 3" patch at drugstore prices) with the hydrocolloids being a bit more expensive. I recommend buying what you need for the day and then buying in bulk from some online medical supply store, even with the expedited shipping it's still cheaper.
Personally I used Tegaderm for the first few days, until the wounds started oozing less and moved to a hydrocolloid bandage. One thing to note about Tegaderm: if you are oozing a lot (yellow ooze is OK), do clean/replace often, else your skin might get irritated and itch a lot and add insult to injury. The ooze also smells really bad, it kind of smells like someone sweaty who hasn't showered in while... The wound can also ooze a lot and the ooze can "spill" out and seep through the edges of the Tegaderm, so definitely bandage it in with gauze so it doesn't leak on your clothes. You can leave these on for a few days. Until either the wound looks healed or the ooze has taken over so you have to change it.
Hydrocolloids are a bit more expensive than Tegaderm, but they are a bit nicer. The nicest feature is that it absorbs the ooze, so it doesn't leak everywhere easily, and just grows larger... it sort of looks like a GIANT whitehead. It does eventually ooze tho, if the bandage cannot absorb anymore. You can leave these on for ~7 days.
Anyhow, the best part about both of these is the ability to shower with big wounds over your body, with no pain as it keeps the water out. For the more surface type wounds, it took about 1 week for the oozing to stop, for the larger wounds, it looks like it's going to take 2 weeks... Moist healing also lets you completely bypass the "scab forming itchy" stage, and having no scab to pick on is wonderful. I didn't feel any itching besides from the ooze irritation (ew). I do believe that the moist healing thing works faster tho. I had similar sized wounds on my leg and arm, on my leg I chose to let it scab over and on my arm I put a hydrocolloid bandage on. Result at 1.5 weeks: arm has new skin already, leg is still scabbed up and itchy.
Ice
After a while, it won't be the bloody wounds that hurt, but the stupid bruises from falling and your body hitting random parts of the road! Icing within the first 24 hours is KEY. This will save you a lot of pain down the road (and make healing a lot faster). ICE A LOT (I wish I iced more...)
Moist healing is awesome. No more crashing for cyn.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Review: Zero Days by The Real Life Adventure of Captain Bligh, Nellie Bly, and 10-year-old Scrambler on the Pacific Crest Trail
I just finished Zero Days: The Real Life Adventure of Captain Bligh, Nellie Bly, and 10-year-old Scrambler on the Pacific Crest Trail in one day. This was a fun read! If you have done any backpacking at all, you'll find many parts of this book where you just can't help but laugh in agreement because you've felt the same thing before.
This book is about Nellie Bly, Captain Blight (Barbara Egbert and Gary Chambers) and their 10 year old daughter Scrambler (Mary) backpacking the Pacific Coast Trail (PCT). The PCT is a 2,650-mile hike from Mexico to Canada. According to the book, less than 100 people finish each year, and finishing with a 10 year old is just plain nuts. The book is organized by theme
"Togetherness", "Trail Angels and Demons", "Food and Water", ..., which I found made for better reading than I imagine a chronologically organized book of a family doing the PCT. I mean who wants to read "Day 1: We hiked X miles", "Day 2: We hiked Y miles", ... That said, each chapter touches some insight or experience about their journey. My favorite parts of the book were the parts were I TOTALLY knew what the author was referring to when she was talking about the happy/frustrating moments about backpacking (although I'm guessing her feelings were more intense than mine...), and it was also gave enough insight that one would know what to expect doing such a long thru-hike.
Personally, although the PCT sounds tempting, I think I'll try something shorter first. Most likely it'll be the John Muir Trail, or England's Coast to Coast first!
This book is about Nellie Bly, Captain Blight (Barbara Egbert and Gary Chambers) and their 10 year old daughter Scrambler (Mary) backpacking the Pacific Coast Trail (PCT). The PCT is a 2,650-mile hike from Mexico to Canada. According to the book, less than 100 people finish each year, and finishing with a 10 year old is just plain nuts. The book is organized by theme
"Togetherness", "Trail Angels and Demons", "Food and Water", ..., which I found made for better reading than I imagine a chronologically organized book of a family doing the PCT. I mean who wants to read "Day 1: We hiked X miles", "Day 2: We hiked Y miles", ... That said, each chapter touches some insight or experience about their journey. My favorite parts of the book were the parts were I TOTALLY knew what the author was referring to when she was talking about the happy/frustrating moments about backpacking (although I'm guessing her feelings were more intense than mine...), and it was also gave enough insight that one would know what to expect doing such a long thru-hike.
Personally, although the PCT sounds tempting, I think I'll try something shorter first. Most likely it'll be the John Muir Trail, or England's Coast to Coast first!
A bit weight weenie-ish...
Warning: Very dorky post below.
I'm trying to find a pair of lightweight hiking/trekking/traveling pants, since every ounce ends up counting (I have to carry it), the lighter the better. Annoyed by the fact that most of the manufacturers don't actually post the weight of their pants on their websites, I took a scale into some stores today.
My drill went like this: Pick out a few pairs of potential pants, take pants into dressing room. Try pants on, if I like the pants, also weigh them in the dressing room. Result so far: I could not find a pair of long pants lighter than half a pound.
That's how I spent a few hours of my Sunday afternoon... I'm almost ashamed to admit.
I'm trying to find a pair of lightweight hiking/trekking/traveling pants, since every ounce ends up counting (I have to carry it), the lighter the better. Annoyed by the fact that most of the manufacturers don't actually post the weight of their pants on their websites, I took a scale into some stores today.
My drill went like this: Pick out a few pairs of potential pants, take pants into dressing room. Try pants on, if I like the pants, also weigh them in the dressing room. Result so far: I could not find a pair of long pants lighter than half a pound.
That's how I spent a few hours of my Sunday afternoon... I'm almost ashamed to admit.
Friday, March 19, 2010
Pigeont Point Lighthouse overnight trip
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