Dark Times

The new cycling get-up.

With some new antibiotics and new antibiotic ointment I think the wounds are doing a little better. Still looks nasty as hell though. With the inability to dress the wounds, I've come up with the stunning solution to protect them from the elements you can see above - a dust mask. Keeps dust away from the pools of gel I have to smear across me face and it also stops me from eating quite so many flies. On the negative side, it reduces the amount of oxygen I can take in while breathing heavily (which is important for those anonymous phone calls), makes me even hotter and makes taking on water more difficult which is all a pain in the arse when you're cycling up some dirty great mountains in 35 °C heat. You should also notice the front of me helmet which took a battering during my crash and shows how much worse things could have been. Once I'm somewhere with a population I think it could, or probably should, be gracefully retired.

Bald Knob Summit, Allegheny Mountains, PA

New achievement today: I rode Bald Knob and at 2906 feet it's the biggest I've tackled yet (seriously, who names these mountains and what were they compensating for?)!

Mentally, things aren't great at the minute. I'm lacking energy and I can get fairly self-conscious so I want to sit in the corner of a room to hide rather than the usual people-watching. My lip doesn't move properly either so people are having even more trouble with me accent. Realistically, if things turn bad I could end up in hospital again needing surgery. Even if things go well I could need surgery. This means that I may have to come home early, but I have to figure out at what point I say that the injuries are that bad. Is it better to play things safe and miss out on the rest of this adventure, or carry on and risk things turning nasty? Blatantly I'm going to carry on. This adventure is to see what I can achieve, and the injury and this mood are part of that adventure.

Pennsylvania