🚴♂️ DIARY OF A MADMAN
Date: August 19, 2026
Location: Delaware (A flat state that my spine currently remembers as the Swiss Alps)
Mission: Show my 40-year-old body who is boss.
Current Status: My lower back has officially filed for divorce and is seeking full custody of my legs.
đ 8:08 AM â The Innocent Re-Entry (Or a Midlife Crisis)
I am 40 years old. I haven't ridden a bicycle regularly since Bill Clinton was in office and oversized cargo pants were considered high fashion. To add flavor to the mix, I have a diagnosed herniated disc at L4-L5, and I am actively scheduled to have a doctor plunge a needle the size of a harpoon into both sides of my spine for a bilateral epidural injection.
What does a rational, sane human being do? Rest. Sip chamomile tea. Watch television.
What did I do? I stared at the budget, steel-framed Mongoose Hotshot rusting in the garage and thought: âToday feels like a great day to stage a solo Tour de France.â
The slight technical handicap: The bike's shifting mechanism is completely broken. It is permanently welded by the gods of mechanical neglect into the second-to-last gear. For non-cyclists, that means the pedals are so stiff that every single rotation feels like trying to push a parked garbage truck through a swamp with your bare feet.
I set off from Harrington toward Milford. Within three minutes, my heart rate didnât just climbâit boarded a SpaceX rocket and pinned itself at 181 beats per minute. I was pushing so violently against the high-gear resistance that my lower lumbar spine became the physical fulcrum for the entire transportation grid of central Delaware. I hammered out 10.33 miles with a peak speed of 21.4 mph. My heart was high-fiving my lungs; my L4-L5 disc was drafting its last will and testament.
âď¸ 1:25 PM â The Return of the Jedi (Minus the Force, Plus the Herniation)
Did I go home, review my fitness app, notice that my heart nearly exploded, and decide it was time to put ice on my back?
Absolutely not. Pain is just weakness leaving the body, right? (Or in this case, it was disc fluid leaving the spine).
By lunchtime, I decided that 10 miles of heavy-gear medieval torture simply wasn't enough punishment. I hopped right back onto the Mongoose device for Round 2. By this time, my core and abdominal musclesâthe only actual bodyguard structures keeping my spine intactâhad completely clocked out and left the building.
My heart rate immediately skyrocketed back up to an average of 163 bpm for nearly a solid hour. I was trapped in the "Maximum Intensity Red Zone." If a cardiologist had been tracking my telemetry in real time, they would have remote-defibrillated me just to make me stop. My legs were a chemical fire, the heavy hybrid bike felt like it was forged from solid lead, and my herniated disc was absorbing 100% of the shock from every single crack in the asphalt.
đ The Damage Report: The Day in Numbers
Total Distance: 22.01 miles (Essentially a half-marathon on a broken department-store bike).
Total Calories Burned: 1,409 kcal.
Gear Shifting Operations: 0.
Cardiovascular Fitness Rating: 9 / 10 (I have the heart of a racing stallion).
Spinal Safety Rating: -5 / 10 (My neurosurgeon is currently crying into his morning coffee).
Post-Workout Meal: A chaotic, legendary "Franken-meal" consisting of 6 scrambled eggs, 1 pack of ramen, and 6 tablespoons of baked beans all mixed into a single bowl of pure recovery fuel.
đ The Moral of the Story
If you are 40, have a quarter-century of cycling rust on your joints, a bike that refuses to shift gears, and an upcoming appointment for spinal injections... maybe, just maybe, playing Olympic track cyclist on a locked drivetrain is a questionable medical preparation strategy.
The Mongoose Hotshot has been officially confiscated by the authorities of common sense. Bags of frozen peas have been deployed across my lower back. If anyone needs me, I will be lying completely flat on the living room floor, staring at the ceiling, waiting for that epidural.
