Author: Max

July 9, 2015
Max Life

Eleven Months, One Week, two days.

July 9th 2015 was eleven months, one week and two days since my crash.

It was marked by two events.

At 8:30AM I went for my weekly physical therapy session. Steve, the physiotherapist, is working wonders on my shoulder – I am not quite at the point where I can raise my arm vertically, but at least at the moment the range of motion that I have is about 65% of normal. The sessions are painful, Steve pushes and pulls on my shoulder and gently but firmly makes it move slightly more than it did the previous week.

Gains are slight and incremental. I might not gain an extra degree of motion each week, but each week it is slightly better than last week. I have a long and painful road ahead. But it is getting better. Slowly.

The second thing that marked this day was a letter from my solicitor that began, ‘please find enclosed a cheque’. Before anyone gets excited, this is not a ‘full and final settlement’, this is an interim cheque to cover some of the expenses incurred since the crash.

This has been the first actual acknowledgement from the insurance company that they have accepted liability. In order to even get this cheque my solicitor had to threaten them with court proceedings.

So this is a BIG THING, I have a cheque that covers some of my expenses to date, the insurance company are finally releasing funds, this may not be as big a fight as it felt it might become.

Finally things are moving…..

 

May 14, 2015
Max Cycling, fitness, Life

The CrossBrid and the Tweed Bike

CrossBridAs any regular reader will know, I love cycling. I also love events that are almost entirely nonsensical. This year I want to do two events. The first is the London to Southend ride. This is a decently long ride raising money for the British Heart Foundation.

The second is silly. The second is called a ‘Tweed Ride’, the idea is simple, dig out your ancient bicycle and your finest tweed and ride your bicycle around the town and eventually stop off for a pot of tea and some cream cakes.

Given that my single-speed is looking a tad worse for wear and I am less fit than usual having spent the last seven months suffering from the result of my crash, I needed to do something about the ‘suitable bicycle’ situation for both rides.

The first issue is that my single-speed is not really very comfortable for me at the moment, it is way too ‘racy’ and my shoulder hurts too much if I ride it for a long time. I realised that I needed to either make it more comfortable, or get something more suitable. 

Read More

April 30, 2015
Max Life

One hundred and thirty-five degrees

I’ve just reached a landmark, I can now raise my left arm one hundred and thirty-five degrees. This means that I ‘only’ have 45Ëš or so to go.

It has taken a lot of time and a lot of pain to get to this point. I have weekly physical therapy sessions and do several exercises a couple of times a day.

Physiotherapy is horrible, it is painful and difficult and I almost have to drag myself to my appointment each week. I hate it. However my mobility is improving each week and at some stage I expect that I will regain something close to a full range of movement.

There is not really a lot of news on the accident claim at the moment, my solicitor, the excellent Jonathan Lear submitted a claim for the damages and the expenses that I have incurred to date recently. At some point I expect that I will get a cheque for that.

Meanwhile I have stripped my bike down to a bare frame so that I can replace the damaged parts and get it powder coated to cover up the damaged paint.

In order that I can continue to ride, I have built up another frame and used many of the parts from my single-speed to make it all work for the moment.

 

 

March 11, 2015
Max Cycling, fitness, Life

Month Seven – Yet another update !

2015-03-02 13.53.37This update is a tad late, because it has been ten days since seven-month anniversary of my crash.

Quite a lot has happened in the last month, previously I noted that I went through a third surgery, this time to remove the plate and screws as they were giving me a lot of pain and limiting my movement rather badly. This surgery went very well and apart from some minor complications, I am pretty happy with the outcome.

The last week has seen two physical therapy sessions with Steve Oakley at the Spire Health centre. in the first one he massaged my shoulder to the point of pain, then lifted my arm towards vertical (from lying down), this was extremely painful, but very promising as I had not been able to move my arm that far since the crash.

Steve gave me a set of exercises to do daily, so each time I have made tea, I have worked through the exercises. Each day I have found that I can move a little more before the pain really is too much. 

Read More

February 23, 2015
Max Cycling, fitness, Life , , ,

First Ride !

I finally managed to get out on my bike. IMG_1817

On Saturday I dressed up extra warm and rode down to the seafront, then along towards the garrison and then back, up-hill, against the wind, all the way back.

Despite clipping a camera to my helmet, I did not get any useable footage at all – the mount slipped, so everything was at a strange angle.

It was great, but scary, to be back on the road. I was very nervous to start with, the first kilometre or so was pretty nerve jangling, but once I calmed down, things were not too bad. I am still obviously very nervous around the traffic and I tried to keep to the bike paths as much as possible.

So, my shoulder……

Read More

February 15, 2015
Max Life, Technology , ,

Apple vs Google (redux)

2015-02-15 13.31.02

OnePlus One, Samsung Note III, iPhone 6

Over the years I have been tempted to jump to Android by their larger screens, the promise of more openness and the air of rebellion that Android has generally portrayed.

My Android phones however have almost never lived up to the hype. Sure the screens are bigger – this is important when you get older, sure there is a lot more flexibility there in terms of icon layout, launchers and widgets and there is Google Now, which is pretty cool.

But somehow I feel like I am a beta tester or worse for the majority of my Android experience.

Every single Android phone that I have owned, and the list is extensive, has been missing something compared to not just other Androids, but to iPhone. It seems that choosing Android means that you need to choose carefully because they are so varied.

The iPhone is the standard by which others are judged. 

Read More

February 8, 2015
Max Cycling, fitness, Life ,

Crash Recovery: The Big update

Before

The plate and my collarbone

A week ago I marked off six months since the somewhat life changing crash that broke my collarbone.

A lot has happened in that week, so this post is something of an attempt to catch up and bring everyone up-to-date.

I went back to see Mr. Packer, the surgeon that previously replaced the over-long screws that had been used when fixing my collarbone. My shoulder had been getting gradually worse, with a fairly poor range of motion and spikes of pain being fairly normal.

We agreed that the best course of action would be to remove the plate. It is somewhat early to do this as as under normal circumstances the plate should remain there close to a year and it has not been there for a full six months yet. However, the position of the plate and the still somewhat long screws that remain are more than likely responsible for the pain I am in.

Having agreed that the plate needed to come out, I was booked in for Friday February 6th 2015.

Since the last update, Mr Harar, the driver that knocked me off my bicycle has appeared in court. Privately I was expecting him to be difficult and to deny that he was to blame, I expected that I would have to appear in court and testify against him. Amazingly, he pleaded guilty to a charge of careless driving. He was fined and given five penalty points.

Read More

February 1, 2015
Max Cycling, Driving, fitness, Life

Guilty (Of Careless Driving)

I’ve been waiting a long time to post this and finally I can……

Max vs Aygo

Max vs Aygo

The ‘Driver’ that hit me on August 1st, causing the crash that left me with a broken collarbone, multiple cuts and bruises, a broken bicycle and a destroyed helmet pleaded guilty to a charge of careless driving and was fined and given five penalty points on his licence.

Justice, as they say, has been served.

So, here are a few more details…..

The car that hit me is shown on the left in its final position after the driver stopped, as you can see in the photo, I was obviously in the middle of the road on the roundabout, not, as was postulated riding around the far left lane. If you look carefully you can see that there is some glass on the floor behind the rear wheel – that it from the impact. The door glass shattered when I hit it.

Read More

January 21, 2015
Max Cycling, fitness, Life

Crash Recovery, continued…..

As I have posted elsewhere on this blog, I was knocked off my bike on August 1st.

Since then, I have gone through two surgeries to repair my collarbone.

My recovery is progressing slowly, some days I think that I am not getting any better, other days I realise that it is less painful nowadays than it was, say, a month ago.

Then I move awkwardly, my muscles spasm and I have pain tearing up my upper arm and my shoulder and tears in my eyes.

The current status is that I have seriously restricted movement in my left shoulder.

Standing straight up, I can raise my arm forwards to about 80*, I can get to about 60* sideways and maybe 10* backwards. When I reach those limits, I get significant muscle spasms in my upper arm and a  sharp pain that stretches from my left ear to my elbow.

Obviously I try not to move my arm too far.

Read More

November 25, 2014
Max Life, Technology

I have a love-hate relationship with Apple and Android….

A few weeks ago, Apple launched their new iPhone 6 and the XL iPhone 6 Plus.

The iPhone 6 is the one that interests me more than anything. I currently use a Samsung Note3, albeit one that long since jettisoned the original Samsungised version of Android that it is intended to use and one that now runs Cyanogenmod 11 (nightly).

I love and hate the size of the Note3, the screen is pretty good in all but bright sunlight and the lightly extended version of AOSP plus Google services adds up to a nice phone.

There are very few things about the Note3 that I dislike.

– The battery life is poor, I struggle to get through a busy day

– There are still vestiges of Samsung – the home button for example.

– The camera is really ‘not all that’ and when you run a third-party ROM you are giving up many things, NFC is a prime example of this.

So, why am I writing about the iPhone 6  ?

Because deep down I beleive that the Apple ecosystem is a better one than the Android / Google one.

Read More