I had ended the year not riding the last week because of pain and swelling in my left knee. It seemed to be improving slightly by New Year’s Day, so I decided to pick some very flat virtual routes, and try to start riding again on the trainer set up Xstream. I started off with just a five mile ride on New Year’s Day, and slowly increased my distance as the month went. I still had a lot of knee pain, but even with my riding, it was slowly improving. There were days when it got warm enough I could have ridden outdoors in the afternoon, but I thought it best to just keep soft pedaling the flat routes on my trainer. I knew real road riding wouldn’t be as easy on my knee. I actually got in 90 miles each of two weeks in the middle of the month. But before the end of the month, I was off the bike for a completely different reason.

The week of the 15th, I had a sore throat and cough. I wasn’t very sick, and didn’t think much of it until a household member tested positive for COVID. I had planned to go dancing that night, and decided I better get tested myself before I did any such thing. I tested positive, so stayed home. I continued to not feel bad, and got in another 90 miles on the bike that following week. I am vaxxed and boosted, and figured that’s why I didn’t get very sick. I tested again on the 21st, and was negative. But by then, I had started to have some chest congestion, and by the next Monday, the 24th, it had gotten a lot worse, and I developed a low grade fever, my reminder that, even vaxxed and boosted, I still have the same cratered lungs. I went to the VA hospital, and sure enough, pneumonia. I brought home antibiotics and steroids, and just rested that week, no riding. But by the following Monday, it was worse again, and this time, the VA hospital admitted me, and kept me for two days. I was released on Feb 2nd, just before the ice storm hit, and brought home antibiotics and steroids again. It’s now been two weeks since my last ride. If it isn’t one thing, it’s another these days, it seems. I ended up with 260 miles on the bike in January, all on the indoor Xstream.

I have begun a new blog update. I’ve tackled a few of these over the years, the most significant of which was replacing all of my old photo links when photo bucket quit working. This is a pretty big update too, dating all the way back to the beginning of my blog, and also involves fixing the photos. Word Press makes it pretty easy to create and keep up a nice looking blog. But one of the things about its narrow page format is that it automatically resizes photos to fit within that format, and some photos can get reduced to the point that you can’t see all the details you want. That’s not a big deal if it’s just a photo of scenery or me or friends on bikes. But my routes tend to run mostly east and west, and some of the wider map images can get narrowed too much for good details. And now that I’m posting fossil photos, there are a lot of them that don’t show the detail I’d like. So, I’ve changed how I’m posting photos. There will be the same downsized Word Press photos, but if you now left click those photos, the link will take you to the full size photo, and you can zoom in for better detail. I’ve already started doing this with all new photos, and I’m in the process of going back and changing all the old photos to work the same way. I’ve made it a point in all my fossil posts to note that you should click the photos to be able to zoom in, but all the photos on other posts will work the same way. I’ve already changed everything back to August, 2013, and I’m working on the rest of it.

The flat Cozumel virtual route I mostly rode in January, to go easy on my left knee.