Motobecane 2009 Fantom Comp Review

After losing my hybrid bike, I needed another bike to tow my pedicab around. I decided on a mountain bike this time since they are the only bikes that come with low enough gearing for towing around a pedicab and since I never had a mountain bike before.

I didn't want to spend a lot of money, so I took a chance and ordered from BikesDirect.com. If you do a Google search on Bikes Direct, you will see that there has been a lot said about them. A lot of it is negative, but some positive too. What I can say is that I'm fairly pleased with what I got. The bike was as advertised and they shipped the next day. I got my bike 2 days after ordering it. It comes via UPS Ground and was well packed. Most of the bike was assembled, but I did need to go to a bike shop because it came with hydraulic disc brakes not installed, which I know nothing about. Basically, I had to unpack everything, put the front wheel in, install the pedals, attach the handlebars to the stem, and install the seat post, and I was ready to ride.

Since this is my first mountain bike, I really can't say how it compares with other mountain bikes. Compared with the road or hybrid bikes I usually ride, it is a lot heavier (30 lbs) and slower. I would only ride this on real dirt trails like the greenbelt in Austin. Even the hike and bike trail is overkill for this bike. But it was fun riding up steep, rocky, trails on this thing with the 22x32 gearing and big, fat 26" wheels. That gear will be handy for as even the 22x28 gearing I had on my hybrid was often not low enough when weighed down with 3 guys in my pedicab.

What I can say is that BikesDirect is legit. I got my bike as advertised in 2 days and it was assembled and packed fairly well. You might need to take it to a bike shop to have them finish the assembly and they may not be happy about it (the shop I took it to wasn't), but you will get a great deal especially if you need a new bike fast like I did and don't have time to shop around looking for something on sale at a bike shop.

LASIK Eye Surgery...1 week update...

It has been a little over a week since I had my LASIK surgery. So far, I seem to be recovering pretty well. The doctor said I can stop using the medicated eye drops and just use the artificial tears. I don't seem to be having a problem with dry eyes, but then again, I've been using the drops religiously as directed. I should still be careful not to rub my eyes and no swimming for a month. I don't know how to swim anyway.

I guess the first thing everyone would want to know is how well am I seeing. The short answer is I can easily read the 20/20 line on the eye chart using both eyes! In fact, I can almost read 20/10 using both eyes. These Lasers are really an amazing technology when you think about it.

I can read the 20/20 line using just my right eye. I am not quite able to read the 20/20 line using just my left eye (it's blurry). I can see the eye charts better using both eyes than I do when using just one eye. My left eye seems to be under corrected by a quarter to half a degree when compared with my right eye. Perhaps it's still healing and will improve?

During the day, I can say I am seeing better than I was with contacts or glasses even though my left eye isn't quite at 20/20 (at least not yet). I've always felt my prescription was a little off with both my glasses and contacts no matter which eye doctor I went to. Every eye doctor I've gone to gave me a different prescription and it was one of the concerns I had before doing the surgery. If every eye doctor and optometrist was getting different numbers, how would they know which numbers to plug into the computer? I am seeing better during the day than I've ever seen before with contacts or glasses. Although my left eye seems to be off slightly, the correction I got with LASIK seems to be closer to the right one than I got with glasses or contacts! Pretty amazing stuff.

At night, the results are not as spectacular as during the day. The main issue is that there is a halo around every light source. The brighter and closer I am to the light, the larger the halo around the light is. This normally isn't a problem unless you are looking at a lot of light sources like a bunch of car headlights. Another situation is if you are looking down a street with a lot of bright street lamps. There is a halo around each light and it creates glare and can make it difficult to see.

I've spoken to other people who've had LASIK and some of them still see halos even years after their surgery. Supposedly, the custom wavefront technology is suppose to solve this problem, but as of now, that is the only major problem with my vision. They told me this should improve with time as my eyes are still healing.

My eyes are still bloodshot (especially my left eye), but that seems to be healing slowly by the day. This is caused by the pressure they apply to your eye when they cut the flap. This can break some blood vessels, and I got a really bad case of red eye like this:

It looks ugly and nasty and it was a lot worse in the days right after I had surgery, but it does not affect my vision at all.

LASIK is really a life changing procedure if you had really bad vision like I did. Being able to see without glasses or contacts has really improved the quality of life. I have worn contacts for over 20 years and they have always been a pain. Before disposables, cleaning the lenses was always a chore. I could only wear them for about 14 hours before my eyes dried out and sometimes they would come out of my eye and I would lose them. Disposable contacts were a big leap forward as it did away with the cleaning solutions. But I still had problems when I fell asleep in them (accidentally) and my eyes would easily get irritated. I had many problems when backpacking in Europe for 2 months last summer. Sometimes, I would be on a train, bus, or plane for 10-15 hour with no place to wash my hands to take out my contacts. Halfway through my trip, I broke my glasses so there was no way for me to see unless I had my contacts in. I love traveling and this makes life easier since it's one less major thing I need to worry about when trekking around the globe.

I will post more updates in the next few weeks on the halo situation...

LASIK Eye Surgery at LASIK Plus...

After waiting a LONG time (10+ years), I finally decided to have laser vision correction on November 13th 2009 (Friday the 13th!). Like many people, I was really nervous about having surgery done on my eyes. The technology always seemed to be getting better and my vision always seemed to be getting worse. There were always horror stories and the side effects, long term effects added to the uncertainty. In the last few months, I have met many people who had the procedure done and nearly all of them were extremely happy with the results. It seems that the technology has been perfected in the last few years. The most difficult parts of the procedure is now almost entirely automated by computers and the procedure has become routine and highly standardized.

I decided to have my surgery done at LASIK Plus on 183 and 360, near the Arboretum in Austin. My surgeon was Dr. Whiteside. The center is very pleasant, much like any other doctor's office. The difference is that the operating room has a glass wall, so you can watch patients get their eyes operated on from a waiting area. Watching Dr. Whiteside and his staff work made me much more comfortable in choosing to have my eyes done at LASIK Plus because I could watch how he and his staff work and see the reaction of his patients. They do surgeries every Friday and Saturday. If you are considering getting LASIK, I suggest you stop by and watch how it is done even if you decide to go with another surgeon. It's very educational. I don't know any other LASIK center that is set up to let you watch procedure done on other patients. They don't allow photos or videos (otherwise I would have posted them), but they do allow anyone to come and watch how they operate. I watched Dr. Whiteside operate on 3 different patients and seeing how methodical he and his staff were gave me confidence to have my eyes done here. The price of the procedure was $3,650 and they offering interest free financing for 2 years.

It has been 48 hours since I had my surgery and so far I am very happy! I can finally see without contacts and glasses for the first time over 20 years. I'll post updates as my eyes heal. My eyes are still bloodshot and I see large halos at night (but I was seeing some halos even with glasses or contacts), but according to the doctor, those should go away within a few weeks to a month.

I'll go over the experience so far. They do free evaluations. These are basically a complete eye exam to find out your prescription and if you are a candidate for LASIK. Basically, your cornea has to be thick enough and your eyes free of other diseases. They measure your prescription using a high tech eye scanning machine and also the traditional way. Then you go through several machines that take various measurements of your eye. At the end of the exams, the doctor will tell you if you are a candidate or not for the procedure.

If you decide to get the procedure done, you must stop wearing soft contacts for at least one week, longer if you wear hard contacts. I wore glasses for 3 weeks before having the surgery. Two days before the surgery, they want you to start using these expensive ($60) eye drops (Vigamox). They brought me in again 3 days before the surgery to retake some measurements.

On the day of the surgery, you do a bunch of paper work, they talk to you about what is going to happen, and answer any questions you might have. The main thing they want you to do is relax! The first step is you go on a machine called the Intralase. This is the machine that will cut a flap in both of your cornea. Dr. Whiteside lines you up on a VISX machine, and puts these suction cups into your eyes. From there, he moves you to the Intralase. What this machine does is mate to the suction cup mount in your eye, then you feel pressure. A computer controlled laser then cuts a flap in your cornea. The process is repeated for both eyes.

The next step is the doctor peels back the layer of cornea that the Intralase machine cut. You don't feel any pain at all, but what you see is your vision getting very blurry after the flap is removed. The VISX machine starts to work and you hear a series of very rapid clicking sounds as the laser is not a continuous laser, but a series of rapid pulses for 20-30 seconds that is also controlled by a computer. What I saw was a blurry vision and as the laser fired into my eye everything seemed to go dark starting with the outer edges of vision. There was this orange light and a flashing red dot the doctor wanted me to focus on. I also smelled burning flesh while this was going on. Was that sections of my eye being vaporized? The doctor told me it wasn't, but it sure smelled like it!

The whole procedure lasted about half an hour. When I opened my eyes, everything was extremely hazy. It was like looking through foggy glasses. I could tell my vision was a whole lot sharper, but everything looked hazy or foggy. They gave me a bottle of steroid drops and a couple boxes of artificial tears. I had to continue the Vigamox drops and these steroid drops for 4 times a day for a whole week. They also wanted me to use the artificial tears every hour. You need someone to drive you home after the procedure and they want you to take a nap when you get home. I was told not to rub my eyes, wear goggles when I sleep (to prevent accidentally rubbing my eyes), don't get soap or water into my eyes, and no swimming for a month.

I took a 2 hour nap and then I woke up because my eyes were burning pretty badly as the topical anesthetic wore off. For a couple hours it was quite uncomfortable, but the pain subsided eventually. My vision was quite hazy and did not start to clear up until the evening. I was also very sensitive to bright light. I needed to wear sunglasses during the day and even watching TV, I had to turn the brightness down. At night, I was seeing some very large halos. All the lights at night look like this:

It's a little bit better tonight, but the doctor told me it would be a few weeks or months before those started to go away. My eyes are also bloodshot as they may break some blood vessels when they create suction for the Intralase, but that should heal in a couple weeks.

Overall, I'm thrilled that I can see without glasses or contacts! Waking up and being able to see right away is a new experience! I know the bloodshot eyes will heal and hopefully the halos will go away or subside. They told me it should gradually disappear (a few weeks to a couple months) as the swelling in my eyes go down.