Needles and Stings

I started back cycling 18 months ago after a lay off of some 30 plus years. “You have a breathing capacity of a 74 year old” the doctor said after a breathing test that came after recovering from a particularly nasty chest infection. “You could try some exercise to improve that”.

Hum, I was too heavy to try running, hate cross trainers, so I went for the good British sport (we seem to excel at sit down sports) of cycling. I found a good bargain on Ebay, a nice Cannondale that had barely 70 miles on the clock. I setup up the bike best I could, but didn’t grasp the idea that the cleats had to be set
in a specific way, so just set them as I saw fit.

With ill fitting Lycra I set off on my first ride late March 2009, I managed 4 miles (with two rests), I was so out of shape I literally had to have a lie down for an hour afterwards!

That was a shock, no hills either…. How on earth am I going to keep this going, I needed a goal. My next door neighbour told me about the Kent sportive, I looked at their website, saw 50 and 80 miles, but I had a good few months to prepare. I signed up for the 50 miler wondering how the hell I was ever going to manage a whole
50 miles. I then set up a “justgiving” website and took on sponsorship, just to make sure that I didn’t chicken out!

Over the next few months I gradually ticked off the milestones, 10, 20, 30, until I managed the “magical” 50 miles. I was riding with a mate whose love for hills, which in the early days seemed like some sort of strange perversion, paid off. I was able to climb (albeit slowly) some of the worst our area has to offer. Sadly he wasn’t the most reliable of mates, sometimes cancelling just as I was about to go out the door for a ride. I found that I wasn’t so keen riding on my own, as I just didn’t put enough effort in. When he stopped riding in his wife’s last stages of pregnancy I started looking around on the Internet for local bike clubs and found Avanti’s website.

Cool, I thought, they have a ride that goes through Halstead on the weekend, I’ll ride up and meet them enroute. After waiting for an hour I gave up and followed another club that passed by, turned out later that the website had the routes a week out! They seemed a pretty aggressive lot, actively arguing with any motorist that upset them, I dropped off the back and went my own way, I wouldn’t be joining that club (whoever they were).

Fortunately I managed to hook up with Jenny’s Saturday ride the following weekend and shortly after that started joining the Sunday rides.

It might have been a break for a holiday in August for 2 and half weeks, followed by my longest ride to date (70 miles) with G2 that was the catalyst for what was to follow.

I kept up the training, and all was going well until 2 weeks before the Sportive, I was just 5 minutes down the road when I hit a wasp which promptly stung me on my left knee. I didn’t really think much of it, met up with a friend and did a good hilly 50. The following day I could barely walk, my right knee was shot, I guess that I must have over compensated for the throbbing left knee without realising it.

I stayed off the bike for a week, and joined up with Bill and G1 whilst they were doing an “easy” ride the following Saturday. My knee felt ok, just the odd twinge so I thought all was well. I met up with a friend for a last bit of training on the Thursday, taking in a rather usual hilly route, all was well until an awkward hill start, my
knee just let go, a horrible sharp stabbing pain in the prefemoral tendon. I found I couldn’t pedal without it really hurting, I had to limp back to my friends and get a lift home.

I felt terrible; I had 3 days before the Sportive but could hardly walk let alone ride. I kept thinking of the money already pledged for charity, and thinking that I couldn't let everyone down. So I iced the knee and took pain killers for the next couple of days.

I arrived at the Sportive feeling ok, nervous, my first time out with quite so many people. I had planned to ride with the club riders, but got separated at the start by the marshals and didn’t want to risk my knee trying to make up the gap. I decided to just do the ride on my own, at my pace. I took it pretty easy for the first 3^rd of the Sportive, all the time wondering if the stabbing pain would appear and force me to a crawl. After an uneventful 15
miles with no issue I decided to up the pace a bit, and managed to stay with a few groups of riders on the flat part of the ride, getting breathers where I could and leap frogging ahead to other similar paced folks.

I had remembered Bill saying “leave something in the tank for the last climb”, I tried to do that, but by the 45 mile mark was feeling pretty tired, and when I saw the last climb I thought that there was no way I was going to make it up without destroying my knee. Pride took the back seat and I pushed the bike up the last half of the hill, I wasn’t alone.

A couple of guys rode past “I’ll have whatever you’ve got” I said to them, “ten years on you mate” was the reply, more like 20 I thought to myself! I got back on and sprinted the last mile or so as penance, arriving just under the 3 hours and qualifying for their “gold” time, pretty chuffed with myself, and £1750 off to Great Ormond Street
in the process.

The following day I was reduced to hobbling around, could barely walk. After trials of keeping off the bike for days and weeks without success, I thought that it was time to get this knee sorted. I’ve got private medical cover, so after the tedious process of going through my doctor, I was referred to a Knee Surgeon (gulp). A thorough check-up by the surgeon, followed by a MRI scan, it was deemed that a visit to a physio was all that was needed, my prefemoral tendon was inflamed. The physio gave me various knee strengthening exercises to do, explaining that the cycling concentric motion in a limited plane doesn’t lend itself to a strong knee; it is advisable to do eccentric exercises to help stretch the tendons and keep the knee in good shape. He also gave me a strong recommendation to get a bike fit (something that I had been contemplating for
ages).

After searching the internet for recommendations, I settled on the Bike Whisperer from Ealing, one of the few bike fit folks that had no negative comments at all made against them. A visit to these guys (Scheritt and Corrine) is most pleasant, you are made to feel very welcome and at no point feel pressured time wise, they make great coffee too!

Scherrit picked up pretty quickly that my cleats were not aligned properly, in fact my shoes were too big for me, and so, I bought the next size down and went back. Even with the right size shoes, there was not enough float with the SPD’s I’d been using, so we switched over to the “Look” system to get the required amount of float. Next was saddle height, “too low” he said, I was surprised, expecting to lower not raise the height. My saddle ended up a good two inches higher in the end, just shows that setting it yourself isn’t perhaps such a good thing, but it does seem that I'm far more susceptible to bike fit than most. Scherrit was kind enough to quote one of his mothers old sayings “your not ready for the glue factory yet”, South African humour eh!

After a couple of months of the knee exercising routine, combined with the correct cleat alignment I have to say that the original knee issue completely went, only to be later replaced with an issue with the left knee (change as good as a rest as they say)!

It was during a very nice cycling trip to Italy in Easter that the next comedy of errors began. After the first ride out of 50 miles or so, I realised that the saddle I’d used over winter on the turbo trainer was horrible on the road;
I therefore swapped back to my previous Fizik Arione. What I hadn’t appreciated was the saddle was about 7mm lower than the Selle Italia that I now came to hate (saddle sores – ouch). It was at this point that I started to get a slight issue with my knees.

Once back in the UK I sussed the problem, ah, but I couldn’t raise the seat, not enough left on the
seat post. I therefore purchased a longer carbon seat post. I went out for a G2 ride, turned back after 25 miles as my knees started to play up. I stopped, and then realised that the seat had dropped, only the rear light bracket had stopped it going any lower. I returned it to the correct position, after the next bump in the road it dropped again. Four more times on the way home the seat dropped, knees now well and truly aggravated.

To get it to stay in place I tightened the securing bolt harder, snap, I’d stripped the thread. I bought a mountain bike clamp, much chunkier affair, out for a ride, same story: the seat kept dropping, knees even more annoyed with me. I read on the internet about a tip of spraying a little hair spray on the post, this much to my amusement actually worked, the seat stayed put, but the damage was done, both knees playing up.

I’d been toying with getting a carbon bike for a while; this became overwhelming when a Pinarello FP3, with some very nice deep section Dura-ace wheels became available at a silly price. I flogged off my very old Cannondale, the newer Cannondale and a guitar I no longer play to finance the bike.

Perhaps it was the cost, perhaps the desire to do the bike justice (fat bloke on a proper racer), on the road it felt very different to the Cannondale, almost willing me to go quicker, I put in 100%, trying all the local hills, trying to beat my previous time up Star Hill etc, it was all just too much for my knees.

I had transferred the bike setup from the Cannondale across too quickly in my eagerness to get out on the road, except it didn’t quite go across, the BB is slightly wider for a start, and it also came with a different saddle. I should have just moved the Arione across, but thought I’d give it a try, well we are always looking for a
more comfortable saddle no? Big mistake, ended up with the saddle too low and not over the crank in the right place, I kept trying different positions, it could be that at one point I had it right, but with all the variables in the mix and knees already inflamed it was impossible for me to tell, so back to Scheritt for another re-fit.

I was now at least confident that the fit was correct, just needed to get the knee to settle down, the knee exercises from the physio had worked before, so I ploughed into doing them again, possibly too hard, too much too soon (you might have picked up on my “all or nothing” approach to things by now).

It started to become a re-occurring theme, get the knee a bit better, then do something to irritate it, too long of a ride, or too steep a hill, even standing around for too long can play it up.

So now I’m trying some Chinese acupuncture, when the needles were inserted in the tendon it was quite painful, an indication that there is a blockage, therefore today I have decided to stay off the bike until the knee is totally pain free. It seems a waste of good money having treatment and then not giving it the best chance to work. I’ve become worried that if I keep riding and irritating the issue, the tendon may become scarred and never get completely healed.

I've lost so much time over the year with my training never really gathering any reliable pace. Any form that I managed to build up in Italy was soon lost and never really recovered. I entered several time trials this year, but often wasn’t able to ride in between the TT’s in an effort to keep the knee issue under control. Never the less I was pleased with some of the times I achieved, just short of the 26's I'd aimed for. The TT bug has bitten and I look forward to competing in more in the future, hopefully with some proper training I can start catching some of you guys.