The View From Here - a blog

Call me Lord Volterol - 20/11/2024

We’d just buried by cousin Susan and the mourners were heading back to the chapel through the cemetery grounds when I realised something wasn’t right. Click click, click went my left knee. I say my left knee, but it didn’t feel like my knee. It felt odd. I was too absorbed in paying tribute to my lovely cousin who was gone too soon to think too much about this clicking (and stiffness) at the time.

OK, so I have pain. Take it easy, right? The next day I did a very gentle turbo spin, followed by my gentle commute to work. It adds up to 2 hours of riding, but mellow stuff. Gentle. My knee was not mellow. It was sore around the knee cap and it clicked with pretty much every pedal stroke. The clicks were accompanied by a jarring of the bones. Cycling home at the end of the day was awful. I commute on a fixed-gear bike and so there is no rest. Also, you are overloaded (ie in too high a gear) on all the climbs. There is no rest, even on downhills (this is I why I do it, because it’s harder!). I stand as much as I can, because that feels better and clip and do pretend freewheeling on the downhills. The latter is fairly ugly as you have spread your feet wide to clear the ever-turning pedals.

What on earth has happened to me? In the last 10 days I’ve done the Dulwich Paragon Ride of the Falling Leaves and the Spoke Cycle Ride of the Falling Leaves. I’d ridden a shorter version of each and felt good. Neither were a ride of the failing knees. I self-diagnosed. “All my meniscus has worn away and the bones are knocking together,” I told my other half. I spun out. “I will not be able to ride my bike again. I have some nice ones, so I guess I could clean polish them, but aside from that, I’m done.” A bit dramatic. I added my broken knee to the other issues that were creeping up on my 60-year-old physique. It doesn’t make for pretty reading.

Things reducing
• Eyesight
• Hair
• Hearing

Things growing
• Weight
• Prostate
• Bunions

There are plenty of books being written about being an older athlete. Cycling Past 50 by Joe Friel and The Midlife Cyclist by Phil Cavell are good examples. I know that we can only hold back time for so long. You lose top end power as your VO2 max goes. There's an expected 5% loss per decade. You will lose muscle mass. But I’ve always relished the challenge of keeping what I have. What I have is not front-of-the-pack racing power, probably not even mid-pack. “I work hard to achieve a good level of mediocrity” is my mantra. But I feel like my time is the saddle is done. The knee feels so wrong and I begin to catastrophise the future.

Of course, I take action. I go straight into RICE mode (rest, ice, compression and elevation). A session with my osteopath and a GP appointment are booked. Osteo first. I see Michael at MSK Pain Clinics, who is based around the corner in N12. He does a slow considered examination and I tell him how this doesn’t feel like my knee. “One moment,” he says, “I’m going to get you a new knee.” He pops out a second and comes back with a knee replica to explain all the mechanics of the joint. It seems my patella tendon is not tracking right, ie it is not in the groove that it’s meant to sit in and this is causing friction. A misaligned patella. Or there could be rough spots under the kneecap. “This is fixable,” say Michael. I don’t know if he notices a little tear welling up.

Michael's knee model and a red voodoo band

Michael gives me a plan. First, I’m going to use a voodoo band five times a day. It's called voodoo flossing and it creates vascular contraction. We do a demo. It’s a 1.5m and very wide elastic band that you bind your knee with. Then you move the joint for 2 minutes in any direction. It’s a long 2 minutes. The idea is that it both trains the tendon to get into the groove and forces blood to rush to the centre of the normally blood-starved knee. Then I’m to reduce my training stress. Less maximal efforts. “But you must not stop. Cycling is good for your recovery.” Another thing Michael suggests is to move my saddle up a little and forward a little. The idea is to put my knee in a slightly different position. Different enough to change the angle of the repetitive strain, but not so different as to be disruptive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57VdLmWryOI

Voodoo flossing the knee 5 times a day was a labour of love

Meanwhile, I go for an hour’s walk each lunch time. I explore local green spaces I’ve not been to before, like Coppett’s Wood. This is a bit hit and miss, or rather click and miss, but I’m meant to keep moving and I need to do something or I’ll go nuts.

Coppett's Wood is a mile from where I live, but I'd never been there

My GP arranges both an X-ray and an NHS physio session. She tells me I do still have a meniscus. Another tear escapes. Her thought is that this is most likely arthritis and a touch of tendinitis. The physios gives me two exercise – essentially squats - stuff I’m already doing. The X-ray show some expected wear and tear at my age. I can expect a 4-5 week recovery period. I need to be aware that there is long term degeneration and I’ll need to manage it. “But keep cycling. Cycling is good for your arthritis, just avoid the hard efforts.”

How on earth do I stay strong and avoid hard efforts?

I have to change my training plans and my season plans. I was just about to commence my base training. And this is the time I usually plan my race season. That usually consists of a dozen time trials on a tandem, some road and gravel events, plus a bike packing trip or two. I can’t plan anything. I let my tandem partner down gently. The Hell of the Ashdown tickets go on sale. This event sells our in 24 hours or so, so I grab a ticket for this February ride unsure of whether I’ll be able to take part.

I’m very good with the voodoo flossing. It feels a bit odd, but every time you do it the knee feels better and the clicks abate. Mostly I get clicking for a few minutes when I start riding now, then they fade. When I think about riding my fixed-gear bike I wince. I order a freewheel with the same gearing as my fixed-wheel cog. The first tome I use it it feels so different. I lose the lovely fixed-wheel connection with the bike, but I’m deeply grateful for being able to stop pedalling on the downhills. It’s still overloaded when climbing, but I’ve had some rests. I get to work faster. What’s happened? With the higher saddle and single-speed deployed, I’m 2mph faster than normal!

Some friends come over for dinner – one is a riding buddy – and he suggests I use an anti-inflammatory gel. This I had forgotten. I have some tucked away in the bathroom cabinet. “Use twice a day for up to 7 days.” I do. And it helps. “Call me Lord Volterol!” I pronounce. Also he know a doctor/cyclist standing by with free advice for cyclists with knee issues.

Slowly Lord Volterol picks up the training pace. It’s stayed quite dry and I decide to do some solo gravel riding. I can go at my own pace. I do 2 hours on a Saturday without a reaction and so I venture to do another 3 hours on Sunday. I keep my mid-week efforts modest and still feel good by the next weekend. I aim for a group gravel ride. Our group of four are strong and it pushes me. I finish having put out some good power (for me) and no reaction from the knee.

I decide to pick up the intensity of my mid week turbo sessions and then do a group road ride the following weekend. This feels OK for 25 miles or so, then my fitness and general lack of climbing prowess (not just knee-related, how I am when I’m riding well) catches up with me. There’s a bit of an ache. It moves from knee to knee. What’s this, both knees are messed up? It’s a dull ache. Clicks when I climb stairs. Remember that I’ve forgotten to voodoo floss for a few days now, too. I consider I’ve moved too fast towards my usual training level. And that it sucks getting old.

That brings me up to date. I’m riding, but it’s different. Whatever I have, it could be worse. I watch a YouTuber who has quite a few injuries from MTB riding. He’s 20 years younger than me, but boy does he have a catalogue of crashes and operations. I watch Juliet Elliott’s vlog and she’s just had a serious crash on La Palma, mainly affecting her elbow and hand. 12 days in hospital for her and is unsure of how well she’ll recover.

https://youtu.be/y0GoW6yFuD0?si=GdWGDPJN19QvJtms

Juliet's "proper injury." Heal soon, Juliet

I bump into my mate Matt coming back from one of my gentle rehab rides. I ask him how he is and he pulls a face. “It’s my knees. They are ****ed. Nothing can be done, I just have to manage the pain.” I don’t know if it makes me feel better to know others are in this aging process, but I know I’m not alone. That’s something. The knee has been improving, but it feels like there is something to manage, especially if I do harder efforts. There's a bit of two steps forward, one step back as I work out what I can and can't do. But one things for certain, Lord Volterol is going to find a way to keep riding.