Ok, apparently I’m falling apart…  My IBS has been off on one, my knee is as previously described (geknackert!) and now my delightful children have returned to school, picked up a whole new wave of unfamiliar germs, and in caring and sharing fashion, passed a cold from one to the other to me…  Odd, since generally speaking sharing is not their strong point ;).

I had a plan for today.  It involved riding to see my sports physio in Wedmore, getting fixed, getting the rest of the usual kind of ride in, and ending up back at home all ready and sorted to go to work.  This however was before the germs multiplied, took hold, proliferated…

I did ride to the physio.  Mainly because we’d agreed that would be a logical way for her to see what effect riding was having on the knee.  It probably wasn’t a very good idea.  In fact it definitely wasn’t.  When I’ve got a decent cold, my head kinda vanishes off somewhere.  T’other half can always tell when I’m proper ill because I get stoopid.  It’s a bit like being permanently yet unpleasantly mildly drunk.  It is not a good way to be when riding the bike…!

It was however up there on the novelty value front.  You see, in some ways, I’m actually a pretty crap cyclist.  Bear with me, this will make sense shortly….  I am a crap cyclist in that my bike is not a mode of transport.  It is essential a mobile gym, a psych unit on wheels.  It is not there to get me from A to B, but out and back from A.  Unless it’s an Etape of course.  I can’t remember the last time I rode somewhere and actually had to lock the bike up, which is probably because I may well never have done so.  Nowhere I can go has the facilities I’d need when I get there.  Most of what I need is within walking distance.  Which would explain why I have a very lovely purple skinned Kryptonite lock that I’ve never used!  Mind you, it’s not the most practical thing to be lugging around – it’s heavy and barely fits in a jersey pocket, and definitely doesn’t fit in my saddle bag.

So today I actually used the bike as was originally intended.  I rode it to where I had to be.  I had checked there was somewhere to lock the bike up, without actually knowing whether or not it would all work.  Somewhat remiss of me.  However it did work, with a bit of a fiddle.  OK, so someone could still have nicked the back wheel but…

What did my physio say and do?  Well the good news is that it’s just the same old problem.  I don’t seem to have damaged or injured anything new.  Cycling may be good for joints, in that it is a low impact exercise, but is not necessarily good for knees as it exercises muscles in uneven ways, which in my case causes my kneecap to not track correctly.  Not a problem until you make it do that backwards and forwards thing slightly inaccurately for 6 hours.  Back when I started seeing Karen in 2010 there were various of my muscles that were tight, or not strong, and I’ve been working on them ever since, and most of them are a whole heap better and thus not contributing to the problem.  Which is presumably why it has been generally much better over all.  However apparently my illiotibial band is still very tight.  After one deep and very painful massage of the area, and a whole new way of strapping it up to give it a break for a couple of days, I was ready to be on my way again.  It’s probably a problem that’s never entirely going to go away, unless I stop cycling that is, it’s just something I have to manage.  Time to be more conscientious about my exercises at the gym methinks – stretching and strengthening.

I rode straight home.  Well, straight ish.  Actually, apart from my head being away from the fairies, and the knee feeling weird, the essentials of a cycling me were feeling fine.  Pretty strong in fact.  And there’s no better way to get rid copious quantities of snot…  But really, I was so zoned out as to make being on a bike and playing with the traffic a positively dangerous thing to be doing, so going home was definitely the better part of valour.

As you can see, it was a short ride.

Cycling time: 0:43:07 hrs
Distance: 12.47 miles
Avs: 17.3 mph.
ODO: 553.30 miles

And as you can also see, my replacement Rapha gloves are makin’ glovely (I did that on purpose) patterns on my hands.  I particularly like the dots over the knuckles.  And the dark blue bike matching nail varnish 😉 *grin*