Originally Posted by
i wish
thanks so much everyone!
I guess I probably have patellar tendonitis....
I'm going to start icing it right away and stay off the bike for a few days.
We will also carefully adjust my saddle height...and make sure it is correct.
I sure hope this doesn't destroy my plans for the summer...
Highly recommend stretching your quads as well. Grab your foot and pull it up to your butt, slowly pushing your knee back behind you as far as is comfortable, then hold it for a minute. Do not "bounce" it, just hold it steady. Repeat with the other leg. I do that before and after riding, and usually once or twice during breaks, especially if I'm touring with a load. Would also recommend that you do that now, while you're off the bike and trying to recover. I did it three or four times a day in addition to icing and ibuprofen while I was trying to recover from that first tour.
Also stay off the bike for awhile. A few days will likely not be long enough. What I did was go out for a very short ride in the immediate vicinity of my home. If I had any knee pain, any at all, I would walk the bike home and continue the icing and stretching for another week, then try again. When I was finally able to ride pain free, I started out very short and easy, and created a schedule where I would increase my distance by about 10% per week.
That experience taught me not to take my knees for granted if I wanted to continue riding and touring. Follow the advice everyone is giving you here - the saddle height, working up to your riding distances and difficulty levels, making sure your bike is geared low enough, riding with a high enough cadence, stretching quads, keeping hydrated, etc. Since I started paying attention to those things my knee problems have been manageable. Sometimes I will still get a twinge or two, but when that happens I immediately stop and stretch, pop a couple of ibuprofen, and all is well, even on long, strenuous, heavily-loaded tours.
A note on the ibuprofen: As you may already know, it causes stomach problems in some people. I don't have that issue, so my Dr. advised me to take 2400 milligrams per day for ten days to help stem the inflammation during that initial recovery period (three 200-milligram pills at a time, four times per day). It helped immensely. But that's a heavy dose, and may not be good for others. Talk to your doctor.