Originally Posted by lighthorse

This is the most important point!!! If your knees begin to hurt, then take the pressure off of your knees by spinning and quit hammering, whether it is on the flats or on the hills. If you want to ride long distances at our age (I'm 63) then learn to spin.

How long will it take to heal? Guess that depends on how badly you strained it and your definition of healed. You can still ride if you just spin with no pressure on the knees on the down stroke.

Often on a cross country I will begin to feel the knee pain and I know that I have not been concentrating on my form. I find that on the flats I can concentrate and spin easily, in the mountains I can spin easily as well, but in constant hills (Texas hill country for instance) it is much more difficult to stay focused and keep the shifter working.

Just my .02.