Recovering from knee replacement surgery is the worst. The only thing worse than the pain without knee replacement is the thought of having to live the rest of your life with the pain of living with a knee that needs to be replaced.
In April, I went under the robot pocketknife and had my left knee replaced. It’s been three months of pain, physical therapy, and, did I mention the pain?
Bicycling is one of the weightier recovery tools for knee replacement, but I had a slow recovery, and for the first two months, I couldn’t plane do a pedal stroke on a stationary bike. I had to sit on the saddle and waddle my foot forward and back, trying to will my knee to wrench unbearable to make a well-constructed revolution.
The lack of worthiness to ride was incredibly frustrating because, just surpassing my surgery, Cannondale released new bikes in their Adventure Neo Allroad line. Without talking to Cannondale well-nigh my upcoming procedure, they were nice unbearable to send me a loaner Adventure Neo Allroad EQ to review for my recovery.
The plan is to use the velocipede first to get me when in shape to ride my Cannondale SuperSix, and then use it when I want to hit gravel trails or for errands to town.
It is unfathomably frustrating to stare at a trappy new velocipede and not be worldly-wise to ride it, but it gave me the motivation to work harder in physical therapy.
Two months and two days without my surgery, I hit a milestone when I could slowly pedal a recumbent. The relaxed geometry of the velocipede unliable me to get the rotation I needed to turn the pedals, and I knew that first rotation that I was on my way to riding again.
A week later and I was riding the stationary velocipede at physical therapy. Like the exercise bikes you see at the gym, this one had a wide saddle and increasingly laid-back geometry than a real bike.
Two days later, I could finally get on the beautiful, gleaming Adventure Neo Allroad EQ. I could only ride up and lanugo the woodcut a few times, but the ride had the feeling of self-rule from when I was a kid.
The Adventure Neo Allroad has a Bafang electronic drivetrain with a 250W hub motor that can get up to 47 miles on a charge. A thumb throttle gives squire up to 20mph, and while it won’t do that speed uphill, the motor provides a nice boost.
The EQ in the name stands for “equipped,” as it comes with a rack, lights, and massive tires that can go from paved roads to gravel to dirt roads without any issue.
With a stepover frame, Neo (that’s what I’ve decided to name it) is easy for me to mount. Neo has similar relaxed geometry to the velocipede at the therapist, as it’s designed to be used on any terrain. For my first ride, I racked the saddle when and raised the seat post just whilom my usual position.
Not only is Neo an spanking-new velocipede for a new rider that’s going out to ride with a increasingly experienced cyclist and wants to be worldly-wise to alimony up. I ride regularly with a group of friends that had been riding for a few years and have wilt increasingly and increasingly capable riders. Having an e-bike misogynist would have been a unconfined way to build up cycling power while moreover stuff worldly-wise to wits the fun of visiting new places.
Out and Back
Sunday is the regular group ride day with my friends, and it’s been a year since we all rode together. My original knee injury happened increasingly than 35 years ago, and surgery at that time involved the removal of my meniscus.
I’ve ridden tens of thousands of miles since that original surgery, but over the last few years, my knee wreck rubbing together made cycling harder and harder. Last winter, I had to requite up plane on stationary bikes.
This Sunday, I rolled out of bed, ready for my first ride of 2023. My friends had planned a 30-50 mile ride, and I planned to join them for the first few miles.
Getting started is unchangingly a challenge. During the first few pedal strokes, my knee was pretty tight, but the support of a powered hub made it possible for me to warm my legs slowly.
The Bafang hub has five motor uplift levels, and generally, I ride in the first or second level. The Neo has seven gears, and the velocipede boosts withal with your level of input. Plane at the first level of powered support, it’s pretty easy to get tropical to 20mph with a slight ripen on the road.
We rode together for the first four miles, chatting and transmissible up. I instructed my friends not to let me overdo it as I’m prone to writing checks my legs can’t catch. Our route is withal the river, with trappy views, and the air was, for the first time in days, self-ruling of smoke from Canadian wildfires.
At the fifth mile, their route took them up a short-but-steep hill and a mile without a mile-long 15% grade climb.
Their takeoff was a good reason to bail, so I turned virtually as they headed up the hill. Usually, I’d finger bad for withdrawing them but having ridden that far exhilarated me.
For well-nigh a mile, I turned off the powered squire and pedaled on the unappetizing river road without help from the bike. It was exhilarating.
On my way home, I turned and rode to the end of a pier jutting into the river. A mile-long road, the path had been used to load ships sailing lanugo the Hudson River and was used during World War II as an embarkment point for soldiers.
I was nearly vacated as I pedaled to the end of the pier and stopped at the end with no people virtually at all. I sat and thought well-nigh life and how cyclists go through variegated stages.
I turned virtually and pedaled home, assisted by Neo. One short climb on the return route was only possible for me now with an e-bike. Well-nigh 500 yards long, the road starts at tropical to 18%, flattens briefly, and then hits 18% again. The momentary unappetizing is just long unbearable to mess up a good cadence.
On this ride, though, I put the velocipede in the highest level of squire and hit the throttle. I didn’t set a speed record, but I didn’t get off and walk either.
Neo and I are going to be good friends.
Recovering from Knee Replacement Surgery and Happily A Fred
Many years ago, I was moderating a live yack for Velocipede Hugger during the Tour de France, and there was a commercial for a velocipede computer that featured two riders arriving from variegated directions at a coffee shop.
One rider had no velocipede computer, and the other rider did. The rider with the velocipede computer looked at it and smiled as he saw his mileage. The screen showed he had ridden seven miles, and many people in the yack joked well-nigh what a “Fred” he was for stuff proud of seven miles.
Some people on the live yack commented on how silly the short loftiness was. Another cycling website plane wrote an vendible well-nigh the commercial and how ridiculous it was for someone to be so happy with such a short ride.
I wrote a rather scathing reply to this as my cycling journey started with rides much less would-be than seven miles. Chronically overweight as a kid, my first real riding happened in my 20s when my friend’s mom gave me her three-speed Raleigh road velocipede when she moved.
My first ride on that velocipede was well-nigh a mile, but it was the start of a journey to see me riding bikes worldwide. I would have killed to have been worldly-wise to ride seven miles.
That first ride with friends last week was well-nigh 11 miles, the longest I’ve ridden since last summer by 11 miles. While most of it was assisted by a powerful motor, it’s one of the cycling upbringing I’m most proud of.
By fall, I hope to be when on my Cannondale SuperSix and riding under my own power, but my stable of bikes will likely include an e-bike from now on. They’re incredibly user-friendly and an spanking-new nomination for a day when you’re not sure how much you’ve got in you but want to ride.
I’ll be doing a full review of the Cannondale Adventure Neo Allroad EQ without I’ve spent increasingly time on it, which I’ll be doing in well-nigh five minutes as I ride when from the coffee shop where I’m writing—a coffee shop I had to momentum to just a few days ago.
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