If you’ve followed this blog this year you know that I ride a bicycle a lot and that I had a hip replacement back in April, six months ago this coming week. I was lucky enough to be able to keep riding up until about a week before my surgery. I couldn’t walk without a lot of pain, but I could and did ride a bicycle. Finally, the week before surgery, I was no longer able to swing my leg up over the bike and that was it for a while.
I was allowed back on a stationary bike right away after surgery, but was asked not to ride a regular bike. The problem wasn’t the movement involved in pedaling as much as the worry that in an accident I could really damage the new hip. At six weeks I was cleared to ride, though I was told no long distances.
I’ve not ridden over twenty-five miles since my surgery. That’s not a long distance.
The other concession I made during this time is that I’ve ridden my Hunqapillar with it’s wide gear range. Before surgery I was having trouble with my Quickbeam as it’s a very tall 66cm bike and because it’s a single-speed. While I was able to spin pretty well with a bad hip, I couldn’t get started from a stop on that bike, just too hard on the hip.
Well this past week, given that it’s almost my six month anniversary, I decided to pull it out and wow! Really. Just WOW! I’m having a great time riding on it with no problems at all. It’s a really sweet bike, my first Rivendell (Hunq is #2), and rides like a dream.
This image shows more or less what it looks like today (having going through a few incarnations), though the saddle is no longer the Brooks Cambium. I’m back to a regular leather Brooks B-17.
I haven’t quite done more that 25 miles in a day, but I’m ready. Boy am I ready.
Slower, cheaper, less useful…