I have a drinking buddy who is a doctor. He insists that medicine is an art, not a science, which I am starting to understand the older I get and see more doctors. My last visit the other day just confirmed everything, while messing up with my convictions and confidence at the same time.

If you’ve been reading this blog long enough (unlikely – the first article I wrote on this subject was 11 years ago) you’ll perhaps recall that once upon a time I thought that I had a sore knee due to the beginnings of osteoarthritis.

I tried all sorts of stuff to try and alleviate this annoyance, including the very successful viscosupplementation (knee shots), until a young sports doctor in Nimes told me one day that because the pain I was feeling was in the tendon below the kneecap, it was obvious that I must have tendonitis. Some physiotherapy followed, then I just didn’t do much at all with the knee for many years. Before I even went to see this doctor, I had found that I could manage the pain without taking anything and I figured I had it solved, at least till age or weight caught up with me.

Well, during Covid I got older and fatter and I didn’t ride as much either. I am guessing that these things have conspired to bring me to where I am today, which is back to feeling pain on the bike enough that it’s affecting my riding.

This led to me going to THE sports doctor in Nimes two days ago, who poked and prodded and scanned my tendon enough to pronounce that there is nothing that he can see that’s wrong with it. He thinks that it might be the osteoarthritis that has been the culprit all along.

Now I need to wait to get an MRI appointment (August) and we’ll talk about next steps. In the meantime, I have to climb some cols with clients starting Monday. I hope they are older and fatter than they look on their Strava profiles.