Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
8
Lost in the West
Saturday, August 20, Wolf Point, Montana
I
've been traveling by bicycle for twenty-five years or so, since the mid-1980s when I
bought a bike at the suggestion of a doctor. I'd had two operations on my right knee
by then, the first in 1977 just as I was finishing an MA in English at Columbia, to clean
out cartilage that I'd shredded in a basketball mishap. Unfortunately, arthroscopic tech-
niques were not yet in wide use for this kind of surgery, so my knee was sawed open and
during my recovery I wore a hip-to-ankle cast for several weeks.
1
Five years later, I had cartilage surgery again after I wrenched the same knee playing
softball. This time, the procedure was arthroscopic and I was on my feet the same after-
noon, out of the hospital the following day, and walking to work shortly thereafter. The
bad news was that during the operation the surgeon had discovered, to his surprise, that
not only was every bit of my knee cartilage ground into sand, but also that the anteri-
or cruciate ligament was torn. Judging by the state of the tear—the once-frayed ends
had congealed, he said—that injury had occurred a few years earlier. In other words, I'd
torn it that day on the basketball court in the Columbia gym, and my initial surgeon had
missed it completely.
Not terribly eager to have a third, considerably more serious operation to knit the
ligament back together, I asked what my options were. He told me to say good-bye to
basketball and softball and take up bicycling.
This seemed rather alarming to someone who was about to turn thirty, had played
team sports all his life and wasn't aching to give them up prematurely.
Well, the doctor said, among other benefits, bicycling would strengthen the muscles
around the knee and increase its stability, giving me a better shot at continuing to play
the games I still wanted to play.
