'I've ridden almost 60,000 miles since having my knee replaced!'

"I had a partial knee replacement in 2010, but unfortunately, it didn't go particularly well," explains MyWhoosh Big Ride Challenge participant Iain Clarke. "I had three further surgeries because one of the tendons snapped, and then I had my tendon grafted to hold my kneecap in place because it was dislocating. This meant that I was inactive for almost three years."

Before his surgery struggles Iain, from Aberdeenshire in Scotland, had always been active so was keen to start exercising again. "I told the physio that I needed to do something, and he said that cycling was probably the best thing I could do. I started on a static bike and I'm coming up on about 57,000 miles in that knee now!"

Of course, there's no cycling without a bike, and though Iain had an old mountain bike he wanted more, so he headed to his local Halfords in pursuit of something a little more sporty.

"I hadn't ridden a road bike for years. I sat on this thing in Halfords and it was about the right size, I took it home, went to go out for the first ride, and thought, 'how do you change gear?' There were no levers on the down tube - which I was used to. It took a wee bit of working out."

And there have been plenty more since that first bike – a Halfords own-brand Carrera. There was a Claud Butler, a Cube road bike – there's a Cube gravel bike now too – and a couple from the now sadly defunct Moriarty. Now, though, there's a beautiful Colnago V3, with Campagnolo wheels and Shimano Di2. "All the bells and whistles," as Iain says.

Combatting pain from bad knees might have been his entry to the sport, but Iain still has reason to curse them, as they've also kept him off the bike too. He's had his other knee replaced this year, and the original replacement is due for a change in the near future, though he was only off the bike for three weeks after his most recent operation.

"The physios had me on the static bike, rocking, but not doing a full rotation [of my leg]," he explains. "That was just to help stretch because I could put a bit of pressure down with the other foot. I was out in the garage on the indoor trainer, and I was rocking back and forward, and all of a sudden, when I went backwards, I went right over, so I worked a wee bit on doing the reverse rotation, just to get the knee going, and then I was able to start going forward. But just three weeks, I was quite pleased with myself."

So for now, Iain is back out on the roads around his Aberdeenshire home, getting as many miles in as he can, both because it's a beautiful place to ride a bike but also because his surgeon has recommended building as much muscle as possible before the next knee operation. "I've done half a dozen, 50-mile plus rides, and I'm hoping to do Ride The North, it's quite a big event up here on August 30th."

Though he's already halfway, the impending operation means Iain's unlikely to hit his My Whoosh Big Ride Challenge goal of 5,000 miles this year. "Last year was also interrupted because I was in atrial fibrillation [an irregular heart rhythm] for quite a while, so that knocked the cycling out for quite a bit. It was the first year in five or six years I hadn't ridden 5,000 miles, but my normal would probably be 120 to 130 miles a week." And with that Colnago waiting to be ridden, we're sure Iain will be out the moment he can.