Originally Posted by
BigBlueToe
I got my first inguinal hernia repair about 3 months before I was scheduled to leave on my first big bike tour - from Seattle down the west coast to San Luis Obispo. I followed doctor's orders. When I started riding I took it easy. I worked my way up for a few weeks, then tried a pretty taxing 25-mile mountain bike ride on dirt roads. It didn't seem to irritate the surgery site at all. I took my tour as planned and had a great time. The only problem was that my training schedule was interrupted and I wasn't in very good shape when I started. The first 3 days were hard and unpleasant, but after that I got my second wind and didn't have physical problems again.
My advice (for what it's worth - not too much) would be to follow your doctor's orders about when to resume cycling, ease back into it, stop riding and call her/him if you feel pain, and let your body tell you when it's ready to resume 100% effort.
After my second repair, 15 years later, I rode the Northern Tier over the North Cascades Highway. The only problem was the numbness at the incision site.
My reasons for asking here, is that sometimes the surgeon, if they don't cycle themselves, will not truly know how long. Then you get very vague answers, my plan right now is to use the trainer (winter maintenance mode - 10km x 4 days a week) up until the day before surgery, then if I need to take a few weeks off, I will. My original plan, which is often the plan in December is to build up to a decent distance over the winter on the trainer, so I can hit the ground running in the spring. That was the plan in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010, so far, it's like the hopes Toronto can field a decent professional hockey team, this year
. I always seem to have some issue in the spring that screws it up
. 2007 I had a serious MTB crash
, 2008 I blew my back out (at work no less), 2009 I could not get motivated - never did
, 2010 will be a hernia. Maybe I need a new sport, something less dangerous, like sky diving! (I can hear the wife now,
)