Originally Posted by
smurfy
More bad news is that I can't seem to ride a conventional bike at all anymore. It appears that my whole lower leg is now bowed from the bad knee
Are you sure about the direction of the arrow of causality?
I had knee pain from about 2.5 years ago, from my 55th year, and it was progressing. I was taking glucosamine, doing all sorts of exercises, trying different bike fit, pedal extenders, pulling on my pedals etc.
I was lucky in that the pain was worse in my right knee, which was clearly related to my weak right butt due to a spinal hernia on that side.
Thanks to this hint, I eventually discovered that it was my weak butt that was causing my painful knees.
I then did more and more exercises to find out what part of my butt weakness was causing knee weakness and in my case it seemed that my weakening ability to rotate my femur was causing my legs to bow, that was causing my knees to hurt.
The standard exercise for rotational strength in the femur are reverse clamshells, clamshells, Rumanian squats, and (what I do now) standing (reverse) clamshells.
I now regularly exercise rotational strength in my femur, and my knees don't hurt.