Cliff North: I read with interest the experience of Karen Hambly in Indoor Rowing News #125 and her use of the Indoor Rower for rehab after major joint surgery. On May 16th 1998, at the age of 59, I crashed off my mountain bike in the Peak National Park on an off- road trail. I wrecked my left ankle and after the cavalry arrived, with a four wheel drive ambulance, and got me to hospital in Sheffield, I had reconstructive surgery, five days in hospital and three months on crutches. When the pots (I had three) finally came off in early August and with the encouragement of my sympathetic physio, I started gingerly on the Indoor Rower at my local gym doing just five minutes gentle rowing with the damper lever on one. The rowing action gradually built strength and flexibility into the ankle and leg as well as developing much needed all round fitness after weeks of sitting around with the ankle in plaster. Rowing, of gradually increasing length and intensity, along with more conventional hospital physiotherapy, worked a dream and when I was finally discharged from the fracture clinic in the December, my surgeon was amazed at the progress, bearing in mind my age and the severity of the fracture which had involved torn ligaments and the need for the surgical insertion of a steel plate and seven screws to hold the joint together. They are still in there and since this time I have rowed every week apart from holidays along with stretching and weight-training for general all round fitness, my routines developed with the help of the Concept 2 Training Guide [http://www.therowingcompany.com/guide/]. I stared counting the metres in 2003 and I have the million metre distance award and am on track towards the five million, all being well. So spread the news about the efficacy of the Concept 2 Indoor Rower for rehabilitation after severe joint trauma. It really does work. Oh, and I have not been on a bike since 1998.