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@Husy
My diagnosis seems to be spot on. Basically cleats fucked me over. Feet were too far in and toes pointing in too much I reckon. Just came back from the Midnight in the City Ride and I was fine through out.
The 1st and 3rd picture from the left illustrate my incorrect cleat positioning.
What this does is it tenses up the IT band, so I ended up wit acute ITB syndrome. This explains the muscle I saw and felt popping out on the outside of the knee and I felt it twing (like a guitar string) when bending and straightening my knee.
The solution is to firstly carry out RICE ofc. Then when starting to ride again to ditch cleats or get them aligned properly. I'm going to go for straps when fixed and no foot retention when SS to keep things simple. Then you have to stretch religiously, massage the IT band and otherwise get it to loosen up. You also have to strengthen the Gluteus Medius because essentially the IT band is being used instead of sharing the work with this muscle.
This vid explains three levels to a strengthening exercise for the Gluteus Medius.
SportCenter Exercises: Gluteus Medius Strengthening - YouTube
This guy explains it in more detail, he tries to explain that you not only need to strengthen the Gluteus Medius but also get the body to re-learn how to depend on it rather than the IT band
Gluteus Medius part 2- the Clamshell - YouTube