Back on the road again

I went for a 11 mile ride yesterday, which I took fairly easy, it was short and no big hills. At the end of the ride I felt really good. After stretching my legs out I noticed that my left knee was inflamed.
I woke up today and my leg felt fine. Okay, it wasn't perfect, but it was pretty good considering what it had been. The swelling seemed to be pretty minimal this morning. I decided to put some Icy-Hot on my knee this morning to hopefully help with the swelling and some tenderness around the knee.
Since my knee was not worse than yesterday, and quite frankly it felt better, I decided to go for another ride today, this time a little longer. I did a 22.5 mile ride today, but I had a strong head wind all the way out on the ride, and I always tend to push harder when there is a headwind, so I may have pushed it a touch too hard today. At about the 7 mile mark my knee started to hurt a little. Kristin was in class tonight so I didn't have the option to call Kristin to come pick me up, which was probably the best thing, looking back. I rode the rest of my route and I noticed that it is actually the muscles/tendons around my knees that appeared to be sore today, so maybe I will be okay tomorrow, or maybe I just trying to convince myself that my joint is okay? We will see how it goes tomorrow.