It has been a long road in trying to unlock the source of my knee pain. The pain started after our vacation we took in the Tetons where we rode every day for 4 days (this after I did the Pierre's Hole 50). I was a little concerned, but not enough to be worried because I had never had knee pain from cycling, despite being a masher (pushing big gears, slow cadence) and also being a single-speeder.
The big mystery was that I had not changed (to my knowledge) seat position or geometry on the bike for a couple of years. This is why it was so mind-boggling
When we got back to Butte, my knee was downright grumpy! It did not like walking downstairs, and remained tender throughout the winter (when my only mileage on the bike was an occasional spin on the trainer). This was enough to think that either something chronic was happening due to use over the years, or my bike measurements were way off. I kept trying tweaks to saddle height, seat for/aft position, as well as cleat position on the shoes relative to the pedals.
I took the measurements from my last official bike fit and applied them to the trainer. Somewhere along the line, I overcompensated for saddle height. My theory was that it was better to err on the side of the saddle being too high, as opposed to too low.
It ends up that the following adjustments were critical in significantly reducing (close to eliminating) my knee pain:
The big mystery was that I had not changed (to my knowledge) seat position or geometry on the bike for a couple of years. This is why it was so mind-boggling
When we got back to Butte, my knee was downright grumpy! It did not like walking downstairs, and remained tender throughout the winter (when my only mileage on the bike was an occasional spin on the trainer). This was enough to think that either something chronic was happening due to use over the years, or my bike measurements were way off. I kept trying tweaks to saddle height, seat for/aft position, as well as cleat position on the shoes relative to the pedals.
I took the measurements from my last official bike fit and applied them to the trainer. Somewhere along the line, I overcompensated for saddle height. My theory was that it was better to err on the side of the saddle being too high, as opposed to too low.
It ends up that the following adjustments were critical in significantly reducing (close to eliminating) my knee pain:
- Lowering seat position by an inch - most feedback is that knee pain comes from a saddle being too low. The opposite can also happen. Unfortunately I must have made an adjustment on seat height on my singlespeed without realizing how off I was. I have since taken to using tape on my seat post to also mark my mountain bike height. My seat height is now the exact same for both my road and mountain bikes.
- Moving cleat on shoe back about 3/4 inch. Based on where the bone on the inside of my feet aligned with the pedals - in order to try to mimic my road cleat/pedal metrics.
- Aligning fore/aft saddle position to align with bike fit done 4 yrs ago. Making sure alignment from my knee to the foot at the 3 and 9 o'clock positions was also in synch with the bike fit measurements.
These 3 things really resolved my knee pain. The crazy part was the time span - within a week of making these adjustments, I could tell there was significant progress - almost full progress!
I had read many articles on cycling and knee pain and intuitively knew and understood the criticality of the 3 items above. Unfortunately for me, I did not take the time to confirm and re-confirm geometry.
The lesson learned for me is that even though you currently have your bike dialed in, continue to check it occasionally as things do tend to shift based on how you transport your bike (removing a seat post, etc) or possible maintenance, or just riding your bike will sometimes move seat height or saddle position. As for thinking that the geometry had not changed in a couple of yrs as stated above, I now realize that not only did the things move/change, but my original measurements might have been off.
sorta' like they say in construction 'Measure twice, cut once'
I have knee pain from last year. i am a sport person and do lots of physical exercise of my upper body and when i started my lower part exercise from that time my knee get injured .
ReplyDeleteWe must take care of our body.
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