Riding position!

pete higham

how long does it generally take you lads (and girls) to set up your riding position?

i have been back riding since the middle of december and i thought i had a comfortable set up on the bike untill i bought a set of spd's a month ago and started to get a little niggle in my knee, i have done little changes to it since and it has reduced every time, hopefully my little changes i have done to my bike tonight will have fine tuned it enough that it will no longer be there when i go riding tomorrow.

another thing is that for XC most people are using a really long stem! i have the problem of longer legs in relation to my body and i use a 75 mm stem and i feel like i am hunched over a little more than i would like. does anyone on here use a smaller stem than 75mm for XC? :?

llamafarmer

I've had some problems with my knee lately which I can't really pinpoint the reason for. It did get worse after buying my new bike, so riding position probably played a big part there, but I had some niggles before that, so my SPDs may have been to blame. I also often ride in quite a big gear and try to power through stuff, which again can be bad for your knee.... :?

Daz555

If you have gone to SPDs and are getting knee problems then go back to flats for short time until the pain goes and then try your SPDs again. Classic problem with SPDs is that they can restrict 'float' (movement of the foot on the pedal) so this is worth looking at in terms of how your SPDs are set up.

kangaroo

your knees might be hurting with spds, because spds force your foot into a more straight position on the pedal

if you sit on a table or something that you can dangle your feet off, and look at the angle they naturally fall at, you might find that your feet point out or even in. so when you using your spds your foot is put into an unnatural position

one of things you can do to take away the pain is to get some body geometry insoles made by specialized, these will tilt the angle of your foot and somehow this compensates for the foot being in a straight position. i actually use these with flat pedals and it took my pain away

another thing is to use crank brother eggbeater pedals, these have a lot more float so your foot isn't in that fixed straight on position

robertpb

Is your saddle too low, I set mine at inside leg with clogs on plus 9%. My inside is 29 1/2 ins in bare feet, with my 5 10s on I set the saddle at 33 1/2 ins

Cadence, turn the pedals over at about 80 rpm. Standing on the pedals to move forward doesn't do your knees a lot of favours.

Whilst pushing down with one foot are you scrapping up with the other, again taking pressure off your joints.

As for the stem length mine is 40mm. I'm 5ft 5 1/2ins and I set my reach up by measuring from the back of the saddle to the centre of the bars and set this to max 700mm. It's worked for me over the past 25 years.

rackgaki

i have it so i can straighten my leg at the bottom of the pedal stroke but thats on a full susser whereas i have it slightley lower on a hard tail

Tank-slapper

rackgaki wrote:

i have it so i can straighten my leg at the bottom of the pedal stroke but thats on a full susser whereas i have it slightley lower on a hard tail

Is that with your cleat in the pedal? My saddle is set so my leg is straight (but not stretched) when my heel is just on the pedal at the furthest point from the saddle (not the bottom of the stroke).

rackgaki

thats clipped in with my foot flat at the bottom of the stroke