pain behind the knee

CycloRos

Hi folks,
I've been suffering over the last 3 weeks with a rather annoying pain behind my right knee.

I ride a lot (approx 100 miles per week) which involves an 18 mile round trip daily commute and some XC at weekends (if I have any energy left). I've been doing this since September last year so my body is well used to it, however just recently this pain has appeared and is reluctant to go away.

Went for a fairly big XC ride yesterday on my full-sus and the knee was ok, rode my commuter hard-tail this morning and the pain was there instantly. This has lead me to look at my bike setup, it feels comfortable enough but obviously something is aggrevating my knee but where do I start? seat post height? saddle position? help me please....

Thanks,

David-Witts

First obviously get your knee checked by a Doctor and have some physio as required incase you're aggravating ligaments. You may just need a week or 2 off the bike to heal the damaged knee

What type of pedals are you using for your commuter bike, clipless? If they are clipless, I'd recheck the cleats. loosen them off, pedal slowly to see if they want to change position. Make the bike fit change to your body, rather than the body change to the bike fit. Retighten cleats in a different postion. Maybe move the saddle slightly forwards. Slightly more drastic is to use some normal pedals with MTB toestraps and some flatish shoes , also re-adjust saddle height and see if the pain still continues. Flat shoes and normal pedals giving you some rotational float. Davy

CycloRos

Thanks for the advice. I've got a physio appointment tomorrow night so I'll see how that goes.

A bit more background - When I first did the damage I was off the bike for a week (and even walking was quite painful) once I was comfortable walking again tried riding to work and it was painful so stopped for another week. This brings us up to last weekend, rode a little and it hurt again and have stayed off the bike for another week until yesterday, despite a trip to South Wales (that took some will power!)

I ride flats on all my bikes. Resting doesn't appear to be helping and other than moving my saddle forward I can't really think of anything else to do?

The seat angle on my commuter bike has always struck me as slack, could this be contributing i.e. my weight is too far behind the crank?

what sort of leg position should I be aiming for when I'm on the bike?

CycloRos

Just a quick update - went to the physio last night who identified the problem as a torn gastrocs muscle (one of the calf muscles that runs from behind the knee to the achilles tendon).

As to what caused it I still don't know, the only suggestion was the gradual shortening of the muscle over time because of the amount of riding and not stretching properly.

So two more physio sessions and then hopefully back on the iron horse, oh and I will be stretching properly in the future! I don't like being broken