Bike Fit

velogee

Hi,

New to road and loving it.

I am getting some knee pain when cycling and I think this has something to do with my bike set up. Does any one know of a mobile service for bike fit?

Failing that, if anyone in the Basingstoke area could point me in the right direction

Cheers

ricklilley

I may get corrected here, but i would say that knee pain is most likely caused by saddle height being too high or low. Or foot position on pedal wrong, cleats need adjusting if using clipless pedals. If in doubt go back to the bike shop and ask their advice

MattC59

Where is your knee pain ? I used to get it on the ATB, the knobbly bit on the outside of the knee where the tendon joins. I bought some wedges which I've mounted between my cleats and shoes. They've corrected the alignment and totally erradicated any knee pain.

Have a look at my posts in this thread and visit the web site. You might find it helps:
http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=40020&t=12793467&p=17123277&hilit=knee#p17123277

velogee

its in the back of my right knee only. Its on and off, but driving me mad

MattC59

velogee wrote:

its in the back of my right knee only. Its on and off, but driving me mad

Could be down to cleat alignment. sit on the edge of a table and see how your feet hang. If it's toes out, then you'll need to have the front of the cleats pointing inwards slightly so that your feet sit naturally on the pedals.

Evil Laugh

I'd be wary of slapping wedges under your cleats. It's not a commonly required step.

They are generally the last port of call for foot correction behind arch support and in-shoe wedges. The problem being that you change the angulation of the whole foot rather than support part of it like the forefoot,arch or heel.

A pain in the back of the knee would not normally occur because of cleat rotation either. This would normally occur below the knee cap and to either side of the bone.

Id start with 2 things..

I'd look to see if your cleats are aligned together fore and aft first. Ie one is not more forward than the other on the pedals. This can create a false Leg length discrepancy and make you reach more with one leg. This could cause a pain behind the knee on the back of the leg. The same pain could be caused by a high saddle.

If its behind the knee cap itself, could be saddle too low. A fairly decent guide to saddle height is to put the back corner of your heel on the pedal axle (imagine your heel is a square shape looking side on, so the point of the back of your heel). You should be just able to touch the pedal axle with your leg fully extended when the crank is in like with the seat tube. This is not a golden rule or foolproof method but is a good starting point to see if saddle heigh is way wrong.

If cleat fore aft and saddle height is ok I'd be tempted to say that a likely cause would be the fact that you're a new cyclist and your patella tendon is hurting as you are straining it. This would be a pain behind and below kneecap.


Hope that helps.

giant_man

velogee wrote:

its in the back of my right knee only. Its on and off, but driving me mad

This is the problem I had, a bike fit did sort it out. Went to Paul Hewitt who was very thorough, you are right though, it is about position. A good fitting should cure it. The seat position was heightened though.

velogee

Thanks guys, I am going to take on the advice and see if I can eradicate this pain before it starts to get me down

velogee

I followed the instructions evil laugh gave me and they have worked a treat.

Next time I buy a bike I wont be going without a proper bike fit.

Thats Evans for you....