Hip Pain on new bike.

PTurner1975

I have recently upgraded my old flat bar hybrid bike to a shiny new road bike (Giant Contend SL2). Although the old bike was never professionally fitted the saddle height & fore/aft position was very comfortable and I covered 000’s of enjoyable miles including plenty of 50/60 mile rides.

I have swapped over my pedals from the old bike to the new and am still using the same shoes and cleats. Using the measurements as best I could from the old bike (centre of BB to top of saddle for height) I have set the saddle position as close as possible and the first few shorter rides (20 miles or so) I have done haven’t given me any aches and pains. I had a slightly sore neck after the first ride or two but I put this down to the new stretched out position and this has since stopped.

However the last couple of longer rides (35/40 miles) I have started to develop pain in my hips around the 25/30 mile mark which lasts until the end of the ride and is quite sore for the next day or so. After the first time this happened when double checking my measurements I noticed the crank arms are longer on the new bike (175mm) compared to the old bike (170mm). I am 6ft tall with a 34” inseam.

Should the saddle height be adjusted to compensate for the longer cranks and could this be a reason for the pain or will the new riding position take a bit more getting used to?!

A professional bike fit is the next step but in the meantime any comments/opinions would be most appreciated.

Thanks in advance

Paul

EBEB

Yes, if the cranks are longer you should try reducing the saddle height by 5mm too. It is not much though, so I'm skeptical that it would explain everything.

Otherwise, it is hard to be very helpful as there are so many 'ifs'. Do you have an indoor turbo trainer or rollers? If so there are iPhone (and probably Android Apps) to help with basic bike fit. It won't be as good as a good professional fit, but is much cheaper/easier.

Your hybrid probably had you quite upright. The road bike will have you rotated forward, including pelvis. Some aches are expected, particularly neck pain from looking up to see forward. You get used to it.

If you do go for a fit, there are lots off cowboys. Get some recommendations firsts and don't be swayed by pseudoscience PR. You'll be better off with someone good eye-balling it than a 17th old with all the fancy gizmos.

PTurner1975

Thanks for the response.

The hip pain is on my right hand side. The old hybrid bike also had a triple chainring and the new bike has a double so I'm now wondering if I need to adjust the position of the cleat on the shoe to allow for the fact that the crank arm & pedal has moved inward slightly.

EBEB

Have you still got the old bike? If so you could measure the Q-factor between the two pedals. I would expect the triple to have had a wider Q-factor; you could compensate for it by moving the cleans inward. On all the bikes I've had the variation has been symmetrical though, so I'm not sure I can see why it would cause a symptom on just one side.

Lots of modern phones have a high FPS camera mode. If you have a turbo trainer you could always take a video of yourself and just check that you are not doing anything different on that side.

PTurner1975

The old FSA triple measures 155mm from outside of crank arm to outside of crank arm, the new Shimano double measures 150mm. Maybe my hips are used to riding in the slightly wider position and the slight narrowing of the Q factor is upsetting them, will have to try moving the cleats in so I my feet are the position they are more accustomed to.

Thanks again.

kajjal

The only time I had hip pain was when after cleaning the bike I accidently set the saddle too high. This causes all kinds of strains. Quick way to check is with the crank down and in line with the seat tube you should be able to lift yourself of a little off the saddle upwards inline with the seat post. If you can't your saddle is too high.Typical signs are rocking on the saddle, pointing feet down at the bottom of the pedal stroke or continually moving too far forward on the saddle as you over stretch to the pedals.

Also look up KOPS as it gives a good rough guide to the correct saddle for / aft position that you can then tweak. Make sure the saddle is level as this can also cause issues but do it on a flat surface. The main thing is the saddle position is to get your legs in the right position and not to adjust reach to the bars.

Road bikes can take a while to setup correctly the first time you get one but it is easy enough to do for most people unless you are going very fast or have an existing weakness or injury. Once you have the saddle right it is just a case of where you prefer the bars to be which is partly personal preference.

imposter2.0

It can take several weeks to get fully used to a new riding position. Aside from making sure that your basic fit measurements are correct (you mentioned a crank length difference earlier), just stick with it.