Knee pain & pedal float

dieselgeezer

I've been road riding for 30 years (now 68 yo) and always used clipless. Had quite a few bike fits over the years & cleat position was generally unaltered; Shimano SPD-SL yellow 6' float cleats with my toes pointing very slightly inwards (about 3'). To establish my "neutral" foot position I either sat on the edge of a table with my legs dangling or I had to march up & down.

A year ago I had sudden right knee cap pain, saw a specialist who diagnosed arthritis but said to carry on riding & back off if it hurt too much. He was also a cyclist & suggested using Speedplay pedals to increase the float. Initially I changed to 150mm cranks & increased saddle set-back from 70-100mm & this seemed to help a lot but still had painful twinges. A year on and rather than buying Speedplays I modified my SPD-SL pedals which enabled an increase in rotational float to about 20' (10' each side of straight ahead).

To my surprise, when using the modified pedals both feet point inwards by a whopping 15' (estimated). It doesn't feel odd but I'm wondering if such a radical change may have negative effects; I've only had 250 miles on them so far.

Any thoughts? Any experience of this? Do I just keep on with the pigeon toed set up & see if the knee pain reduces?

trekvet

Negative effects on what? If your feet are now floating at their optinum angle, surely that is the deciding factor, upon which all effects are based. It does show that the
idea of measuring feet angle by dangling off the end of the dining room table, as I found, is a complete waste of effort in getting up there in the first place. Now that your knees are as happy as they are ever going to be, keep using those pedals, put Orthaheel sports insoles in your shoes, take your glucosamine and chondroitin, stretch your quads and hips, and ride. Ps. I have Speedplay x5? with their unrestricted freefloat, I can dance my feet at all angles, and the knees love it.