Road Cycling - knee pain.

I have pain in my knee cap when I ride sometimes. I ride a low gear that a high cad. About 110. What can I do to make it stop? Have any of you had the same problem. Also I have speedplay pedals so I know its not the pedals. What did you do to get rid of your knee problems? I have a poll of what should I do to make my knee stop hurting when I ride. The pain is not horrible just ackie.

I voted for "get better adjusted to my bike", but you should have worded it "get bike better adjusted to me" :)

I'm sure somebody who deals with fitting more then myself will beable to tell you how to change the fit of your bike to fix the pain. IIRC pain on the front of the knees means you are extending the leg to much, and you need to lower the seat a bit.

I am also a spinner (high cadence) and I take two aspirin before I ride and it works wonders for me. But I have never had knee cap pain and am not a doctor. I ride because I love it, but got into it after tearing up a knee playing football (the real kind, known as soccer over here). Rather than full reconstruction of my knee I opted to ride a bike as there is so little lateral stress on the knee. So aspirin works wonders for my knee pain and hopefully, something so simple will also work for you. But Mr. Gardner has it right. Start by insuring proper adjustment of your bike to your frame. Not you to its frame size.

A good link for doing your own bike fitting is www.wobblenaught.com You can make all the measurements (with help) and see if you are even close. Do final fitting at your LBS.

one should have a good bike fit, I would ride for long period of time I won't feel any pain in my knees, why because I have a bike that is fit to a "t", I would sometime have problem with lactate acide build up but nothing to worry, I just pop in one or two "tums" and its gone

I had knee pain when I first started riding road bikes (about 14 years ago and road for quite awhile with it untill someone said I should raise my saddle about 1cm and the knee pain went away within a week. FIT FIT FIT is the key to getting rid of knee pain. I also use speedplay pedals so i have no worry about float. Aspirin hides the pain and i would not suggest it as you may be doing a lot of damage to your knees but not feel it. Find someone who knows bike fit (LBS) and you should be able to fix it.

I had some knee problems, and after a bit of experimentation I found that my saddle needed to be higher and slightly more forward. And lowering the handlebars a bit helped as well.
Sometimes, especially if your riding far or for you high cadence guys who have as many pedal cycles in 10 miles as I have in 15, small adjustments make all the difference.

If it's the top of the knee, that could be the quadriceps tendon. I get that pain sometime. Do quadricep stretches before and after the ride, but if it's really bothering you, take a couple of days off instead of aggravating it. If it's not that bad, take a couple of Motrin before a ride.

I find that whenever I get knee pain, if I adjust the height of the saddle, it will gradually cure it. You have to remember that a height change of as little as a couple millimeters can make the different in your knees. Try adjusting it and dialing in the height.

I'd take some time off from the bike, and perhaps look into different adjustments that can be done to help..... seeing a doc might not hurt either.

this article (written by the knowledge Mr. Brown himself) might help.

http://sheldonbrown.com/pain.html#knees

Every single time I have ever gotten a knee twinge it is from saddle position.. almost ALWAYS saddle height. After installing saddle, pedals, shoes, and cycling shorts (all things that will alter riding position to some extent) I took the bike out for a quick 30 miler and noticed my left knee was letting me know something was not right... moved the seat up 1/2" and the sensation went away and my speed/cadence went up. After about 10 miles or so the left knee cap started to tickle a little... I could easily tell that the seat needed a little nose up... I felt as though I was sliding forward and knew that was a problem...
So I would suggest that it's a fit issue. Change something a little bit and see what happens...
Doug

You may want to try going without the clipless pedals for a ride or 2 and see if there is any problem. Riding friend had a similar experience, and found out he cannot use clipless pedals.

Does not cost anything except 1 or 2 rides, and could pay off, or at least rule out altogether the pedals.

Thank you so much for your information. I will lift my saddle up. Also when I was riding my mountain bike I had my saddle up so high that my leg was almost but close to be fully extented. And I never had knee problems. And I was able to go 19mph over a highy course. Then when I got myy road bike. The people from the shop adjusted me to the bike. But I was way lower then on my mountain bike. I did that hilly couse and I could only avg 18mph and that was when I was really pushing it. Then I mess up my knee doing my first 100miles in one day. But I was able to do 80 and 90 on the mountain bike, no problem. Then I toke my bike to the shop and I got back on my mountain bike. I was so surprise on how high it was. I had to lower it. But I will raise my seat hopefully that will help me.

Two things I would suggest (these may have already been mentioned):

1. Got to your LBS and get the right bike fit.

2. When you start a ride, pedal easily at first and gradually build up to top pace, ensuring you are warmed up properly.

Stretch and strenghtening will help an awful lot, and for me raising the seatpost slightly helped too.

My knee pain exists from say mile 4 to 4.5 or 5 then goes away. I assume it is warm up and just go on.

Then a couple of weeks ago both knees started hurting while I was lifting some logs to cut for fire wood.

A young guy that plays hockey told be to try something called "Fleximin" pills from WalMart. Supposed to keep the padding stuff in your joints working.

HTH
Joe

thank you all so much for your information. I raised my saddle an inch and a half. I rode hard today and I was faster and my knee did not even come into my mind. Then after I rode. I went to the chiroprator and My knee was not out, it was fix.

Also went my knee was hurting I felt like it was never going to be fix. And I almost quit. But now that its better I love cycling more now then ever. After I was done today I felt so good. I have not felt like this for 5 months.

Remember that you may not be completely finished with the fit yet... I can notice even a 1/4" in seat post makes a difference and your saddle tilt also makes a difference... bing along an allen wrench so that you can make these adjustements on the go. OF couse if it doesn't ever bother you again DON'T touch it LOL.
Doug

High spinner here and i would try the fit but make sure you do a good warmup before you start.I warmup for 3 miles and warmdown for 1.It also just might be the pedals to.Try not clipping in and see what happens.

An inch and a half, WOW! That thing must not have been fitted at all then.

I agree, a 1.5" adjustment is huge. I would goto a local bike shop and get a correct bike fitting, check the handlebar height and reach, saddle adjustments, as well as cleat placement on your shoes, hopefully you have the correct frame size ;)

The time and money (~ 1hr / $35) will pay off with years of comfort.