General Cycling Discussion - Left Knee pain starts in at about 30 miles.

Used to be (last summer), after about 6 miles, I would start to feel a problem in my left knee. I was riding with a visiting friend and she suggested raising my seat. We stopped and raised the seat a bit...made it hard to touch the ground when in the saddle and the bike was totally upright, but the pain magically disappeared.

My first ride of the season was about 2 weeks ago...I did a couple of 10 milers, no problem. Felt good to be riding again. Last Thursday I rode 35 miles. At about 30 miles I started feeling just a little hint of a problem, again in the left knee. When I stopped riding it went away. Saturday I started a metric century. Again, at about 30-35 miles it started again...just a hint of a problem. Well, by 50 miles I the pain had increased to the point that I quit the ride and took the offer of a lift back to the van (Thanks guys!). I didn't want to do any permanent damage. The pain seemed to subside, but a few hours later on the drive towards home it was back...and pretty intense. Two days later (no bike riding) the knee is fine.

So my question is - should I raise the seat again? or is there something else I should be checking and readjusting?

I have that same problem and it was because I had my saddle too high!:eek: I was also pushing too high a gear.

Now I make sure and try to spin those caranks and I watch my ankle. If I have to bend my ankle to make a circle I know it's too high for my knee.

The best thing I can reccomend is to go a very good bike shop and have them fit you even if you have to pay.
Seat to low, pain in the front. Seat to high, pain in the back. To short or to long a crank can cause a problem to. Fore/aft position of seat can also affect it some. Pedal cleat at wrong angle or with not enough float putting an unnatural twist in your stroke.

Before you panic, you may simply have an overuse problem. It appears from your post that you have increased your mileage dramatically in a short period. Conventional wisdom says that you should increase your weekly mileage by about 10% per week maximum.

Going from 10 to 85 miles in so short a time is asking for trouble. Unless you are active in another similar activity, our joints, ligaments, and tendons are probably not used to the stresses of cycling. That's not to say you don't need to check you bike fit. By all means do so. A bad fit will make everything worse. Also, cut down on the mileage. Go back to 35 miles and work up from there. If you can't seem to make progress, then see a doctor.

I had knee problems last summer when I tried to step up from 45 mile rides to metric centuries. I spent the winter doing a lot of sinning on the trainer and this year I have no knee problems.

Search for ITBS and/or goto http://www.itbs.info/

not saying this is what you have... just saying.

IF the pain is in the front of the knee your seat maybe to low, you may need to raise a tad, try 1/8th of inch at a time; ALSO the seat may be to far forward, try moving it back about 1/8th of an inch at a time and testing to see if the knee still hurts. If the seat is too far forward you can stress out the tibia area of the knee-and it dosen't take much. Take a weighted drop line off the boney tibia area of your knee to see where it lines up in the pedal when at the 3:00 position. It should (as a rule of thumb) intersect the middle of the pedal spindle; if your forward of this point move the seat back to get it too fall there. If it falls in the middle of the spindle now then try moving the seat back about 1/8th inch behind the spindle and test ride. If the pain is not as bad but still comes up, move back another 1/8 of an inch and re-test ride.

But Supcom could be right about the overuse situation as well.

When I jumped my milage up to a 140 mile ride from 100 mile previous best last fall and then tried to consolidate my gains by doing two more 140 mile rides the same week my knees started acting up(and on the last one as I recall it got so bad around the 30 mile mark I had to turn around) .I adjusted the seat and handlebar heights which I had neglected to do previously and cut back to only one 140 mile ride each week and had no further problems.So I agree it is likely a combination of ramping up milage too quickly made worse by non-optimal bike adjustments.Furthermore as some people never learn this spring I did a 100 mile ride I struggled on (though I had no knee problems)after building a base of 30-40 mile rides so I went back to the 30-40 mile rides (with one 60 mile thrown in)for a few weeks and my second 100 miler this past weekend went much better.So build up a base of miles consistantly and gradually increase the milage from there(and work on the seat adjustment).

Thanks, everyone. I guess I just got a little too enthusiastic about visiting someplace warm enough to finally start riding. I'm used to riding in the mountains. These two rides (the 35 mile & the 50 mile) were in North Carolina and the roads were very flat, so I was pedaling constantly. At home I pedal up the hills and then coast down the other side, so I'm exerting myself more when I am pedaling but then the legs get a bit of a rest on the downhills.

I'm back home now. I'll wait a few days and try a much shorter ride and work a bit more on the seat position. That may take a while if the knee problem doesn't start to show itself until I've gone at least 30 miles. Once summer arrives I will be so busy with work that I probably won't have the time to get in more than a 10 or 20 mile ride occasionally. At least now I have a clue about how to remedy the problem...Thanks again.

Happy cycling!

Update...

While the Old Man of the Mountain came crashing to the ground after 25,000 years ( a very sad day for New Hampshire ) I was obliviously meeting up with friends on the coast of Maine. These are women I don't see often enough...if I did my knee problem might have been solved a lot sooner. Five of these women are avid bicyclists...they lead organized rides, give maintenance workshops, safety workshops, etc...in general they've helped a lot of novices over the years. (Wish I lived closer to them so I could take advantage of their knowledge more often...and laugh! They make me laugh...something I don't do often enough)

It didn't take them more than a minute to figure out that my bike's frame is just much too small for me...so much too small that there's no more room for adjustments. So much for second hand bikes. (But it rides so much better than my old bike...I can't imagine what a properly fitted bike might feel like!)

Now I have to save my pennies, and when I have enough money set aside to go shopping you'll probably see me back asking for advice as to which bike to buy. So, for now, no more long distance rides 'til I can replace this bike. (boo! hiss!)

Thanks again for all your suggestions.

A few problems not mentioned so far:

- If you use cleats, the angle of your foot might not be adequate. Could you maximize the float until you find the really natural way to place your foot?

- Pushing too hard. Try to spin: i.e. not push hard on pedals, but rotate pedals at 70-90 rpm. Most importantly, do that even when you have the wind in your face or when climbing hills, even if it means going down 3-4 gears lower than what you are used to do. If you can't climb hills while spinning because your bike doesn't have low enough gears, either get lower gears or walk up hills (at least until you "cure" your knees).

- There might be a strain injury, which makes your knee more sensitive to abuse.

Regards,

mgagnonlv ...

I have never used cleats, just toe clips. Someday I suppose I should give cleats a try, but I'm such a klutz that they kind of scare me.

The problem, as I've been told, is that the bike is too small for me to get proper leg extension on the down stroke. It's funny that it has only happened to my left knee.

I do try to keep pedaling at a consistant rate, but will admit that when spinning it feels too easy so sometimes I will shift to a gear that offers some resistance. Maybe that's something I shouldn't be doing. However, I am not one that feels I have to get up that hill by pedal power. If a hill is too much for me I'm not afraid to get off and walk.

Thanks so much for your comments...this whole thing is a learning experience.