Road Cycling - front knee pain and numb toes

I just started riding a few months ago. I have noticed that after riding about 10 miles the front of my knees hurt and my toes go numb. Anyone else experience this? Any suggestions?

Knee paid - could be from lots of things - did you get the bike fit for you? Could be due to improper fit, poor peddling technique ...

Toes falling asleep - shoes could be too tight, and you could be putting too much pressure on the soles of your feet - try pedaling in more of a spinning motion - ie - in circles - instead of mashing down.

Your saddle height could be detrimental to your knee. If the saddle is too low you can develop pain in the front of your knee, and if the saddle is too high you can get pain in the back of the knee. If you do a search on 'knee pain' or 'bike fit' you'll learn alot from previous posts.

I sometimes experience numb toes, although I wear normal trainers so it has nothing to do with the shoes being too tight. I think it occurs because on the downstroke my foot is angled with the toes being lower. I alleviate the numbness by riding with the downstroke inverted for a few minutes, by that I mean with the heel lower on the downstroke.

I hope you find a solution, Portent.

Check your KOPS (knee over pedal spindle) fitting and leg extension. Adjust your seatpost height and/or fore-aft positioning of your saddle appropriately as well as cleat position. This may necessitate changes to your handlebar position too. It is also possible that you may need a different crankarm length. You may want to head to a LBS and have them professionally check your fit. Here is a page which has compiled some good links to bike-fitting.

http://www.cyclemetrics.com/Pages/FitLinks/bike_fit_links.htm

As far as your toes go, it can be a byproduct of improper foot positioning so the above fix for your knees may fix the toe-numbing probles too. If not, check to make sure the tension straps on your shoes aren't too tight. Remember that your feet swell. Finally, check your socks... if they're too big then they'll bunch up in the wrong places and put undue pressure on parts of your feet. If they're too tight/small then they'll constrict your feet especially in the toes. This is what happened to me until I realised I was wearing socks one size too small. You may want to ride for five miles or until you feel the slightest bit of discomfort and then readjust the tension on your shoes to compensate for the swelling.

On the knee pain, it could be how you bike is adjusted or it could just be your knee. Recommend you check your fit by Peter White's method (http://www.peterwhitecycles.com/fitting.htm) and stretch the muscles in your knee area - works for me. For the back of knees stand with your knees straight and bend forward at the waist. For the front of knees, drop to knee standing position and sit backwards trying to touch your butt to heels. GENTLY. Will take some time to get them stretched out - take your time and be patient, you will be glad ya did!

I always start with my shoes pretty loose. Should have plenty of room for your toes to move around.

Fit is fundamental and arcane to 'newbies'. However for new riders, even perfectly fit initially, the body must adjust to the physical demands of pedaling and riding, one of which can be knee pain in the patellar, quadriceps tendons and in the quad muscles themselves. As you ride more, these recede for most people. Biking invokes different uses of muscles from walking and running.
The foot problem could also come from use of a shoe that is not only to small, but insufficiently stiff in the sole. A check of shoes at your LBS will show that bike shoes have very stiff soles compared with running or walking shoes; use of non bicycling shoes even with platform pedals will frequently cause foot problems. Steve

On the topic of knee pain, I have two comments:

1) Besides the issues mentioned above with fit, depending on your age and activity level, you could a pre-existing knee condition which is just being worsened by bicycling. Do you have popping/clicking when you flex/extend your knees? This would be true if you also have knee pain while walking for a long time, or during other forms of exercise where you flexing/extending your knee.

2) Always pay attention to pain. It's trying to tell you something. Some people say "Work through it" but this philosophy is not always the correct one. With joints, you don't want to get tendinitis, or a degenerative knee disease. Trust me!

3) When you have knee pain, take it easy and put ice on the knee.

I'm not a doctor, but I've had plenty of joint problems. I get knee pain every time I ride because of chondromalacia (a knee cartilage issue). Immediately icing my knees seems to help quite a bit.

Thank you all for your replies. I am so happy that I have found this site. All the information you all have been willing to provide has honestly amazed me. So again, I thank you.

I guess my post should have included some additional points. I have yet to purchase true cycle shoes so I have been biking with mere running shoes. Based on the information in all of the replies I have discovered this probably isn't the best idea!

Additionally, I do have pre-existing knee problems but have not had any problems since I stopped marathon training. I was surprised to see that biking may actually have "re-activated" the issue. Cycling was actually recommended to me by my Orthopedic!

Any suggestions for pedals?

From someone who is just into the second year riding a road bike, you will have a steep learning curve if you want to keep riding and solve your problems as you go. I was having knee pain when I first started and it was almost all related to my posture on the bike. I have to keep my knees in, twards the top tube, or I would have pain. Then I started having pain as I became stronger only to learn that I was pusing too high a gear and causing my knee to hurt. As I have progressed my spin has become smoother, faster, and I let my knee tell me when I need to gear down and pick up the pace.

There is also a realy fine line between too high a saddle and too low, but there is also a fine line between how hard to mash and how fast to spin. These tips have worked for me. I have been getting faster and faster while keeping the knee pain at bay. Best of luck sorting it out for your self.;)

My wife is also a runner who started cycling after having knee problems. If your pain is in the front of the knee, is it the patellar tendon? (That's my wife's problem)

She hasn't had any problems with her knees hurting on the bike. However, the mechanic at the LBS said that if the seat is too low, that could cause problems. She has always had her seat at a good height.

As far as pedals, she initially had some Look knock-offs that she hated. She had a lot of trouble getting out of the pedals because of the torque required. She now has speedplays and they have worked great for her. No problems at all. The float also may make it easier on the knee, but she hasn't really noticed any difference there.