Fit: What's causing knee pain?
 

On my latest bike, I'm getting pain like a mild strain behind my left knee after a brisk 5 mile ride. The bike is a vintage tourer. It's probably a little small for me, but I can get the seat to what I think is the correct height. (knee slightly bent at bottom of stroke) The bike is a 56cm square; I usually ride a mountain bike in a 20 inch. This happened twice; after the first time I dropped the seat down about 5mm. Is there a problem with my form or is it seat height or am I bending over too much because it's a drop-bar bike?

There's a link somewhere that says what pain in different areas of the knee are caused by. Gonna see if I can get it before someone else! BRB!

http://www.cptips.com/knee.htm !!~!!!!!!!!

Very informative- Thank you! Looks like I need to tweak the fit more and not push too hard right away. I guess I'm not a spring chicken any more. ;)

I'm 23 and have had knee pain, wrist pain, and achilles pain. I think I'm finally working it out though. I'll find out for sure during my ride from Chicago to Cleveland next week! Hopefully I'll be ok

Proper fit is likely the most important thing for cycling, and often the most-neglected. The typical bike-shop "fit job" ("Yeah, that looks about right!") is not much help.

In addition to your seat height, you need to check the saddle fore-and-aft position, foot position on the pedal, etc. If you don't have a trainer or some way to hold the bike steady, get someone to take your picture on the bike and post it.

Pain behind the knee would indicate a seat that is too high, but the pain would be behind both knees, not just one. You may have an injury or a slight leg length discrepancy.