I switched out my seat for a brooks about a month ago and the past week my knees have been killing me. Like my knee cap on my right leg was going to pop off. So, I took a gander and I forgot to refit the seat for leg extension. The Brooks puts me much higher and I've been overextending like a madman on a fixed gear that I recently upped the gearing on! DOH THE PAIN!!

So, I'm taking a few days off to recover and see if I can get my knee back in order.

You have to watch those seat heights when changing saddles. I replaced the seat on my cruiser tandem with a Brooks and lost almost an inch.
Craig

Not just height, but forward/rearward position as well as angle. Yeah, gotta recalibrate all those adjustments when changing out seats.

What was the gearing change? Did you change that at the same time?

The only time I had knee problems that could be directly traced to a Brooks saddle was when I was proving to my wife that they aren't as hard as everyone says. So, with her watching, I hit myself on the head with an oak-like 17, fell to my knees, landed on the gravel in the driveway, and imbedded some rocks in my knees. Hurt.

not!

I write down the height from bb spindle to top of saddle on all my bikes (adjusted if changing crank lengths) but yeah the Brooks saddles tend to give a little more height than the plastic ones. Don't forget the angle of tilt on the saddle makes a big difference too.

+1 on the height. It sounds like your saddle is too high. My B17 was *much* taller than the butt hatchet it replaced. If my saddle is too high, my knees hurt as well. Drop your saddle down. Tilt it up just a bit further than you think neccesary, then adjust as as needed.

Weird how long it took for pain to set in though, isn't it?

I too had similar problem w/ a pedal change. Here's advice(word for word) that was given to me earlier this year.
"In general too-low and too-far back of a seat causes knee-pain on top and in
front of the kneecap. Too high & too far-forward results in pain behind & under
the knee (ligaments). But if you can't get it perfect, it's better to err on the
side of being too high and too far forward because the pain it causes is much,
much less than being too low by the same amount."

This problem did not happen overnight. It took a few weeks before my knee started to bother me. All is good and I still have my Brooks. Charlie

Balto,

How long was it before you could bike again? My knee still hurt this morning so I'm laying of biking and running until it feels "safe".

I stayed off of it for 1 week then road only for commuting for a couple of weeks w/ NO hammering at all. Easy spinning. Used the granny a lot. I also kept my knee warm during the healing process(neoprene wrap). I have yet to return to mnt biking since hammering is crucial to that sport. It's been 2 months or so since my knee started to hurt. I would not ride w/ serious pain. Let it heal. I noticed mine early in the pain so recovery was short. Hope you heal soon, Cahrlie