Good morning. I had a 20-mile hard ride two days ago, and my knees have begun to hurt. Not terrible pain, but something that I've never experienced before. The pain is at the front of each knee, located around the kneecap. I'm riding a new bike that I haven't had fitted. I'm also 57, so maybe I'm just getting old. Any suggestions? Thanks!

Absent a proper fitting, try raising the saddle a few mm at a time and see if that eases the discomfort.

I'll try that. Thank you. I'd get a bike fit, but there doesn't seem to be any proper fitters in my area. I was using an older gent for a bit, but I believe that he moved to a new area.

I should also mention that I moved to 160 mm cranks on this particular bike. I've only ever ridden 170-172.5 (I have a 30-inch inseam.) I have 165 cranks on my TT bike, which hasn't given me any trouble in a few Olympic-length triathlons.

I agree it sounds like your saddle is significantly low. If you're running 160s, and you used the same height (from BB center) as either the 170s or the 165s, your saddle will be up to 1cm too low. Try making it 5mm higher than the TT bike with the 165s and see how that feels.

The trend these days is toward shorter crank arms for a given inseam. But if not perfect, what I've read is, too long arms, even a little, is bad for the knees, but a little too short is fine.

172.5 is long for 30" inseam. I'm same and use 170. But these days, 165 or even 160 can work for 30". Why did you switch to 160?

I agree with raise the seat. Don't just raise a couple millimeters; Raise it up until your leg is straight with your foot level on the pedal at the bottom. Even try a bit higher; If you are rocking your hips to reach the pedals, that is too high, so back it down a bit. I personally have the saddle as high as possible, without having to rock my hips, that is much easier on my knees. On climbs, I never mash the pedals when seated; I'll climb standing in a gear where cadence is not high, but more like 50-60 rpm, and not needing to yank on the handlebars, but just use my weight on the pedals, that is very efficient. When I run out of wheaties, standing, I shift down into granny gear and grind my way up. Tire there or cramp in the calf, I get off and walk the bike, it stretches out the calves. All are easy on the knees. Mashing hard when seated, and especially saddle too low, that's what causes the knee pain, often.

Also, moving the seat fore/aft will require changing the height setting. Aft is further from the pedals so may require down a bit. Forward is closer to pedals so may require up a bit.

do you do strength work? specifically glutes. could be a muscle imbalance thing. ive struggled with overuse issues in 20 yrs as a racer. i resumed lifting again ~6 or so years ago and my issues are way, way subdued now.

30" inseam with me, too. I would love to migrate to 165's, but it means changing cranksets on three bikes. Gets expensive in a hurry.
Looks like a saddle height issue with the OP, since the discomfort impacted both knees.
I setup a new bike six months ago. It required some diligence with a tape measure to lay it out with the same dimensions as the other two bikes.
Measured saddle height to floor, to pedals, and fore-aft with a plumb bob. Same exercise with the stem and bar reach.
Good luck with your fit. Sore knees suck.

I always had problems with trying to use a plumb bob, so instead what I do is to set the rear tire against a wall, with the bars as near to level as possible. Then I measure from the BB center to the wall and the floor, and then do all my other measurements to the wall and floor and subtract as needed. I made up an Excel spreadsheet that does all the calculations for me.

Saddle height to BB center is the exception. For that, I measure from the BB to a mark the bottom of a small board placed on top of the saddle (because the saddle dips in the middle) which is always placed so the mark is at the same place on the saddle. Sounds complex I know, but in practice it's pretty straightforward.

Nice sophisticated methodology. Love it.
My plumb bob stays steady by affixing the string to a crescent wrench.
Using identical Fizik saddles on my trio helps. My older steeds with Brooks disrupts the process a bit.

What kind of pedals are on it? Something you've used before on other mounts?

I'm 'breaking in' a pair of Assioma Duos currently, Look-pattern SPD-SL cleats needing some slight tweaks to cleat position on shoes to eliminate some knee discomfort. So far I've used 'em on my trainer-mounted Tarmac, running 170mm crank arms. I'll be moving them to my gravel bike (alloy Diverge) this afternoon, that has 172.5 Cues cranks. Supposed to warm up & be sunny on Tuesday so I can start back to riding outside again soon!!

Yes, deadlifts. I started Romanian deadlifts also. Squatting, without focusing just on the quads.

Ultegra. Never had a problem with cleat placement. But I was using the blue cleat on this occasion, where I got the knee pain. I think I'll try yellow next time to see how the additional float helps. Hope it turns out sunny for you!

I was thinking shorter cranks are needed, but you're already doing that. So, I'm in the camp of seat too low causing the leg angle to close to much at the top of the stroke.

Even without a bike fit, try to match the new ride setup to an old one that didn't hurt.

That is too high imho. You need to not have your knee snapping “straight” at any point in the pedal revolution.
Agree the current saddle height is too low.

I’m assuming the same shoes / cleat positions are in use and same Q factor.

So … Look Keo cleats then? 😁

SPD-SL cleats are Shimano cleats, not a general term for 3bolts.

answered your question...
why didn't you just replicate the measurements from a bike that fits to the new bike???

Would a TT bike have different enough geometry to make that tricky?

I would make sure your saddle height is correct and you are not hyper extending your knee, usually people's saddles are too high. Next you can examine your pedal stroke, in that is your legs/knees are not flaring outward because that 100% can cause unneeded stress. Look into your Q-Factor, more than likely the newer bike is narrower in Q-Factor. Lastly, you could have just done too much too soon. If you said it was a "hard" ride and a lot of it was out of the saddle or you really gunning it yeah you might have just tweaked something. Naproxen or ibuprofen, rest, and ice if needed. Try light stretching or even a light bike ride the next couple rides out.

A couple weeks ago I tweaked a tendon on a ride I have done a thousand times, it's just on that ride I got a little extra and was pounding it on the climbs. I followed the ride up just with Naxproxen, keeping my following rides chill with little to no elevation, and just not pushing it at all. This weekend my leg felt great and I did a metric century.

I have not read this thread and don't have time now to go through it, but ...

I had a similar experience after a ride 50 years ago, New England, month of March, my first long ride on my racing bike. It was Wednesday. Saturday I rode the opening frostbite series race. Had to drop out from real knee pain. A doc at the race diagnosed me as having chrondomalacia patellae (CP). Told me it was for life, that there were things I could do and outlined them. Took several phone calls later to further my recover and progress back to racing that season. Years later, for a previous forum I was on, I wrote a long post about that experience and what I have learned since. (It was 20 years before I ever saw all of what that doc told me in 1977. Thank you, Dr. Kish.)

I've posted that post here several times. Do a search for knee and my username or patella/ae. (I may have mis-spelled chrondomalacia and I still am not clear where the "r" belongs.). It's a long post but I have never seen all of what I wrote in one place.

And to the wisdom passed down from that doc? I raced that season; my last for other reasons. Rode 5k miles per year for the next two decades. After a 6 year marriage of little riding, ramped up to 7k per year. About 200k after my diagnosis, over half on fix gears. There is cycling after CP but it does have to be managed. I played by that doc''s rules and at 72, I still have me OEM knees.

Edit: CP can come on with ideal seat height. It can be triggered by bike changes, building bike conditioning too fast, cold weather and hamstring tightness on a bike that fits perfectly. My seat height was dead on. Approved by both the doc who also raced and the race promoter, an older Belgian fellow who grew up in the heart of the sport.

79pmooney this one?
a different kind of pain

Knee pain might also be that you are using too much muscle in too high a gear ratio for too long a period. And maybe at too low a cadence. Shift to a smaller ratio and spin faster.

It might have been mentioned, but a quick reasonably accurate way to set your saddle height is to put your heel on the pedal spindle and stretch your leg out straight. This eliminates the error you might get from simply putting your foot on the pedal and having it tilted without you realizing it.

It gets me within about a cm or less of the correct saddle height for me.

are you basing that generalization on your own experience exclusively? Several fitters have explained to me how the legs and cranks form a series of levers and that the ideal crank length for, say, a 15” femur as part of a 30” inseam would be very different from if it was a 20” femur as part of a 30” inseam.

That's it. Thanks. And to spare needing the link, the text:


Chrondomalacia patella. Yes, I can tell you a little about it. I was diagnosed in ’78 and given very good advice by the doctor (an orthopedic in sports medicine. He was also a novice bike racer, so he had more understanding of the cycling aspects of CP than most). I will do my best to pass on what he told me.

In CP, the kneecap is not aligned with the knee under it, hence there is chafing as the knee is moved. This causes wear, first to the cartilage, then to the bone under it. The wear accumulates with number of repetitions and pressure. At some point, the wear can cause permanent damage.

Some people are more prone to CP than others. It can be triggered by exercising in cold weather, exercising without adequate stretching of the hamstrings, i.e. touching your toes or less extreme stretches of the same tendons. It can be brought on by exercising without adequately strengthening the small quadriceps muscles just above the kneecap.

I brought on my CP by training to return my body to racing form after a very serious accident. (I was weak enough after my hospital stay that I was no match at 24 years old for any 7 yo. The accident was in November, and I returned to riding miles in March. I did nothing to keep my knees especially warm and did no stretching exercises (rationalizing that since my leg never extended to anywhere near straight, there was no chance of injury, hence no need to stretch). I was wearing just full tights and thermal underwear under them in Boston. The temperature was probably not much above 30. The ride that started it was 100+ miles on my racing bike, my first outdoor ride on that bike. It had 175 cranks. My trainer, with fixed gear and very low BB, had 168’s. After the ride I had a dull pain in my mid to upper knee in front. That Saturday was the first race of the season. I was forced to drop out, my knees hurt so much.

After that race, the race promoter introduced me to an orthopedic surgeon who diagnosed me in the back of a cold van. He laid out for me then and in later phone calls a plan that I will pass on here.

He first stressed that I had to stretch my hamstrings, touch toes or lean forward against a wall or post with one leg back and straight and stretch that hamstring or sit and touch toes. I now prefer the lean forward method. Very specific and hard to hurt yourself. (I am now a 48 yo, I damage if I am not careful.)

Second, he had me sit on the floor and do leg raises. He had me raise one leg at a time and hold it several inches off the floor for a while (I don’t remember the time, but 15 secs should work. Important – while the leg is raised, tense up your quads big time and tense up those little quads just above and beside the kneecap. Feel for them and get to know them. It is those little guys that keep you kneecap aligned. If you are in riding shape, you can do this with say 5 pounds on your ankles, but the tensing up is much more important than the resistance.

Third, KEEP YOUR KNEES WARM WHEN YOU RIDE!! For me, this is critical. I wear these dumb looking “knee warmers” for most of my rides, always below 70 degrees, often under tights. Since keeping the hamstrings loose is important, I had to stretch the elastic. To keep them from falling down, I sewed on garters that I clip onto my shorts.

Fourth, back off riding until you have been doing these two things long enough to make a difference. Keep up the exercises and especially the stretches after you resume riding. Build up your riding slowly. The doctor stressed this to me and it has been very true. My ability to come into real form and resilience on the bike is limited more by my knees than by my lungs/muscles.

After rides, take aspirin or Ibuprofen to speed recovery. I personally think aspirin is better, that my knees recover more with it. I disagree with the ice. I have always felt that moving my knees when they are cold is causing the damage I am trying to avoid. Perhaps ice speeds recovery, but I feel it also continues the damage (at least in my knees).

Big gears are the enemy of CP knees. I love to climb hills standing. I love to ride hilly country on fix-gears. It is a fact of my life that I can only ride certain not-so-steep hills on my commuter and that I have to have and use a granny ring on my custom. It is a fact that there are days, weeks and months when I have to let whippersnappers blow by me on hills where I know I can humble them.


Lastly, what you did not want to hear, but again what the doctor told me. Get used to the idea of CP. If you are at all like me, it will be a fact of your cycling life for a long time. 23 years later for me and I am feeling my knees now because of a very easy ride I did in street clothes without knee warmers at noon today.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but you can still do a lot of riding. I raced that season (I already knew it was my last) and have done 60,000 (?) miles since. I still commute, but only on alternate days. (But for the first 7 years with CP, I did not own a car and rode everywhere.)


I took the time to spell all this out because in the 23 years I have had CP, I have never seen all of this in one place. In fact, I have only heard about the importance of keeping the knees warm from that one doctor. That is the single most important aspect of the program for me. Thank you Dr. Kish, wherever you are. I will probably ultimately need those carbon fiber knees, but by following the regime, I figure I can wait until a) the product improves, b) the price comes down and c) I’m old enough that my cycling level will be within the abilities of those knees. I hope to delay another 10 years.

Since I wrote this a year plus ago, my physician has recommended that I take glucosamine. He was very specific, that I should take 3000 mg/day in the form of glucosamine sulfate or glucosamine hydroxide, but to avoid chrondroitin. This I did faithfully for 9 months. Between riding steadily starting two years ago and the glucosamine, my knees never felt better than they did last summer. I was passing whippersnappers uphill. Then my riding tapered off, I tapered down on the glucosamine and got sick so my riding and conditioning dropped. Thanksgiving I rode 50 miles with 2500’ of climbing on a cool day. My knees hurt. How many of those rules outlined above did I break?

Any recollection as to why he suggested you avoid chondroitin? The prevalence of products combining it with glucosamine vastly outnumbers those featuring either one alone.

I didn't ask him and he retired long ago. He did say glucosamine was much harder to find but that the local Fred Meyers should have it. And it did.