andrewking

I'm sure this has been covered to death, but here goes. My bike was fitted by my LBS and it felt great. It was more comfortable to ride that's for sure. Well lately, I have noticed some pain in the front of my left knee. It's not all the time, but it hurt pretty bad at the beginning of my last ride and then got better as the ride went on. So I raised the seat only 1/4 inch and it felt like a huge difference. My stroke felt stronger (at first). I went for a 30 mile ride, and the knee pain was gone, but on the way home, my back and upperbody was screaming and my right hip was aching (I have severe arthritis in my hip). I felt like I couldn't have gone another mile. I also felt like I was reaching pretty good at the end of the ride, something I didn't notice in the beginning. I figure the 1/4 inch raise caused me to lean forward a 1/4 more that crushed my back, and added extra flexion to my hip joint.

So here's what I'm thinking. First, put the seat back to where the LBS had it set, and try to adjust my riding by using a higher cadence and a smaller gear and see how the knee feels.

Or try splitting the difference with the seat height. I will lower 1/8 of an inch and see what happens. At first I couldn't see how an 1/8 inch would make much of a difference, but 1/4 made a huge difference.

Again any help or input would be appreciated. Where the LBS set the bike I felt like I could ride it all day and I wouldn't have touched a thing if it wasn't for the knee. As I said it didn't hurt all the time, but yesterday, it hurt enough for me to make an adjustment. Thanks.

chipcom 

Correct

OCRider2000

Some questions: Are you new to road cycling? What sort of rides are you doing? Distance? freguency? intensity? As you discovered, when you change one thing on a road bike like seat height it will effect lots of other stuff like overall reach, saddle to bar height differential and position relative to KOPS. Moving your seat 1\4 inch is a fairly significant change. I would reexamine your position on the bike and make sure your overall reach, saddle to bar height differential and seat height are set correctly for your body, flexibility and comfort requirements. I would never start a ride when I'm already in pain. You mention you suffered some knee pain after getting setup by your LBS. This could be due to fit or training issues. You might want to get some second opinions on your current setup. If you are new to road cycling you will find yourself doing lots of fit tweaking as your fitness and flexibility increases. You may need a higher saddle but you need to move it higher in very small increments.

andrewking

I've been riding for about 3-4 months, 6-7 days a week. I generally range between 100-110 miles a week. Lately, I've been trying to ride 25-30 miles twice a week at about 15 mph. The rest of my rides are 12-20 miles and I have a few 12-14 mile rides that I go as fast as I can go. Everywhere I ride has rolling terrain and usually 1-2 long steady climbs.

What's really strange, at least I think, is that my knee hurt on Monday mornings ride and I took off riding on Sunday. I don't remember doing anything crazy on Sunday that would have hurt my knee.

Thanks for the help so far.

mihlbach

If you like your seat height a little higher than the LBS setting, you could try to elevate your bars a little to compensate for your back pain...either flip your stem if its currently horizontal or maybe add another spacer below the stem.

OCRider2000

Sounds like you have a nice little base. I don't know about riding 7 days a week though. I'm sure others will have different opinions here but even in the absence of your knee issues I would probably take more rest days than you are currently taking. If you wake up and your knees hurt at all I would stay off the bike until you are again pain free. I wouldn't do any hard training until you are confident you are set up perfectly for your body. Knee issues in the past?