Knee pain
 

I'm looking for some free advice on knee pain which appears on the outside of the knee an inch or two below the kneecap. I believe it is the projection from the fibula. This pain occurs only when I am pedalling hard ( I know--- then don't pedal hard ) and after a hour or two. I should also state that my feet tend to point outwards somewhat when standing comfortably and I am a bit bowl legged ( sounds great, huh? )
I've been to a bike shop for a fitting anf the belief is that the seat is in the appopriate position.
I do notice that when I am pedaling fast or hard, my knees roll outward on the down stroke and the inside of my foot lifts as much as the cleat will allow. I do use DPD pedals on the road bike.
The two folks at the shop differed in their opinion as to the proper alignment of the cleat, so I'm here looking for advice!
One suggestion was to adjust the cleat so that my feet are allowed to piont outward somewhat- a more natural position for me.
The other was to align the cleat straight forward and force my feet to point forward.
I'll need to test both under riding conditions.
If anyone can sympathize and better, if anyone has had success dealing with a situation like this, please help.

A couple of thoughts ...

If your feet want to pivot on the cleat, I'm not sure the solution is to fix them in either position - straight ahead or canted duck-like. Consider whether you need float in your pedals - that is, the ability for your shoe to pivot on the pedal. Speedplays will allow that. My knees go nuts in a zero-float pedal (Times), but are really happy in Speedplay X-2s.

If your knees bow out and the inside of your foot wants to rise in the shoe, you might benefit from a pair of "lewedge" inserts between the shoe and the cleat. These little plastic gizmos that are thicker on one side than the other. Search bike forums and roadbikereview.com discussion groups, there's good information on lewedges there. I use the lewedges and they really have helped with foot pain.

As always, your mileage may vary.

My recommendation is the natural position. For most people, as soon as you deviate from that, you are putting some twist into the knee joint that will eventually cause you trouble. You also have to have a floating cleat system. This is because as you extend your leg, you will naturally rotate the foot as seen from above. If your foot is pinned to point in just one direction, the twist propagated from above will be confined to the knee joint, where it will cause trouble. You will want to set the cleat so that you do not run into the ends of the "floating" region.

You might benefit from the LeWedges (LeMond Big Meat Cleat Wedges/shims?). Try finding a website connected to a bicycle fitter / trainer called FitWerx (?). There might be some good reading there that will help you.

My knee problems were different, but they went away when I combined shoes with a lot of float and a good recent fitting. For my case, this time around the fitting was probably what did it.

But I can tell you from experience that if you have knee pain with fixed pedals, the biggest favor you will ever do for yourself is change the pedals to a float system. I have ended up with Speedplay and I don't have any knee issues unless I am stretching my distance conditioning. I could go on for hours about the pain and lack of general movement I had in my knees when I used fixed position clipless.

I've been doing a lot more climbing during my riding routines and deficiencies in my setup have now begun to manifest themselves as knee soreness and stiffness. I believe what I experience is a stressing of the tendons across the front of the knees. The pain seems to center under my knee cap but I cannot be pinpoint accurate to its location.

From reading online, I've gathered the following suggestions:
1) Seat height
2) seat position in relation to pedals
3) crank length
4) Cleat position

I've used Look pedals for years with no prior problems. However, with the long extended climbs, I've found that my knees struggle against the spring loaded centering action float typical of the Looks.

After re-evaluating and adjusting items 1,2, & 3 the soreness has subsided but not entirely eliminated.

So I decided to give the Speedplay pedals a try. I opted for the X2s which reportedly have 25 degrees of unhindered free float. They were easy to install, and my look compatible shoes accepted the stock shims and cleat. Shoes alignment and position were no longer critical due to the immense amount of float.

I'm taking them out for a good spin tomorrow. I'll let you know how it turns out.

i had a similar pain in my knee
also had an ass sore so i decided to get a new saddle
did a seat height adjustment (was originally about 0.5-1 inch too low), cleat adjustment (off by about quarter of an inch...don't remember which way), and seat position adjustment. No more knee pains. i don't know exactly what did it, but that fits into 1, 2, and 4 as to what squeegy mentioned :)

melloboy

How old are you? I'm over 40 and have some knee issues after 40-50 miles. I can see where you can have issues when you cleats are not adjust correctly. I would think that your cleat should rotate freely in your natural riding position.

I'm just under 54 YO. If the pedalling isn't strenuous, there's no pain. It's only when I really push.

Sounds like it may be your IT band thats you are describing...near the bump (especially just below it) that is outside of leg just below the knee....almost at the top of the outside of the calf. If so research IT band on the web. Some ideas...point toes out more, lower seat, move seat back..good luck

Pedal update:

I took the speedplay pedals out for a spin today. I did a relatively flat 35 mile loop where I could do some sustained spinning on uninterrupted road. The Speedplays are a dramatic difference. There was no stress on the knees and my ankles would naturallly rotate to the optimal and least resistive angle.

Interestingly, I found my ankles more inward. Quite the opposite of what I had anticipated from my other cleat positions.

No soreness or resulting warmth in the knees as I had on previous rides with my other pedals.

I recommend them for anyone experiencing knee stress while on their bicycle.

Speedplay X2 pedals

I had a similar pain in my left knee, and I found the stretches recommended at this link really helped.

As always it's either the pedals, shoes or the seat position. I recently replaced my 10 year old shoes and the same pain you were experiencing disappeared.

Glad the speedplays worked out! :D

Have you had any knee problems other than cycling? Look at www.hyalgan.com

My only other strenuous activity is tennis and I don't frrl any pain from that.

Hi,
I'm a little confused here. Is the pain on the front of the leg in the middle? Just below the kneecap?

You say you were fitted, but were your cleats fitted/aligned to your pedalling style? If not, I strongly suggest a cleat fitting. (No, we're not talking about eyeballing or "in general" here. And, this is entirely different from being fitted to frame size.) I will not ride a new pair of shoes without having the cleats properly aligned via objectively determined cleat placement. Otherwise, I feel pain not unlike yours.

Pain is on the outside of the right leg about 2 inches below the level of the knee. From the answers on this forum and reading this weekend, it does sound like the IT band.

One more vote for Speedplay pedals, but for the MTB version: my knee problems disappeared when I changed to Speedplay Frogs.

I know it's maybe elemental, but if you aredoing "tip toe foot position" or excesive plantar flexion a more level heel position can be frendlier with your knees and place more power on the pedal.