yea yea yea people always get into long arguments about brakes vs no brakes but ASIDE FROM THAT... this question is for the people who ride brakeless.

Seriously, your knees start to hurt when you ride brakeless right?

(specifically.. how long have u been ride til it began to hurt, how bad is it now, and what do you do about it)

for those who seem to have flawless knees, how do you guys manage to do so.

my knees hurt for about 3-5 months. i couldn't bend down to tie my own shoes. my knees are fine know. they will hurt. my elbows hurt when i started to ride my bike too as well as my wrists so i guess ur body just needs time

ride through it.

Check your saddle level.

Push an easy (less than 69") gear.

iv been ridign brakeless for the past 2 weeks or so because i have no brake lever and am too lazy to go get one. i felt some soreness for the first day but that was about it. i do alot of skidding to slow down abruptly and if i see like a stop sign comming up i start to apply backward force a ways before i get there.

there arent to many hills around here so i dont have to deal with that XD

been brakeless for almost two years, no signs of knee trouble or any pain to speak of. how do i do it? well, i guess i'm just that awesome. maybe one day you can be too.

also i drink lots of rice milk.

no knee pain whatsoever. Getting strong arms though

no knee pain, been riding brakeless for work to the tune of 200-300 miles a week for years, 72 inch gear in winter, 80 inch gear in summer and is not like im a kid made of rubber either, im 41 years old

my bike fits, that helps, I use clipless and my cleats are set properly

other thing is technique, I stand up under high torque situations and skid when needed but try to keep that to a minimum

no pain here either.

when I ride breakless I get saddle sores

If you don't ride your bicycle like an idiot, you knees won't hurt.
Take the time to slow down in appropriate areas, be aware of your surroundings, and you'll be fine.

Unless you ride much harder or farther then normal without proper time to build up muscles how you ride should not cause pain.

What you ride can. That means gearing, fit, and yes the presence or absence of brakes.

my knees hurt a lot more from skating that riding brakeless, but i guess a little column A a little column B

I rode brakeless for a couple of weeks, in between paychecks and ordering brakes(i was broke after my flite). I found that it made me look ahead and i rode more conservativly, running less reds, not splitting lanes. And my kness only hurt when i was, resisting to hard instead of just skidding, they also hurt untill i realized hor important the front foot is skiding it can take ALOT of pressure of the Rear if you really use your forward foot, and this was with 80gear"

I've never had knee issues on any bike. Road, MTB, fixed brakes/brakeless. The only fatigue I have on a brakeless fixie is the back of my thighs, especially if I am riding in a hilly area. I don't have perfect knees either. My left knee is jacked from years of snowboarding and running. Yet I've never had issue on a bike, even a fixie.

thanks for the replies. I usually get knee pain at the end of the day if I skidded a few times during the day. I felt that maybe i could find a solution to this, but i guess i have weak knees...?

i run a 46x16 which is fine too - lowering that would be pretty low.

my knees hurt when i use brakes

your knees hurt if you ride a tall gear, the stop and go. skidding a lower gearing wil not hurt your knees.

my experience is that knee pain comes from a too-low saddle.

saddles can slip down without a rider really realizing it. i just brought up my saddle a surprising amount after noticing some knee pain. it just sort of sneaks up on you sometimes.

When i first converted, I was at about 75 gear inches if i remember correctly. I changed out my drivetrain maybe a month or two ago, and am now at 69.1", and have been brakeless since the day after i changed the cranks and got clips/straps. I spent the first night learning how to skid, and since i had barely ever used the brake when i had one, I pulled it off and haven't looked back.

My knees feel fine, if not better than they ever have. My father has horrible knees, and i believe I've inherrited them, as I've always had knee issues. Everynow and then if i realize I've done a lot of mashing that day, some of the days that I'll ride around for hours across varying terrain, etc, i'll noticed some fatigue in my knees, but it's not pain, it's just being tired.

I never understood the knee pain problem with cycling, even fixed gear. Cycling is low impact, and once you start building up the muscles involved with the backpeddaling of a fix, I would think that knees should hold up just fine.

Then again, I'm not a doctor.

seat height + low gear = happy knees!

also proper stretching goes a long way.

i started at 68gi, now im at 71. its nice

my knees used to hurt, i just rode through it and i havnt had any problem since
i was pushing a 79inch gear at the start thought, i then lowered it to 76
now i have a the 76 inch on one bike and a 72 inch on anotherbike
thowing yourself in the deep-end with a huge gear (and a brake maybe?) and then lowering the gear as time goes on is one way of doing it i suppose

the same, except soy

I wonder if people who think backpressure is horrible for your legs also boycott walking down stairs or crouching down to tie their shoes.

Guh? I don't recall seeing many people blaming knee pain on back pressure. It's still a compressive force on the knee, same as pedaling, same as walking down stairs and crouching down to tie one's shoes. That's what the knee was designed for. It's the tensile stress of pulling that can cause knee damage. Pulling up on one pedal while pushing on the other when skidding. I'm no doctor, but the way I understand it that by doing this, one can start creating gaps between the cartilage of the joint and the meniscus, forming bubbles of fluid which end up causing pain and hindering the knee's normal operation. At least that's what the internet told me.