Knee pain
 

Hi All,
I rode a 65 mile ride this past sunday and now my right knee hurts. I had trained conservatively for this ride by riding 3 to 4 times a week (aside of my daily commutes which are 2-3 miles). Started riding some 20s, then some 30s, a 40 miler, a 52 miler and then finally the 65 mile ride. I had ridden mostly with converse and mks clips and straps. For the 40/50/65 mile rides I rode Shimano SPDs - which I have ridden on other bikes (mtn, road,ss) since the early '90s. During the big ride I started to feel a dull pain on the outside of my right knee. I have Shimano a530 pedals which has a platform on one side. I tried pedalling unclipped on the platform side but the pain was still there. I know my cleat alignment is good. Monday I went for a 6 mile ride just to loosen up the legs, immediately my knee hurt. Ditto yesterday. Now im taking a couple of days of the recover but feel that this is due to pushing a fixie rather than cleat issues. I think its an accumulation of the stress of riding a fixie exclusively almost every day for the last 15 months.

I only have room for one bike in my apartment in NYC and as much as i enjoy riding fixed i may have to sell it for a geared bike. I love riding distance (caught the bug on this ride) and would like to start regularly riding longer distances.

What do you guys think? Am I being paranoid? Smart? I'm very close to putting it up for sale and buying a Pacer.

Riding fixed isn't inherently worse for your knees than riding geared, it's being in an inappropriate gearing that will trash your knees. I run on the low side (70GI) and over the course of the past 12 months have learned to spin really fast comfortably so that I can easily outpace guys I ride with pushing 78-80GI set ups. The upside is that I never have knee pain because there is never a lot of stress on my knees and I'm quicker from a stop than just about anyone else. The downside is that if I ever get in a sprint pissing match with a roadie, a competent cyclist who actually trains will almost always be able to pull away from me.

For commuting and general riding purposes, I find this gear to be ideal and like I said, with training to learn how to spin you'[re easily as fast or faster than just about anyone short of the hardcore roadies you come across.

interesting, thx. Im running a 48x19 which isnt huge. not sure how to calculate the inches.

thx..so im running 73 inches.

scratch that, 67.9inches...

In that case your gearing definately isn't too high so scratch pretty much everything I said.

It may simply be a matter of over use, but someone with a bit more experience with knee pain should probably chime in. For what it's worth, other than pushing too high a gear fixed riding shouldn't be mechanically different in any way from riding a geared bike.

Sounds super low. Are you spinning too much? That might cause a lot of knee pain as well. If you're not riding in a place like a lot of hills low GI's don't make much sense...

cleat position/saddle height

I also sometimes have knee pain, but it might be because I have only been riding for the past two weeks.

My gearing is 49/18 with 172.5mm cranks. If I ride mostly flat, with some hills would it be better to go down on the cog tooth count (say a 15t or 16t) or up? I want it to be easier to pedal.

cleat position, saddle height and fore/aft position, crank length (changes?). Only adjust one at a time though.

I had this same pain for awhile after I switched to 170mm cranks from 165s. Overuse is probably the ultimate cause though.

im thinking overuse as well. I know my cleats, saddle and seatpost are all good. thing is, how is 70-80 miles a week overuse? i quess on a fixie it may be...well for me at least!

wow! thx geordi

f*ck land i'm on a boat, motherf*cker.