Bees in the Knees

[Jason B]

I have been doing a lot of hills lately and my knees are starting to act up. Help me out for I forget, if the pain is in the front, move the seat back or front? (high cadence bees happening)
getting old

[PotomacCyclist]

The seat height matters too.

[Anonymous]

I developed knee pain when I switched pedals and hadn’t got the angle for the new cleats nailed down quite right. Toes in/heels out too far resulted in outside front of knee pain. Slight cleat adjustment eliminated pain.

[PotomacCyclist]

The pedal float can also affect your knees. Less float provides more stability and maybe a little more power, but it can also be more risky for overuse injuries. You’ll have to find the right balance between float and stability along with the other bike fit settings.

[Jason B]

thanks for the response. I recently took the bike apart to ship and I forgot to measure where the saddle was on the seat post. Ill fool around with it.

[hozn]

Recommended: http://www.amazon.com/Pruitts-Complete-Medical-Guide-Cyclists/dp/1931382808

If the pain is in the front move your seatpost up (higher). Most (all?) of my knee pain has been attributed to seatpost too low. When your hips start rocking you’ll get pain above your hips or perhaps in the back of the knee; move it down in that case

The setback vs. knee-over-pedal-spindle (KOPS) is also a consideration, though I don’t know if this is a specific contributor to knee pain. But there’s definitely a right place [for you] wrt to KOPS. Use a plumb line and measure from tip of saddle behind BB. I have found the online fit calculators — e.g. competitive cyclist — do a good job of telling *me* where to put my saddle (once configured with my various body dimensions).

Finally, probably worth mentioning that many fit issues don’t manifest themselves until you start pushing yourself harder. Of course it makes perfect sense, but probably still worth pointing out; fine-tuned bike fit doesn’t matter much for short/infrequent riding, but really starts to matter when you up the miles or make the rides more demanding.

[creadinger]

Reviving an old thread cause I got the bees!

I recently got new shoes. The same brand as another pair but half a size smaller. I put on the cleats using the older shoes as a guide but something is off. It’s patella pain, which I know well from years of volleyball. Amalitza suggested maybe heels out too far. Any other thoughts??

[n18]

I found an easy and reliable method of aligning SPD cleats by using a plastic ruler that eliminates guess work:

1. Get a plastic ruler, and align it to the bottom of the SPD cleat as shown in the picture below.
2. Locate the center of the heel(Red X in the photo).
3. Adjust SPD cleat, so X is at center of ruler.

Image source: This Wikipedia article. In the picture, the cleat is slightly misaligned, so it needs to be rotated slightly clockwise.

Any plastic ruler works, but you might want to get this one(Use coupon code in their home page to get 50% off by showing it to the cashier on your smartphone).

[ATTACH=CONFIG]18025[/ATTACH]

[mstone]

@n18 179001 wrote:

I found an easy and reliable method of aligning SPD cleats by using a plastic ruler that eliminates guess work:

1. Get a plastic ruler, and align it to the bottom of the SPD cleat as shown in the picture below.
2. Locate the center of the heel(Red X in the photo).
3. Adjust SPD cleat, so X is at center of ruler.

Image source: This Wikipedia article. In the picture, the cleat is slightly misaligned, so it needs to be rotated slightly clockwise.

Any plastic ruler works, but you might want to get this one(Use coupon code in their home page to get 50% off by showing it to the cashier on your smartphone).

[ATTACH=CONFIG]18025[/ATTACH]

the cleat alignment kinda depends on your feet/knees–if I rode a couple of miles with my cleats aligned like you describe, I wouldn’t be able to walk the next day. what you’re calling “wrong” in the picture is likely correct for the person wearing the shoes.

a good starting point for alignment is to sit on something where your feet can just dangle and see which way they point; set the cleats so that your feet point at the same angle relative to the pedals as they did to the edge of the thing you sat on. many (most?) people will find that their feet don’t point exactly straight ahead.

[rcannon100]

Consider cleats with more float: Speedplay frogs

[n18]

@mstone 179002 wrote:

the cleat alignment kinda depends on your feet/knees–if I rode a couple of miles with my cleats aligned like you describe, I wouldn’t be able to walk the next day. what you’re calling “wrong” in the picture is likely correct for the person wearing the shoes.

a good starting point for alignment is to sit on something where your feet can just dangle and see which way they point; set the cleats so that your feet point at the same angle relative to the pedals as they did to the edge of the thing you sat on. many (most?) people will find that their feet don’t point exactly straight ahead.

I know that is a possibility, but one could use this method to check right/left shoe symmetry. I have used this method before, and it worked for me.

[creadinger]

@mstone 179002 wrote:

the cleat alignment kinda depends on your feet/knees–if I rode a couple of miles with my cleats aligned like you describe, I wouldn’t be able to walk the next day. what you’re calling “wrong” in the picture is likely correct for the person wearing the shoes.

a good starting point for alignment is to sit on something where your feet can just dangle and see which way they point; set the cleats so that your feet point at the same angle relative to the pedals as they did to the edge of the thing you sat on. many (most?) people will find that their feet don’t point exactly straight ahead.

Yeah, I’m a good example of that. My left foot is really pigeon toed, and I think it all stems my hip being messed up somehow. So I can’t align my left cleat straight, but I definitely need to tweak something. I did more googling last night and found this as well from cptips.com…. This was the only thing I could find so far that addressed foot position on the pedal/cleat position wrt anterior knee pain.

Knee Pain: Anterior (see chondromalacia below)

Causes
pushing BIG gears – cadence too low
saddle too low or too far forward
foot too far forward on the pedal
crank arms too long
leg length discrepancy with seat set for shorter leg

Possible solutions
ride at 75 rpm or higher
raise seat (in small increments of less than 5mm) or move seat back
move cleat forward 1 to 2 mm
shorten crank arms by 2.5 cm
set seat for longer, not shorter, leg with correction for the shorter leg

I’ll try moving my cleat forward this evening.

[mstone]

@rcannon100 179003 wrote:

Consider cleats with more float: Speedplay frogs

I don’t like too much float–I actually have fewer problems when I just get the cleats aligned right and let them keep my feet in the right place. If they float all over, I move around too much and my feet end up in the wrong place.

[Author]

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