Knee Pain

After riding for eight years solely as a commuter I took up a challenge to complete the UK’s C2C (150 miles over 2 days). I had about 8 months to train and began by reducing my cycle commuting days and doing longer rides at the weekend. After a couple of months I took advice from a friend and purchased some SPD pedals and shoes (I previously rode with flat pedals and wore an old pair of running shoes). Everything was fine until about 8 weeks later I started getting pain down the sides of my left knee and a dull ache in the back of my knee. I decided I had been over doing training and took a couple of weeks off the bike. During the time off the bike I didn’t feel any pain or discomfort and so figured I was OK to go back to the bike. I began with a gentle 10 mile ride and afterwards started feeling the same pain. I then started trawling through the information (or disinformation) online trying to find a solution. After weeks of adjusting the rotational angle of my cleats and changing my saddle height I finally stumbled on to Steve’s website. Steve’s in depth knowledge and understanding of the interaction between rider and bike was enough for me to correct my problems myself .

The cause of the dull ache in the back of my knee appears to have been caused by a calf strain and was corrected by simply moving my shoe cleats back towards the centre of foot. The pain in the sides of my knee was caused by lateral motion of the knee when pedalling. This was happening due to there being little arch support in my cycling shoes. When pushing down on the pedals the foot would collapse inwards and the knee followed. I purchased an arch support to put in the offending shoe and can now feel how much more stable my knee is when cycling.

I managed to correct my bike fit problems simply by reading and applying a small piece of Steve’s advice.In the future I hope to get a full bike fit approved by Steve Hogg.

G’day Andy,

I’m glad that you got a result. The prime purpose of the site is to put well tested information out there. It’s responses like yours that make the effort worthwhile. Thank you.