knee pain when starting off cycling

[slowmotion]

That clip for finding your sit bone width was fun. Thank you @mjr.

 

[johnnyb47]

Well done on your cycling buddy. Your sore knees could be down to either your body just getting used to the increased mileage or that the your seat is not at the Correct height or position. I would suggest before alterations to your seat go out for another few rides at the same distance and see if your sore knees improve. If not, then as others have said try raising or lowering your seat to see if that helps. Only do it in small adjustments though as you would be surprised by how little adjustment is needed to alleviate aches and pains on a bike. I would also mark the seat post stem before any adjustments so you will have some reference as to its old positions when altering it. It took me a good few rides before I found the sweet spot in setting my bike up properly. This combined with ever increasing distance riding and your body conditioning to the extra miles takes a little time to get things right.
All the best,
Johnny

 

[User76022]

Choose a lower gear perhaps. My main cycling buddy has very powerful but slow legs. His cadence is about half mine. I tend to do about 70 to 90 pedals per minute. I'd guess his is about 45 pedals per minute as he prefers to pedal more slowly in a higher gear. Guess which one of us gets most knee pain.

My mate calls my pedalling preference 'spinny legs', but he can mock all he likes because overall I'm faster than him

Apart from gear choice and bike setup as has been covered, also think about how your feet are positioned on the pedals if, like me, you don't like to clip in. I see all sorts when I'm out and about. Pedals under the arches of the feet, knees splayed out like a frog, all sorts. Knees aren't designed for lateral forces and the arches of feet are not designed for pushing. Ideally it's the ball of the foot that drives the pedal down, foot pointing straight forward. This way all the forces going through feet, legs and lower back are as we're built for. Any other position is sure to cause problems sooner or later.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Lower gearing, saddle position and possibly crank length.

 

[Shut Up Legs]

You could also try regular thigh and calf stretches: I find that helps my legs (including the knees) withstand more cycling related strains for longer.

The thigh stretch method is: hold onto something with one hand, hook the other hand onto the front of your feet and pull your leg behind you until you feel the thigh muscles stretching, then hold it there for 20 seconds.
The calf stretch method is: lean onto a bar, table, etc. with your arms and hands out in front of you, and with both feet flat on the ground. Ensure that your legs are leaned far enough forward for your calves to feel stretched, and hold this position for 20 seconds.

The above may not work for everyone, but it works for me, and definitely helped recently, when I spent an entire month cycling through the Pyrénées, averaging 80km and 1700m climbing per day. I had no leg muscle strains during that month.

 

[chrismisterx]

Choose a lower gear perhaps. My main cycling buddy has very powerful but slow legs. His cadence is about half mine. I tend to do about 70 to 90 pedals per minute. I'd guess his is about 45 pedals per minute as he prefers to pedal more slowly in a higher gear. Guess which one of us gets most knee pain.

My mate calls my pedalling preference 'spinny legs', but he can mock all he likes because overall I'm faster than him

Apart from gear choice and bike setup as has been covered, also think about how your feet are positioned on the pedals if, like me, you don't like to clip in. I see all sorts when I'm out and about. Pedals under the arches of the feet, knees splayed out like a frog, all sorts. Knees aren't designed for lateral forces and the arches of feet are not designed for pushing. Ideally it's the ball of the foot that drives the pedal down, foot pointing straight forward. This way all the forces going through feet, legs and lower back are as we're built for. Any other position is sure to cause problems sooner or later.

thats how I am pedaling at the moment I think, didn't know it was wrong

 

[User76022]

thats how I am pedaling at the moment I think, didn't know it was wrong

It's not wrong. It's just that we develop habits. Sometimes those habits work well for us, sometimes not.

The trouble is the body, being the amazing feat of engineering it is, adapts to its situation. If through habit we move in a certain way, then the neural pathways used to move in other ways become sort of rusty so to speak. Then it actually becomes harder to change our habits because the brain actually struggles to coordinate other muscles to move in a different way. Off the bike for example, a common problem that causes knee pain is that two tiny, almost insignificant muscles on the sides of the butt effectively become disused. Their role is to stabilise the knee and align it with the hip. Once sufferers realise this and set about rectifying it, they often find the exercises extremely difficult not through weakness, but because they can't actually get the target muscles to fire.

Back on the bike we have a good opportunity. Because the pedaling action actually helps move us when when side is pushing, the other is being partially guided round, it means we can practice these alignments and muscle recruitment quite easily.

All that said, perhaps try short easy rides in low gear, no rush, just focusing on knee position and how everything moves. Too often we defer to the big powerful muscles of glutes, quads and hamstrings but if we take it easy now and then and be mindful of everything, it becomes apparent that there's a lot going on in the smaller muscles whose job is not so much to deliver power, but to keep everything where it needs to be.

 

[Globalti]

Then buy a £5 Gel Saddle Cover

This is the worst possible advice, a gel cover will feel great for a few miles but will make the bum sweat causing chafing and will allow the sit bones to sink in, transferring the load to soft tissue.

The best advice is: get padded shorts or padded inner shorts, get the three aspects of the saddle set up right: height, angle and distance from the bars. Get a comfortable saddle like a Charge Spoon, and persevere, every new cyclist suffers from bruisy bum bone pain but it soon goes away.

 

[User76022]

every new cyclist suffers from bruisy bum bone pain but it soon goes away

I used to live close enough to a really nice set of trails that I'd ride them regularly. One of my favourite, listed as easy and suitable for all abilities with some climbs, was a 12 mile loop around a reservoir with some serious gradients including short climbs at around 1 in 5 gradient, and couple of longer climbs, less steep but a long drag.

Because it was the easiest route accessible from a popular spot, a lot of new cyclists would attempt it. It was a regular thing to see inappropriately equipped unfit people on 90 quid bikes looking very unwell, or in some cases actually in tears. More than a few times I'd over hear comments along the lines of 'I'm never getting on a bike again'.

Your post kind of reminded me of that. But I think it's also relevant to the thread in general. The point being, when someone starts off cycling, or when they come back to it after a long time off, I think it's important to ease in gently and not cause pain or misery and put themselves off. It's not a race. If someone can manage 1 mile on flat tarmac, that's a perfectly good start.

 

[chrismisterx]

This is the worst possible advice, a gel cover will feel great for a few miles but will make the bum sweat causing chafing and will allow the sit bones to sink in, transferring the load to soft tissue.

The best advice is: get padded shorts or padded inner shorts, get the three aspects of the saddle set up right: height, angle and distance from the bars. Get a comfortable saddle like a Charge Spoon, and persevere, every new cyclist suffers from bruisy bum bone pain but it soon goes away.

Its not really on the bum that hurts, its more between the bum and my dangle bits ( trying to not to be too blunt ) it doesnt seem to get bruised but more goes dead, seems to lose feeling and them if i stand up has pain for a while and becomes sore, if that makes sense?

I moved my seat up no more than 1.5 cm approx and thats helped tons with my knee pain ( or I am getting fitter ) but still getting that pain underneath.

Going to look at a new saddle I think, maybe the one I have is too narrow and is compressing bits?

 

[User76022]

Its not really on the bum that hurts, its more between the bum and my dangle bits ( trying to not to be too blunt ) it doesnt seem to get bruised but more goes dead, seems to lose feeling and them if i stand up has pain for a while and becomes sore, if that makes sense?

I moved my seat up no more than 1.5 cm approx and thats helped tons with my knee pain ( or I am getting fitter ) but still getting that pain underneath.

Going to look at a new saddle I think, maybe the one I have is too narrow and is compressing bits?

Makes perfect sense.

New saddle is the way to go. But here's the thing. Or at least my own theory/observation. The saddle that comes with the bike is kind of generic to work reasonably OK even if poorly set up. Because many people don't set the bike up right. After market saddles tend to be better, but need to be set up right. Mine was awful when I did a straight swap, until I got a little bit more scientific about my adjustments, now it's like luxury.

So long story short, new saddle is definitely the way to go, but you need to make sure it's set just right.

The pain and numbness in the unmentionable region you describe is fairly common and although unpleasant, usually harmless as long as the cause is rectified. There's lots of nerves and arteries around there, and bad bike seats squash them, reducing blood supply and numbing nerves.

This video is worth a watch. It's quite long at 11 minutes but very informative and addresses the issue you describe.


View: https://youtu.be/nmPgJV643h8

 

[mjr]

This is the worst possible advice, a gel cover will feel great for a few miles but will make the bum sweat causing chafing and will allow the sit bones to sink in, transferring the load to soft tissue.

The best advice is: get padded shorts or padded inner shorts, get the three aspects of the saddle set up right: height, angle and distance from the bars. Get a comfortable saddle like a Charge Spoon, and persevere, every new cyclist suffers from bruisy bum bone pain but it soon goes away.

This is the worst possible advice, padded shorts will feel great for a few miles but will make the bum sweat causing chafing and will allow the sit bones to sink in, transferring the load to soft tissue.

The best advice is: get the three aspects of the saddle set up right: height, angle and distance from the pedals, then move the bars to fit. Get a comfortable saddle but the right one depends on the shape of your bum when riding that bike, sadly. I don't remember suffering much bum pain except when the saddle was wrong for me or I tried padded lycra or occasionally my legs get too tired and I sit on the saddle instead of riding it...

 

[Globalti]

Correct, originally shorts were not lined with padded material, they were lined with chamois to prevent rucking. My most comfortable shorts ever were some early dhb 3/4 bibs, which had no padding but a layer of felt material. They were superbly comfortable with the right saddle and never sweaty. But you can't buy those any more.

 

[User76022]

Correct, originally shorts were not lined with padded material, they were lined with chamois to prevent rucking. My most comfortable shorts ever were some early dhb 3/4 bibs, which had no padding but a layer of felt material. They were superbly comfortable with the right saddle and never sweaty. But you can't buy those any more.

If sweaty bits is a concern, you can get sweat wicking undercrackers from Under Armour. I wear them for various activities. They really do minimise sweaty chafing.