Hi Guys - Newb Here with some health questions :)

I am a novice level cyclist and have been having some problems with my left knee lately. The only time it hurts is when I cycle, and typically, the pain starts after about 20-30 minutes of exertion. There is no pain to start, only after I have exercised for a while. It also isn't my entire knee. On the front of the knee, I think there is a tendon that runs down along the right side of the knee cap...perhaps from the quadricep muscle?

I have a long and hard cycling event coming up in two days. It is a charity event that will push many to their cycling limits. Most people do around 100 miles with top cyclists doing around 300 in 24 hours.

Could my riding position have something to do with this pain? Could a knee brace help? Should I just binge on ibuprofen during the event (4 every 8 hours) Thanks for any advice!

Knee problems are usually due to the wrong seat height and / or insufficient float in your pedals. I'd check those things, but since you don't have much time for fiddling around, you might want to have a backout plan in case you can't finish the ride.

It sounds like something similar I had a few months back. The symptoms are almost exact. My problem ended up being a wrongly positioned cleat (fixed). It happened when I switched fromthe floating ones to the fixed. I ended through trial and error adjusting it correctly and the pain went away. It sounds like you have not got much time and there may be a more serious underlying problem.

From what I know (which isn't much...) this is more than likely your problem. What pedals are you riding? If they have zero float then you more than likely need to get some pedals with some degree of float. Most "look" style pedals have cleats that can be purchased to change the amount of float or you can do like I did and get Speedplay Zero's which allow you to fine tune the float to your liking. If you have pedals that have a large amount of float already (7+ degrees) then you may need to have less float.

Also like someone else already said, check your cleat position and make sure ones not out of whack with the other.

Worst case you could have a bad left knee like me. In my case however cycling does not bother mine at all. I hope your knee is not the problem.