Cleat Angle for lateral/posterior knee pain



beuerc

New Member
Oct 11, 2012
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I was wondering if anyone had suggestions for dealing with lateral/posterior knee pain (biceps femoris pain). After two professional bike fits, a slight lowering of the saddle, and appropriate stretching the problem still persists, likely due to a slighly unusual anatomic position of the tendons. Has anyone else experienced this and been able to overcome the problem? I'm considering rotating the cleats laterally to potentially relieve some of that stress. Any suggestions are appreciated!


Chris
 
Are you currently riding pedals with no float? If you have floating pedals then I'd observe which way your feet naturally twist while riding and perhaps adjust the cleats to allow a little more motion in that preferred direction. If your current cleats are rotationally fixed I'd consider something like the Speedplay Zeros with adjustable float or another brand that supports rotational float.

From the sound of it though it may very well be a cleat wedging or shimming issue or even a question of pedal spindle length and Q factor that's resulting in knee tracking issues during the pedal stroke. Unless you're currently running fixed (non rotationally floating) cleats I wouldn't suspect cleat rotation as the prime culprit. BTW, I'd strongly discourage home adjustments to cleat wedging as it's very easy to make the problem worse. If your previous fittings did not include foot varus/valgus measurements and leg length discrepancy measurements then find a fitter who looks into those things.

Good luck,
-Dave
 
i had once a sprained left ankle and kept riding, which caused me similar pain to yours in the right knee, after 30 minutes of riding i had to stop every time. Coupled with some other life constraints i had at that time i simply stop all together, eventually retiring from racing. The good news from this sad story is that when i picked up cycling again for leisure the pain was gone, so i was guessing that i had a knee tendonitis and that rest healed it.