Has any body switched from clips to flats or vice-verse and noticed any difference in knee pain?

I ride flats off road but SPD SLs on the road. I’ve noticed that a tough (climbing) session on the mountain bike leaves me with pain in my knees for a day or two. I don’t seem to suffer in the same way with the road bike, but obviously there is a lot more going on there than the change from clipless to flats. So, I was just wondering how those who have changed from one to the other on the same bike have found the experience and whether it has made knee problems better or worse.

I suppose if you have really grippy shoes/flats then there’s zero float, plus your feet could start at weirdish angles when you first put them on the pedal that they’re then “fixed at” ?

(/speculation)

Thanks. I guess that was my hypothesis too. Five Tens and nice grippy pedals may be worse for my old knees than something with a bit of float. Just wondering if there is any evidence out there to support or challenge this hypothesis.

I find with flats every now and then i lift my foot off the pedal to reposition my foot.

I’m out for a few weeks with bad knee pain that I can only assume was the result of a couple of hours seated pedalling on flats where I’m much more used to standing 90% of the time singlespeeding :/

When better I’ll be doing more of the sitty, flat-pedally stuff to try to acclimatise myself to it.

Thanks. Hope your knees get better soon. I don’t think it’s a standing/seated issue for me as I pretty much always climb seated. I do have more knee problems when I ride my hardtail 29er (Solaris) than my 26″ full suss (Five). The Solaris has Vault pedals that are even more grippy than the Hopes on the Five, but again there is more going on there than just a difference in pedals.

Flats make my knees hurt.But I suspect its because I can’t use my custom cycling insoles in my teva’s.

Are you sure your saddle is high enough?

I suppose if you have really grippy shoes/flats then there’s zero float

That’s what I find, it’s been worse since I broke my left ankle quite badly a few years ago.

Thanks, some interesting points there, but it looks as though I’m going to have to do the experiment myself to be sure.

Somewhere in a cupboard I have a set of Shimano soft (touring) shoes with SPD cleats and a set of basic SPD pedals (from a relaxed end-to-end trip, on a recumbent!, in 2000). I’d be happier with a pedal with some platform, but I guess I’ve got enough to see whether it has any impact on my knees. Now, I just need to overcome my fear that they wont release in a (slow speed) crash and give it a go.