Just finished my first 70k sportive and developed some pain in left hip after about 20k, it felt like it was inside rather than muscular. I am new to road riding and this is furthest I’ve ridden in one go, could this be a bike set up issue like seat height or cleat position?

@monkeyninja

this can be caused by numerous factors, and its worth having your setup diagnosed by a decent bike fitter.

the starting point would be the saddle, to make sure its supporting your ischial tuberosity (sit bones) properly.

If not, this can often cause an imbalance and your body will tend to “adapt” itself by you sitting lopsided or constantly adjusting your stance which can present as hip pain

size / bulk of rider has nothing to do with width of ischial tuberosity so its worth having it checked out, and a decent saddle sorted if needed.

once you have the right saddle, have the fitter look at your saddle height and fore / aft.

all good bike fitting comes from the saddle being in the right place for your body.

once that is established they can start looking at your reach / drop, cleat alignment, knee tracking, etc. its quite common to have a difference in femur or tibia length on one leg, which can cause hip pain until adjustments are made to your setup.

size / bulk of rider has nothing to do with width of ischial tuberosity so its worth having it checked out, and a decent saddle sorted if needed.

So size of the rider has nothing to do with the distance between their sit bones. M’Kay.

I would be thinking that it’s more to do with you not having done that distance at that pace before. I get pains in my hips despite my bike fitting me perfectly. Ride more and they’ll probably lessen, if they dont go see a physio.

Any saddle recommendations, I’m currently on the standard flux saddle on a 2014 croix de fer.

Madison Flux is a good saddle.

Look up hip mobility exerises on google, try them and see what happens.

@wanmankylung

its well documented (medically) that the size of the rider has nothing to do with the width distance between the ischial tuberosity

a larger rider will generally have a wider pelvis, but this is not related to the width of the ischial tuberosity

a small woman can have a wider ischial tuberosity than a large man

I’d be interested to see those documents because I dont believe that pelvic width has no relationship to sit bone size or position.

http://ja297.user.srcf.net/The%20difference%20between%20the%20male%20and%20female%20pelvis.pdf

@wanmankylung

what you believe has no relation to medical evidence.

when you undertake professional training to become a certified bicycle fitter, ischial tuberosity is one of the first topics looked at in depth, because it is critical to saddle fitting

My right hip is intolerable, it’s the main barrier between me and riding bikes, only thing that helps is a lot of stretching.

Search You tube; ITB stretches for cyclists and the Abi Carver lower back pain yoga video. It hasn’t stopped the pain but increasing flexibility in that area has made it much much better.

I also tried lowering my saddle but only a few mm (really, that little) at a time or you can introduce other problems.

Do you have any articles of higher quality than that pdf?

I have no doubts that sit bone orientation is critical to getting a saddle fitting correctly. What I do question is that there is no direct relationship with pelvis size and the distance between my sit bones. Call it professional curiousity. (i know a thing or two about pelvises).

Unlikely to be the problem but might be worth a mention.

I only found this out after the Fred Whitton a few years ago due to the what the masseuse told me…

When I was a kid I had large cut on my leg across or near the ITB, for as long as I remember I have had really bad aching hip pain and just sort of put up with it. The Masseuse told me she could feel scar tissue on the ITB were the scar was, she worked this area really hard ( it hurt quite a bit) but it relieved the pain in the hip. Whenever the ache comes back I massage the scar and it eases the ache.

Like I said unlikely to be your problem but you never know.

Dropping the saddle 10mm sorted this out for me.

Will drop my saddle 10mm and definitely look at increasing my hip mobility, this is something that I know need to work, flexibility is not one of my strong points.

I used to get a sore hip. I was convinced my hip was wearing.

A Chiropractor really worked on that side and told me all the muscle around there was overtight.

Bingo no soreness ever more.

Have often wondered if any “lop sided” leg/hip pains are related to the foot you rest on when stopped at traffic lights etc ?