Hey Guys,

I have started doing longer rides, 70-80km, and am finding that I get some pain on the inside of my shins.

Now this may be down to riding flats, I shall try SPD’s soon, but I was also considering that the crank width may also have an affect.

I am currently running Shimano SLX cranks on a 1×9 setup, does the Q factor become reduced if I were to go for some of the new Sram 2×10 cranks? or will this only work if my frame was BB30?

or am I barking up the wrong tree and the pain could in fact be caused by something else?

thanks,
Pete

Graeme Obree reduced his q factor by using washing machine bearings. Have you considered this?

HTH.

It could be Q Factor, it could also be angle of foot on the pedal (ie forcing your foot flat when it naturally want to sit on the outside edge). However not being a Doctor or physio or whatever its difficult to tell 😆

I imagine the new Sram cranks have less q-factor (not hard compared to SLX which are really wide), but i couldnt spot the exact details on the site.

Crank Brothers egg beaters can be had with shorter spindles,

I use them!

I’d have thought this was more likely to be on bike positioning setup rather than crank width.
The taller you are the less relevant Q Factor is.
What sort of shoes are you using? Proper biking shoes or trainers?

+1 bigyinn re trainers or other soft soled shoes

Unlkely to be Q factor.

im 5′ 9″ and am using Shimano AM40 flat shoes on wellgo MG1 flat pedals if that helps!

i’ve never had an issue with bike setup before, but then i’ve never really been over 40km before, is there anything in particular that I should be looking out for?

thanks,
Pete

low Q factor feels awful on an mtb IMO..

just don’t go as far, you clearly can’t cope with it.

If you’re not clipped-in, it’s definitely not the q-factor.

My left knee is massively sensitive to changes in setup, especially too narrow or too wide a Q-factor. My widest cranks are SLX (175mm), and my narrowest are some pairs of Campag Ultra-Torques (145mm), no bother within that area. You’d need to have some pretty tiny hips for 175mm Q to be too narrow.

thanks GW, very helpful..

How do you measure the Q factor? Apparently my bike has a wide Q factor but I don’t know if this is a bad thing that I need to change or even if the chain stays are narrow enough to allow it. Does it make much difference to MTB handling?