I am loving the singlespeed but getting up big hills has needed some serious out-of-the-saddle grinding. It feels like the leg equivalent of bench-pressing. All you veterans, am I doing damage to me knees? I am not getting any knee pain but just wondering if I should expect any.

While on this subject I am amazed what you can get up if you dig in.

Cheers
Rich

3 knee surgeries so far…..none of them caused by riding ss.
My surgeon says it’s good for strengthening my bad knee 😀

You’ll be amazed what you can do on a Singlespeed Rich… Have been riding one of these for a while and it improves leg strength and upper body too, no sign of knee issues at all, lovin’ the bars too thanks.

by standing up, arguably you are doing less “damage” (at least creating less load on the joint) to your knee than when sitting down and trying to force too high a gear….which is the only time I ever feel pain in my knees and I ride SS 99% of the time.

I’ve been riding a reasonable amount of SS a fair while, no knee pain (apart from when I suddenly doubled my commute and had my cleats set up wrong). I think unless you had an underlying problem that was susceptible to that sort of thing you’d be fine.

Plus you spend the rest of the ride hamster wheeling, I find geared rides can be more of a constant grind myself.

That said, I was watching some trash TV the other day pointing out how bad for you “healthy” things can be, and I feel I should warn you not to pedal so hard that you cause any sort of prolapse.

A riding buddy of mine is has a sports science degree and he reckons that SSing is bad for your knee joints because of the increased load. I have had a couple of knee ops but I don’t think they were related to SSing in particular (in fact I never had any pain while cycling only when walking). What I do find is that my back starts to hurt a little after an hour or so of solid grinding up the mountains (some of the mountains I go riding on are up to a 1000 mtr high) as well as my upper arms but my legs stay pain free.

As long as you stand up rather than trying to push too high a gear when seated, and as long as you don’t experience any pain, I reckon you’ll be fine.

SSing is bad for your knee joints because of the increased load.

Im afraid that makes no sense to me.

Except for when you are pulling on the bars, the most you are doing to your knee is no more than standing up on one leg like climbing the stairs. When you ARE honking though, if you dont load your leg until it is almost “locked” at full extension, again you are not putting any serious load across the joint.

Only when you are trying to extend your leg in a seated position through a high gear are you putting much larger forces across the joint.

All IMO obv.

the one thing SS will do is expose any weakness in your pedal and cleat set up if you ride spds. Loads of folks I know set their cleat position by a sort of “yeah kinda looks ok” principle, which can lead to slightly off toe and heel angles which can lead to knee pain when honking.

the old SS ruins knees thing is a bit of an urban myth

6 months in and all good with me.

But I wonder how we’ll all be in 20 years, time will tell.

Loads of folks I know set their cleat position by a sort of “yeah kinda looks ok” principle, which can lead to slightly off toe and heel angles

Only with them set tight, surely?

(I run my pedals at “tight enough to stay clipped in and no more”).

I agree with the above.

If anything my knees are better from riding singlespeed – purely because I’m out of the saddle more. Wide bars are a good thing with no gears though – the extra leverage makes a massive difference.

I’ve been doing some of my commutes in a single gear to see how I get on before investing in a proper SS.
It’s a more relaxing ride,definitely, because there’s less opportunity to go flat out. The extra effort on the hills then become a welcome change of pace. There’s one killer hill on my return leg where I was having to rock my entire body back and then forwards and then stand with all my weight on each pedal in order to have enough force to turn the cranks, which were going… so… slowly… Made it though!

Roter Stern – Member
A riding buddy of mine is has a sports science degree and he reckons that SSing is bad for your knee joints

😆

A mate of mine has a sports science degree, drags his knuckles in the dirt when he walks and told me that hard walking for an hour a day is totally non-beneficial.

Excellent response, just what i want to hear. Yep loving it. Pleased you like the bars Cardo.

Typically it’s impact and twisting that damages knees. Running, squash, football.
Not cycling…..
Though you can aggravate knee pains if your cleats are aligned incorrectly…

DrP

I’ve been SS’ing for ages and I’ve no pain in my knees, just back off when the going gets too hard.. Or get off and push.

Push yourself by all means,but be realistic.

I found my arms used to give out before my legs on the really tough ss climbs – triceps would be on fire. Strange feeling to have your arms put through the mill riding a bicycle. Probably the most use I’ve had out of bar ends, change in arm position could really help.

If your knee has been injured before then this may result in knee pain in future because such pain persists due to any previous injury. So, you can expect that you may get the pain.

Knee is the largest joint in the body. It bears around four times of the weight of the individual. It’s joint which bears all the stress during cycling, walking, running, dancing.So if you are getting regularly knee pain than stop your activities for some duration and give rest to your knees. Still the problem persists means consult a doctor.