Knees are feeling a bit worn the last few years, noisy crepitus, physio diagnosed patella misalignment. I'm doing the exercises to strengthen the muscle and try and realign (thinking of trying taping as well) but I'm wondering how much impact too wide a Q factor would have? Pain is on the inside of my knees which I understand would align. It seems marginal but then decades of it might be having a cumulative effect?
TL:DR - I fancy some new flatties! (But my knees are pissing me off)
I’ve found that my dodgy right knee is happier with shorter cranks and a reasonably wide Q factor. You’re not a small person so I’d be surprised if you needed particularly narrow Q (I’m not saying you’re fat - well you weren’t when I last saw you, but that was before e-bikes… 😉)
Still a trail giraffe, just with a mini-gut! Yeah thought the same, I'm just looking for anything I can do to lessen the pain so I can keep riding. Already on 160 cranks on the ebike and just moved to 170 on the roadie. Can't see 5mm shorter will make any real difference and don't really want to, given the length of my legs!
Painful knees here too. For me there doesn’t seem to be one correct value for Q factor, just the notion that change between bikes irritates my knees.
Changing to shorter narrower cranks on my Superboost bike seems to have helped a bit but gravel bike felt most comfortable last year.
Flats don’t help at all but still use them occasionally.
Funnily enough I moved from years of clips to flats to try and provide a bit of variance in pedal stroke. Really enjoying flats generally but can't say they've helped the pain.
Can't bring myself to move away from clips on the roadie so messing around with cleat position and crank length
Cleat position and saddle height
Having suffered much with a knee issue, those 2 things have kept me riding