Hi all,

I am at a bit of a loss here.

I got a nice new carbon Giant defy a few months ago to replace my old giant defy, which was about 7 years old. I started to get hip pain riding my new bike despite a bike fit at the bike shop after purchase. Originally I put this down to over use as I put in a fair few more miles in over a couple weeks as I had a new toy (this was in August).

I have been using my old road bike on the turbo over the last few weeks to no ill effect so thought it would be nice to put my fancy bike on that and use the old bike for riding outside on the now wet and muddy roads. However, even after one ride on the new bike (having put my old bikes saddle on it) the hip pain has come back.

I have messed around with saddle height and raised my bars but it’s still bad.

Any ideas what could be causing it? It feels as if my hip joint is becoming inflamed – I have ridden bike for years and am fortunate to have a few different bikes and non have ever caused me hip pain before.

Thanks!!

Measure everything on the old bike setup then transfer to new toy .

🙂

Are the crank arms the same length, an extra 5mm on one side could make you twist your hip slightly and affect the hip rotator muscles.

swap saddles & see if that helps ?

5mm higher on the seat can kill!

What kind of hip pain? How does it feel and where?

Thanks for the replies so far.

I tried to get it to match my previous bike but the geometry is a bit different so hard to do.

I have tried a few of my saddles but it still persists.

The cranks are both 172.5mm, all my other bikes have 170mm – so this could be it?

The hip pain is a dull pain that continues for several days after riding – it seems to affect the hip joint area only – there is no tenderness though

How anal have you been about measuring? Saddle to bar drop the same? I speak as someone who had a hip impingement (now surgery) that found setup absolutely critical. For me too low a seat was my main issue that would blow me up. 3 or 4mm is all it takes to be wrong. Did your bike fit give your measurements significantly different to what you were using before? If so, be a bit dubious about them or at the very least change to them slowly.

Biking and hip pain might be connected to the “sacroiliac joint”. This joint likes to get stuck – and this translates to a wrong position of the hip joints.

Maybe search youtube for “sacroiliac joint pain relief” and try to find an excercise which helps. What you describe: pretty sure it’s this strange sacroiliac joint issue. Nothing “wrong” with the hip joints itself.

Excercise: it’s like “stretching”. One week and 2 times 5 min a day these special stretching thing and you will be most likely rid of this pain stuff.

I got weird cramps in my glutes using 172.5mm cranks on a hire bike once (usually use 170mm).

Not the same thing but goes to show that few mm can make all the difference if like me you’re a finely honed machine,

This might explain it a bit:

https://mayfieldclinic.com/pe-sijointpain.htm

The medical likes like to sell pills and surgery.

But there are dedicated stretching exercises to move this “si joint” into the correct position again. And this makes the hip joints move “free” again as well.

I hope at least.