Yesterday I did something that I don’t normally do – a fast-paced 100km road ride in the Yorkshire Dales with my club (shout out to Otley CC!). I’m no road rider, so this was a big shock to my system – not so much because of the distance, but because of the sustained pace which I don’t tend to experience with my normal mountain bike riding.

I did OK all things considered, but the thing that screwed me up at the end was cramp in my knees. Like any cyclist, I’ve had my share of cramp over the years, and try to stay hydrated with salts / carbs as best I can, but I’m certainly no nutritional expert. But this business with my knees really surprised me as I’ve never experienced it before.

The best way I can describe it is as a pain on the inside of the joint. First the right one and then, a bit later, the left. In both cases, I could feel that were I to lock out my knee (i.e. straighten my leg), that it would probably stay like that for the foreseeable future. I ended up being extremely careful on the final climbs, staying in the saddle at all times and taking a great deal of care to not overload them. In fact, by the end of the ride, the pain had lessened and was not as excruciating as it had been when pulling up the bigger climbs and I was even able to ride up the post-ride hill back home without too much problem.

I’m sure there’s a few people on here with far more experience than I in such things, so I’m intrigued to here any insight you may have.

Sounds like it could be iliotibial band syndrome (ITBS), but best check with a physio if it is causing serious bother. I have suffered from it in the past and still get occasional flare ups when I don’t stretch regularly enough.

I thought it was a pain in my knee, but it was the IT Bands tightening and pulling and the pain is felt in the knees.  Google ITBS, but seek professional advice as knees are pretty complex. Foam rollers and regularly stretching, plus work on your glutes and hip flexors will all help, providing it is ITBS,

There is a mass of content online be it cycling or running induced ITBS, and there are loads of references to incorrect saddle height and cleat positions which are all very valid and worth checking to help alleviate the pain.  However, if that was your first club road ride, well done but the consistency of effort will have an impact on you also.  As I discovered (and still discover), there is bike fit and then there is being road fit, with none of the regularly breathers you get on the mtb.

Take care of your legs and your body and club will help with the rest! 🙂

Thanks for the advice, I’ll certainly look into this condition.

At the moment I don’t do any structured training – I just get on my bike and ride. I accept that this sucks, but I suppose it’s what comes from being a mountain biker for so long. I suspect that a combination of the change of discipline and increasing age will also have an impact here and it’s probably about time I started thinking a bit more about how I approach the sport. I’ve no wish (or ability, being honest!) to be winning races, but improving my performance and reducing discomfort would both seem noble goals to aim for here.

One thing I’ve been considering is a bike-fit – I can’t quickly change my own body or fitness, but I can at least make sure that my bike is as well set up as it could be. I don’t think it’s hugely wrong, but it would be good to get a second opinion on it anyway.

…there is bike fit and then there is being road fit…

After yesterday, I now understand what this means 🙂

You’ve answered your own question in your post. Graded introduction to any strenuous activity is the only way if you want to avoid injury!

Get this injury sorted so that it doesn’t linger, then allow yourself more of a build up befire the next time and you’ll be amazed at the difference! 🙂

Just in case, I had knee pain due to misaligned spd cleats, so painful I ride with flats on the mtb but spd’s on the road Bike.

i put a pair of flats on the road Bike and someone rode behind me videoing where my feet were naturally. I had a very funny angle to my feet, heels in.

transfered that to spd cleats no more pain.

just saying, it may not be your problem but was mine.

also get full floating cleats.

hope you get sorted

Thanks for the replies guys. A few comments:

Graded introduction to any strenuous activity is the only way if you want to avoid injury!

Great point. I perhaps did myself a bit of a disservice here. I do ride regularly – typically 50 miles road and/or 30+ miles off road every weekend, mostly with my son, so while this ride was certainly a stretch for me, it wasn’t like I got off the couch after 6 months of watching TV and decided to do a big ride. There’s no question that the pace and endurance requirements were a fair bit higher from my normal riding, however, and I’m quite sure I could have done more structured training beforehand.

Just in case, I had knee pain due to misaligned spd cleats, so painful I ride with flats on the mtb but spd’s on the road Bike.

It’s interesting. I typically ride both road and MTB with SPDs, mostly so I don’t need to buy two lots of footwear (especially my winter boots, which are fairly expensive things). I’m quite careful about how I go about setting up my cleats because when I’ve just bolted them on carelessly in the past, I’ve found it very uncomfortable, very quickly. I now spend a fair amount of time with any new shoes getting the cleats as I like them (albeit with relatively little science involved). That said, I don’t ever ride flat pedals (25 years of SPDs means that I’m a bit of a useless turnip on them) so I would have never tried your suggestion. I do have some in the garage, however, so it wouldn’t be a difficult experiment to perform…

Do you think there’s any value in considering dedicated road shoes/pedals?

If I ride anything long on longer cranks that’s how my knees and hips feel for a week…
(and I’m talking 5mm (or 10 really as its both sides) from 175mm-170mm makes a huge difference for me)

Bear in mind I’m 50 … long might be 3-4 hours but when I was younger it was probably after 7-8 hours… and didn’t take a week to walk normally… but I think many of my problems come from when I was younger.

With considering ??

Thanks Steve. I find crank size always a really tricky thing because unlike virtually everything else on the bike, you can’t tweak it easily. It’s not something I’ve ever given a great deal of thought to, apart from for my son’s bikes where he runs a mix of lengths depending on discipline / bike.

Are there any hard and fast rules relating to crank length? I’m around 5ft 11″, my main XC bike is 175 and the road bike I rode on Sunday is 172.5.

I’ve been through this recently.

Symptoms weren’t totally unlike yours, knees would be uncomfortable on the inside of the joint during rides, and this eventually became actual pain, co-incidentally after I’d massively increased my weekly mileage after a period off the bike.

I’d assumed over-use/’spring knee’, but since it didn’t seem to be healing as quickly as I’d hoped, I booked a bike fit with Dougie at Edinburgh Bike Fitters.

In short, his conclusion was that the bike was absolutely fine, other than needing the seat tilted forward a little, but that I was a twisted mess! It became a 2 hour physio session working on releasing bunched muscles, stretching tight hip flexors, and recording me pedalling the bike and using a saddle pressure mapper to see what improvements could be made.

I went away with some fairly simple stretches for some muscles I’d been neglecting, and basic strengthening of hips/glutes and sides of legs.

Feeling improvements already, although am also being extremely careful not to increase weekly mileages by more than 10-15%.

I had the same symptoms a few times a couple of years ago, when MTBing in warm weather.  Using a sports drink, instead of plain water, sorted things out for me.

You “try to stay hydrated with salts / carbs as best I can” – but are you actually drinking enough on road rides? Presumably you’re using a bottle rather than a Camelbak? So I’d suspect a bit of dehydration.

I was thinking it might be the opposite with the road bike being longer (but also I guess saddle and seat post/riding position will make a difference)… I hadn’t ever thought about it and my road bikes have always been (I think 175mm) .. then I got my XC bike with 170mm… but I hadn’t really cycled (semi seriously) for a while before that so can’t easily compare.

Anyway, I got my FS and knees and hips were agony… I was a bit disappointed as obviously I was hoping for more comfort… 😀 then I decided I’d try it 1x, nothing to do with crank length but the easy way was pulling the cranks off the XC bike and the knee and hip pain disappeared. At this point I’d still not connected the two… but like you I have a mini-me so I’d done some cranks for him and only then realised they were 5mm shorter.

The best place I found (when doing the kids cranks) was right at he bottom of this page. (Scroll all the way down)

Crank Shortening

You “try to stay hydrated with salts / carbs as best I can” – but are you actually drinking enough on road rides? Presumably you’re using a bottle rather than a Camelbak? So I’d suspect a bit of dehydration.

You know, I’m a bugger for this. I really struggle to drink enough on a ride as my body isn’t very good at telling me to drink. In this case, I had around 1.5 litres of water+high5 carb mix as well as 3-4 gels and an energy bar thingy. (Carefully selected during the ride as the first thing that came to hand when fumbling for food!)

Being honest, normally I’m way worse than this and unless it’s summer-warm, I hardly drink at all on the bike, but for this ride I forced myself to at least get through the drinks I had on the bike.

Thanks for the info Steve.

Sadly, all of my cranks are either hollow or carbon, so don’t lend themselves well to being shortened, although I’d probably not go down this route as it’s pretty one-directional if you change your mind. Maybe the way to do it is for me to source some different length cranks for a bit of experimentation with the turbo in the garage. It took at least 2 hours before my knees started to hurt, so it’s not a quick think to experiment with.

I’m starting to think that a bike fit might be the most cost-effective way to get started here.

As it happens, for my son’s bike I’m now running SRAM’s lovely NX 155mm cranks which are a bit of a godsend. I see them all over the place now on kids bikes at events and it’s odd that there aren’t more companies doing short cranks without square taper interfaces.

Sorry, wasn’t suggesting you shorten your present ones. It’s the bit at the bottom that has the way to measure and chart.

Best way is borrow some (or get some off eBay you can resell)… though if you are thinking of doing a proper bike fit anyway why not wait… and even if they are solid you still need to tae off 25mm (so it works for kids but unlikely to work for us adults… but then we have the luxury of buying a few sizes)

If your knees are already sore I’d bet they start twinging before the 2 hours…

You might also just have a virus or something… but it’s just making your connective tissue a bit fragile ?