West 5 Cycles
Cycling, fixed-gear bike building and life on two wheels onlyArchive for Tips & Tricks
Knees up
Recently I’ve really felt the presence of my knees – in a bad way. The cold weather has certainly made them more susceptible to pain, but something else has had me quizzing for a while where the sudden pain came from. Riding fixed up hills has certainly exacerbated it, and yesterday’s 85km loop really had me suffering – I just couldn’t work out why it was so bad all of a sudden.
So today I had to refrain from rushing out to catch a little glimpse of sunshine atop my steed of speed and had to contend with looking at it instead. Just could not afford to make the pain any worse. To add to the confusion the pain was intense in my left knee, but not in the right and particularly bad when in a bigger gear or going up a hill, and less so when just spinning. The pain was mainly in front of the knee- just above the kneecap and occasionally shifted to the inside leg, just next to the kneecap. While out spinning yesterday I stopped on occasion to raise my saddle a mm or so as one of the tips for fixing pain in front of the knee is doing just that (whereas if you have pain the back of the knee, you have to lower your saddle).
This created temporary relief, but before I knew it the pain was back. Next thing I tried (when having pain on the inside of the leg) was to try to have my foot pointing a little outward.. there is a little float in my pedals, which allowed me to try it, but again – the benefit was negligible and before long the standard pain returned.
Mystified I eventually got home and promptly decided to compare my summer shoes and my winter shoes with one another. When buying my winter shoes I made a point of putting the cleats in the same place relative to the attachment points as where the cleats were on my summer shoes. Of course, what dawned on me when comparing them side by side was that there was a slight size difference between the two, the summer shoes are tighter and hence I picked one size bigger and the Winter shoes, more generously sized anyway to allow for warm socks etc. are a size smaller. This makes them equally comfortable when wearing them, but what I hadn’t realised was that the attachment points are proportional to the sole, and by putting the cleats in the exact same position from a mounting point of view actually meant that they were different places absolutely speaking.
What this meant was that whereas the positioning was perfect on my summer shoes, making the leg pivot exactly by the knee – on my winter shoes the pivot point was just a little higher, because the cleats ended up being further back on the sole. So with one pair of shoes I was pedalling with the ball of my foot and the other the pressure was more on the arch, rather than the ball – creating a totally different pressure point with the same technique. Albeit my feet feeling ok, it was eventually my knees that where complaining.
Why I only felt it on one knee as opposed to both is simply because one of my legs is a few mm longer than the other one – and thus the impact ends up being exaggregated on the shorter leg than the longer one, which is better able to compensate. I feel a lot wiser about it know, and happy I have figured out what was the cause of the pain – but still need to let my body recover. The cold weather makes joints even more vulnerable for sure and the next stop I’ve decided to do is book a Specialised Body Geometry fitting session – to iron out any more little niggles I might have in waiting that could take the fun out of riding. This little episode just illustrated how depressed I get when I can’t do my favourite sport for a while, so no reason to not do all I can to make sure this will continue to be a source of pleasure for me for many more years!
Singlespeeding on a mountain bike
Not wanting to completely ignore those of us who have mountain bikes still littering the back of the garden shed from those days where that was (is) still the bike to have – why not put it to good use and turn it into a single-speed for a new lease of life?
Don’t know about you, but it does seem that the nineties in particular made people part with their previous cycling preferences and leap on the mountainbike bandwagon whether there were mountains nearby or not. A little like the 4×4 fever that gripped the nation, most of whom can today be found in London where the biggest off-roading is over speed-humps. So my guess is that there must be a ton of bikes lying around, the product of new years resolutions of bygone days, bought in a whim before the realising that all those gears, ideal for off-roading, actually makes riding on tarmac a drag. You pedal like mad and still stuggle to keep up with anyone on a road-bike. Well, why not try something different and turn that mountainbike into a cool single-speed – build strength, technique and look cool, while having the bike easiest to clean and keep running smooth for miles.
Another great article on Bikeradar gives an insight to how single-speeding can make that old mountain-bike feel fresh and fun, by turning it into a minimalist machine.
Recycle your old bike – turn it to a singlespeed!
Now a lot of time on this blog has been devoted to the fixie fever that has gripped me and many others out there on the road and I’ve also written at length about building your own fixie from parts begged, borrowed, bought but not stolen. However, as my still recovering partner can attest – fixie riding is not all without hitches – it certainly takes some getting used to, namely that age-old program in our brain which says – if legs are tired, coast a little to recover.. well, that doesn’t apply to fixies as he painfully discovered. (Actually there is a way to learn to recover on a fixie even as your legs are spinning around, but more about that some other time)..
Before you take the plunge and go all fixed, you could reap the benefits of a single-speed: better training, practice the idea of fixie riding without the potential painful side-effects and have a bomb-proof commuter where winter grime is as easy to wash of as grabbing a bucket of water and tossing it over the bike. What I’m talking about of course is turning any unloved bike you might have around (or can persuade a friend to part with) and giving it a single-speed make-over. It’s the easiest and cheapest way to feel the thrill of a new bike – revamp an old one!
Bikeradar has this excellent how-to article about converting a bike to a single-speed – also have a read through the comments, some of which offer some useful addendums to the article, including the benefits of fixie vs. single-speed and dangers of using chain tensioners on fixies.
