Sore knee from riding clipped in - pulling up, toe positioning and muscle engagement

[Wiffle]

My 2c;

Listen to your body; you're not a child, and with a bit of attentiveness, most people's intuitive understanding of their body is, IME, often better than that of a trained "professional" who isn't in your body, feeling what you feel.

Secondly, if riding flats allowed you to keep riding with out exacerbating the injury, why not just keep it up? The flats allowed you to keep riding whilst still allowing the injury to heal; seems like a win-win to me.

FWIW, after 15 years riding clipped, I changed to platforms 2 years back and can't see myself ever riding clipped again. I ride faster and harder (and with no pain), and crash less, than I ever did with clips.

 

[johnny]

Yeah, I agree with what you're saying and that was my intuitive position that I ignored in the mindset that I am not an expert and sometimes it pays to listen to some one with education and experience on matters. Clearly, this was not one of those times. I tried something, it didn't work and now I'm back to trusting my own judgement. I don't think listening to an expert was essentially a stupid thing to do.

I'd prefer to clip in but I'll be remaining on flats for at least a good few months yet until my knee heals.

 

[unitec]

Yeah, I agree with what you're saying and that was my intuitive position that I ignored in the mindset that I am not an expert and sometimes it pays to listen to some one with education and experience on matters. Clearly, this was not one of those times. I tried something, it didn't work and now I'm back to trusting my own judgement. I don't think listening to an expert was essentially a stupid thing to do.

I'd prefer to clip in but I'll be remaining on flats for at least a good few months yet until my knee heals.

Rollers, Rollers Rollers.
The problem IMO is that you are attaching your imperfect body to perfectly built machine.What you need to do is to retrain your legs to work correctly. In track cycling we use rollers (not a trainer) to "dyno tune" our pedaling. These rollers consist of 3 rollers mounted on a horizontal plane with a belt that drives the front roller. These rollers will highlight problems in your pedaling action and with regular stretching (yes I said stretching) your body will start to work symmetrically and pain will be a distant memory. For someone that comes from a DH or more hard core back ground this may seem weird but for those like my self that came from a road/track background this pretty much basic stuff. PS in the old days we used to strap,our selves into a low geared fixie & s
launch off a big hill to train our legs to rotate properly.

 

[monc]

Going back to the seat height suggestion, I know you said you've had the same seat height on this bike for years, but have you checked that there's no difference when you take the change from flats to spd pedals into account? There may be enough difference between the two pedal/shoe combinations to be causing grief. I get a similar dull ache behind my knee (from a tight nerve according to a physio) if I have my seat slightly too high.

Sounds like you would benefit from a proper bike fit where they video you pedalling to clearly see what each joint is up to. More $$, but hopefully will help in the long run