I have been getting paranoid. Recently my knees have been painful and every time I climb the stairs my right knee starts to click. In fact last week it started to go “click-click”! Quite alarming really.
I asked Nick at work, who is a keen cyclist, about the knee issue. He recommended adjusting the position of my cleats. I was doubtful because I have been riding with my SPD click-in pedals for over a year and I hoped that my knees would tell me pretty damn quickly if they were getting twisted due to being locked in at an unnatural angle. It’s a dodgy business because if you get it wrong you can wreck your knees so I went home and unbolted the cleats.
I did a little Internet research to find the optimal cleat position and best way of finding said position. It turned out that the cleats were not directly over the ball of the foot. So I moved them forward and I also adjusted the angle so that the shoes point out a little more.
The next morning I was back on the bike and feeling some twinges. I unclipped my right foot for a little while and rode unclipped before clipping back in. After a few miles everything settled and seemed fine. I’m thinking that mt knees are just adjusting to the longer commute I am doing. 14 miles as opposed to 6 miles.
I may invest in some double-sided pedals and try cycling non-SPD for a week.