It’s ironic that knee pain is one of the most common cycling-related injuries.  Cycling is often recommended therapy for rehabilitating knees injured in weight-bearing sports.  But the knee is also one of the least stable joints in the body, and pedaling a bike puts constant pressure on your knees.  If you pedal continuously at about 83 pedal strokes per minute, you’re bending and extending each knee about 5,000 times and hour.  Overuse – too much too soon too fast – is at the heart of most knee problems.  Often, the soreness you feel in your knee(s) is due to patellar tendonitis – inflammation of the tendons that connect your quadriceps muscles to your kneecap.

 This is not professional medical advice.  But years of cycling teach us a few things about how to prevent knee soreness, many of which are common sense:

• We should always warm up before a hard effort.  Thankfully, spinning low gears on a bike for a few minutes is an ideal way to lubricate your joints (literally) and warm up your muscles.  This is particularly important for those of us who are getting up there in age.

• Stretching your hamstring muscles eases the pressure on your quadriceps muscles.  It only takes a few minutes, and you can do it watching videos of past bicycle races.  It’s best to stretch by sitting on the floor with both legs stretched in front of you.  Bring one foot in, so that the sole of that foot is pressed against the inside of your upper thigh.  Then, with your back as straight as possible, bend forward at the waist.  Hold the stretch for no more than five seconds and release.  Repeat a few times on each leg.

• Be sure your saddle is at the right height.  Your bike seat should be high enough that there’s just a small amount of bend in your knee at the bottom of your pedal stroke.  Soreness above the knee often means your saddle is too low; soreness behind the knee often means your saddle is too high. 

• If you have clipless pedals, align the cleat on your shoe so that your pedal stroke is natural.  That is, avoid angling the cleat to make your ankle or your knee twist oddly while pedaling.

If your knees are sore, you can treat the pain by reducing the inflammation:

• Back off the distance and intensity of your riding.  You don’t have to stop completely but cut your mileage in half and avoid grinding up steep hills.

• Ice the area.  Ice acts to relieve the pain and swelling.  Apply ice 20-30 minutes three times a day until the swelling and soreness are gone.

• Use anti-inflammatories like aspirin or ibuprofen.  Take as directed to reduce the swelling caused by patellar tendonitis.