New knee pain

[smittykitty]

While I know NOTHING!!!, have to wonder about cleat position????

[nscrbug]

Like I said...my fitter put the cleats on according to the measurements he had and also by visually comparing them to my current shoes. I'm fairly certain that he got the cleat position correct. I have to wonder if it's just the shoe itself? This was my first experience with Sidi's...have worn Northwaves for the past 3-4 years. Could it be that I'm doing something "funky" with my knee because of the different shoe?

Has anybody here gone from wearing another brand of shoe to a Sidi, and found that it just wasn't "right" for them?

[OakLeaf]

Different sole thickness?

[nscrbug]

Ahhh...good call, Oakleaf. You may be onto something there. My Northwaves do seem to have a lower profile than the Sidi. I wonder if the difference in soles could be positioning me higher in the saddle? Would that cause lateral knee pain? I always thought saddle too high = back of knee pain. Mine is situated on the side of the knee...not quite the back.

[OakLeaf]

Just visualizing it, it seems to me that it would make your seat height effectively too low, not too high. A taller shoe would decrease the distance from saddle to pedaling surface.

Knee pain (and swelling) similar to what you describe is what happens to me when my knees are bent too much at the top of the pedal stroke - though I never had an issue with sole height that I'm aware of. Right in the lateral notch between the patella and femur.

Maybe just try raising the seat height a millimeter or two.

[zoom-zoom]

If my cleat rotation is off by much at all I instantly get pissy pains in my knees. I'd suspect that before I'd suspect anything else, personally.

[nscrbug]

Thanks for the tips and advice, everyone! I guess I also should have mentioned that I already do have shims in place on both my old Northwaves and these new Sidi shoes. By shims, I'm referring to a thin, yellow plastic shim that is placed between the cleat and the sole of the shoe. I should also mention that my Northwaves had a carbon-reinforced sole...whereas, the Sidi Ergo 2's have a full carbon sole. Not that it really matters, though. But just from looking at a sideview of both shoes...the Northwaves sit a bit lower and flatter to the ground than the Sidis do. Even if you were to Google a pic of both shoes...you can immediately see a difference in the side profile of the shoes.

Yeah, I'm just perplexed (and frustrated) by this new knee pain. Mainly because this is happening on my brand new custom Seven that I just recently got. I've been riding it for a few weeks now, and up until yesterday...had no knee pain whatsoever...so I'm not entirely clear on why this has suddenly cropped up, unless it really is due to the new shoes. I just emailed my fitter explaining everything to him...so I'm sure he'll have some insight on what we can do to correct it.