i just built my new ride and my saddle to spindle height increased by ~5mm thanks to some overly conservitive cutting of my seatpost. Now I never really felt that my seat was too low on my other ride, and I don’t feel like it is too high here, but I’ve been having some high calf soreness in one leg that I’m not sure is a result of my higher seat or maybe compensation for a sore achilles that I developed a few weeks ago (before the trasition to the new bike) since I have just returned to the run after a two week layoff because of my sore achilles. The soreness is very high in the calf almost to the back of the knee.
Anyway before i go lopping off another section of seat tube I though I’d check if this type of pain is even realted to seat height. I’m going to get out the video tonight and check just to be sure, but my angles always seem a bit specious anyway.
Yes, that could cause it. When you are too high you overextend to compensate which puts stress on your knee and achilles. Have you tried dropping it to see if you notice a difference.
Quite possibly, you may be “reaching” a bit too much w/ your foot now… the first time I had a bout w/ achilles issues, it followed me raising my saddle a bit to compensate for some earlier knee issues (the classic donimo effect). I solved the achilles issue by lowering the seat back down a bit as well as moving my cleats further back so my foot remained “flatter” (less range of ankle flex) throughout the pedal stroke.
yeah, I’ve got about 5,000 miles on my other bike and have moved the saddle only once or twice in that time. I traslated the measurements to the new bike but missed the seatpost cut by half a cm. It felt a bit long at first, but now I’ve got close to 100miles on the higher position and my legs feel good while riding, but this soreness has popped up. It is jsut so hard to tell since I also resumed some running and was also chasing the dog around yesterday.
I guess I’ll double check the video and maybe have to get the sawzall out again.
I’m assuming that if your seat is too high, that one thing that will result is that you will point your toes down more at the bottom of the stroke. This puts less stress on the achilles…period.
I will also assume (because it’s almost an axiom of cycling) that you will self-select your knee angle by using the ankle to adjust. Therefore, unless you are extreme-toe-down and there’s no more room for self-selection, I would guess that your knee isn’t hyper-extending either. In fact, you will start to rock the hips before you will let the knee hyperextend too.
Therefore it’s probably rare and pretty extreme for the knee to overextend to the point of hurting you behind your knee. and I would only expect a cycling related achilles problem due to a low seat and high-torque, heel-down pedalling such as with lots of seated hill climbing. (because of the axiom again…seat too low, use the ankle to self-select knee angle).
My guess is your current problems do not have to do with your new seat height.
The height of your seat is vital, if your seat is too high your hips will bounce your pedal, if too low you risk pain for your knees. your back needs to be as flat as possible so always be careful with your seat positioning.
Remember cycling is a repetitive motion sport, not strength. 1 hour time trial is 5,400 revs at 90 rpm with very little stress through the achilles. Even a 1500W sprint for 10secs produces less torque (at least as measured by my Powertap, not necessarily through my achilles) than as measured in a human running through the achilles (roughly 2.5 times body weight). 300+ watts up a hill at 70 rpm (i.e. a high “torque” application in cycling) still pales in comparison to the repetitive nature of cycling. Same with ITB syndrome, lateral epicondylitis (tennis elbow), and other repetitive overuse injuries. Also, when the achilles finally fails and ruptures, it is almost always a very simple action that does it
Thanks for adding your knowledge to the discussion.
Not sure if you are saying that I am likely wrong? I would like to hear your opinion on the OPs issue.
I’m assuming that if your seat is too high, that one thing that will result is that you will point your toes down more at the bottom of the stroke. This puts less stress on the achilles…period.
The way I envision it is that the toe ends up pointed down because you’re already approaching the limit of the achilles’ elasticity. So while a toe-down angle may cause less stress than pulling the heel down further in an abstract sense, in this particular application having the heel up reflects that the achilles is already under tension.
edit: I’m sure my terminology is not medically correct, but I think in this case what I was trying to say is that “reaching” with the toe and how it loads the achilles is an issue of mixing up the cause & effect
Yes, except that it’s an issue of physics. Think Levers. The amount of stress on the achilles is determined by the amount of force being applied to the pedal and the length of the lever represented by the foot from achilles attachment point to the center of the pedal spindle in the direction that force is being applied.
If you were to point the toe STRAIGHT down like when you are swimming (completely dorsiflexed) the length of the foot ‘lever’ is zero and there is NO stress on the achilles and all the force is applied straight through the metatarsals to the ankle then leg bones. The achilles would only see as much stress as it took to fight the elasticity of the muscles along the shin to achieve straightness.