Knee pain ONLY riding outside NOT on trainer

Triathlon Forum
1

Here’s a rundown: New bike but same shoes, pedals, and saddle (Adamo). Fitted professional by the same person who’s fitted me the past several years without issue. Went from a 175 crank to 170. I’ve logged over 20hrs on the new bike on the trainer(RockNRoll trainer) without an ounce of pain. This includes an FTP test, 90 interval workouts, and a 2hour straight IM effort ride.
This past weekend with the weather break went out for my first outdoor ride. Within 20mins my left medial knee was killing me. The moment I stopped the pain stopped, no soreness. Sunday I switched shoes and again within 20mins by inner left knee was killing me. I rode straight to my front door and put my bike on the trainer and did 40mins with no pain?!!!

Both rides were lower efforts near recovery pace with cadences in the mid 80s. On the trainer I like to keep the cadence above 90.

I searched the forum and it’s mostly people having pain on the trainer and not outside. From what I read it should be something with my cleat position for medial pain but why only outside and not the trainer? Does a trainer keep the knee from collapsing inward?

2

I can setup my Speed Plays with almost zero float if I’m riding inside, but that will result in knee pain if I’m outside. I need more float when riding outside, it’s a lot more dynamic.

3

Probably float, which is why I went over to SpeedPlay.

4

Interesting. I’ve ridden most of my years with 4.5degree float.

5

I have the exact same problem, except it will actually get sore for 24-48 hours after a long or hard ride outside. I’ll be watching this thread for answers. It’s been 4-6 weeks for me.

6

Cood outside? Frequent stop-starts? Those are about the only variables that I can think of.

7

Just throwing this out there…

I have no clue which muscles go into stabilizing your body while riding outside but, it could be a strengthening issue since you don’t need to balance on the trainer. Maybe you lost some hip flexor strength (or other another muscle) over the winter. That usually seems to be what causes knee issues.