Originally Posted by
TampaMom
I have a similar problem due to a knee replacement. My riight flex is 112 degrees on my best day. I am getting a custom fit for a 44cm Fuji I just bought (I am 5'2"). I am assuming they will need to get me shorter cranks, but this also may also be a possibility for you, given you are taller:
http://web.resna.org/conference/proc...2009/Tupi.html
Tampa Mom points to a good site. It outlines how things need to work for a limited ROM in the knee. I've got about 75 degrees of flexion in the right knee. The suggestions about going with a shorter crank doesn't make much sense to me since during a typical rotation the knee actually binds at a point lower than the centerpoint of the crank.
So for me the answer is the hinged pedal which they describe at Resna. I've also heard it referred to as a drop pedal.
I talked to a person on the west coast who was going to custom make a drop pedal crankset for a fairly extravagant amount of money, which I was actually willing to pay. He ended up never following up so I saved myself a couple of grand. Granted, it was going to be totally custom work with a lot of fine tuning, CNC turned cranks and possibly a custom offset or elliptical chainrings as well. So, a lot of work for a really slick looking end result. It could have been worth it.
I figured it was a dead issue until a friend, who's a machinist, offered to try making something similar in his spare time. He butchered a set of cranks for me, giving me a similar system. We're at the phase one stage and I supplied him with a second set of cranks to play with for phase 2. I just transferred the frankencranks which were originally on a cannondale 29er to a gary fisher utopia.
Now, for the first time in about 30 years I can actually sit and spin and climb. Even though I know the power output from the right crank is reduced, it doesn't feel that awkward. I'm not sure if I'd use this system for hardcore mountain biking but it works pretty well for road type riding, especially if you want to maintain a cadence.
I don't know anyone who does this commercially and I'm lucky to have a friend who's a machinist. Granted right now they're an ugly set of frankencranks, but hey, it's a work in progress and it's free. If you do know somebody who does machine work, get a solid crankset for about 50 bucks for them to play with. My current cranksets are hollow core so my friend had to do some improvising to offset that.
Jay