Lemond1985

Also, keep in mind that you can play around with increasing and decreasing the amount of knee extension, by varying the amount your ankle flexes. Sometimes if I feel pain start to develop in the front of one knee, I can start letting my heel drop at the bottom of the pedal stroke, which allows the knee to fully extend, reducing the amount of stress to the front of that knee. A lot of times just doing this for a few pedal strokes helps reduce knee pain considerably.

SlvrDragon50

My pain is more on the anterior portion rather than the IT band, though sometimes it does go laterally. It's predominantly the patellotibial ligament. I'll check it out though. Doesn't hurt to work on stretching.

SlvrDragon50

I'll keep this in mind. I wouldn't be surprised if this is the culprit since my left foot still doesn't feel comfortable while pedaling. I should probably mess with the cleat angle some more since I feel like there is a slight torque while I pedal whereas my right side is entirely good. I did experiment with dropping my heel on my own over the past few sessions, and I found it to be quite alleviating.

Lemond1985

My cleats always go all the way back, and it seems like it's still never far enough. Some brands of shoes allow me to get the cleats slightly further behind the balls of my feet than others, but none really seem completely satisfactory to me.

BengalCat

The only practical thing that will help you is to get a professional bike fit. It is best to get a person whose full-time profession is that of a bike fitter. Good ones have a well-known reputation.

What you describe is off in so many ways and it is clear that you have not had the opportunity to understand the intricacies of all the factors you mention and how they relate to each other.

Carbonfiberboy 

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-...s/syc-20376113
As was pointed out by another poster in that thread, those stretches I posted have nothing to do with the IT band, chiefly because one can't stretch an IT band. As this link says, gotta stretch and strengthen. The stretches I pointed out are particularly for the knee tendons. That's why I do them. The best tendon strengthening exercises, as mentioned in the link, are eccentric. They don't say, but studies have shown that slow eccentric work with heavy weights works to repair knee tendons and not much else does. IME fitness beats the heck out of bike fit every day. There's a woman who rode PBP inside the 90 hours on a coaster brake bike with a wire basket with flowers and an upright position. She's a very unusual athlete, but still, there it is, that's the point. You could try slow one-legged drops off a chair, trading legs. That and the stretches should fix it, maybe 2 weeks.

SlvrDragon50

Well, I moved my saddle back a bit more, and it seems to have solved the knee issue. No more hot spots on the pelvis either. I think time will tell if the saddle works for me or not, but I think it is the one. I do still feel a little uncomfortable on it, but it's not painful or anything. Plus, I figure if ISM is telling people that it will be uncomfortable even if they're experienced with multiple-hour rides, I imagine it'll be even more uncomfortable for me at first. One thing that I do find interesting is that it seems like my hamstrings are being activated more with this saddle. Usually my quads burn out first. The saddle also really punishes you if your pelvis isn't rotated anteriorly. I still feel a little bit uncomfortable on the width of the handlebars, but I'll give it some more time before I change anything else up. As of now, I'm quite happy with the setup!

Carbonfiberboy 

For the hams, it might be more saddle position and height that help them work. That's what I find. Sometimes on long rides, I'll switch muscle groups, pedal with my quads for a while, then with just the hams for a while. Lower load on your quads is good. Did you also lower your saddle as you moved it back?

SlvrDragon50

I did not lower my saddle since I think my body isn't really changing position. Before I had the saddle between my thighs even though it's supposed to be noseless, so I moved the saddle back without moving my butt back if that makes sense. Though, now that you mentioned it, I may lower the saddle a hair. Previously when I had the saddle lowered so that I could do a full heel pedal, I was getting knee pain so I raised the saddle to correct for that. That was with the improper fore/aft positioning though so I'll give it another shot with a slightly lowered saddle tomorrow.

I'm definitely happy with more of a hamstring workout since when I squat in the gym, I feel that my hamstrings are my big weakness.

Carbonfiberboy 

Ancient dictum says, "Pain in front of knee, raise saddle, pain in back of knee, lower saddle."