Calves ache a lot??

Cleat fore aft placement is the most likely culprit but it sounds like you've already addressed that. Perhaps you can move the cleats a bit further back and of course defining exactly what you mean by ball of the foot can be tough. You may want to Google Steve Hogg's website as he has good thoughts on cleat placement. Above Category Racing out of California also has some good online blogs about cleat placement just to make sure your thoughts on ball of the foot relative to the spindle agree with what the fitters are saying. But when in doubt a bit more aft cleat placement should relieve calf strain. Also as a rough rule of thumb, the larger your shoe size the further you'll want the cleats back as long feet represent a long lever arm that places more strain on the calves.

The other possible culprit is an overly high saddle that leads to reaching with your toes at the bottom of the pedal stroke or excessive downward angle of the foot and toes throughout the pedal stroke. That could also lead to excessive calf strain. Basically the calves should do little more than stabilize the foot throughout the pedal stroke and even though most riders do some calf flexion and extension with at least some ankling motion if you're doing more of that then necessary your calves may be overly stressed as a result.

And of course the combination of the two is that your seat should be lowered as your cleats are moved back, if you moved the cleats back to take the load off your achilles tendon but did not lower the saddle you may be riding a bit high now. That part isn't always obvious, but as most riders toe down at least a bit during the pedal stroke a more forward cleat represents a bit of extra reach with the leg/foot combo and moving the cleats backwards reduces the foot's contribution to that overall reach.

-Dave

Thanks for the reply Dave, it was Steve Hoggs site that actually helped fix the achillies ache I had so I have read a lot on there, very informative site.

It might be seat height, but at the moment it feels maybe a tad low...maybe 3 or 4 mm (yes I can tell the difference) its almost like when the pedal is up at the highest it feels a bit tight behind my knee, I also find if its too low I get an ache on the top of my knee area, which i dont have at the moment, and if its too high I get an ache behind the knee and the achillies starts aching again...

I don't know if flexibility comes into it, ie back of your legs, so ham's etc?

I cannot touch my toes, never have been able to, and I struggle to maintain staying in the drops longer than 10min so that might be part of it, not that I use the drops much though due to that reason....

Cleat position, its currently as far back as it will go and when pedalling I dont normally toe down.

Another thing, when pushing I feel like I can push with my whole leg, which is then when my calves ache, but if I kinda push from my quads/knees up, sorta top part of my legs and let my calves go loose it helps, but I cannot maintain that for too long esp if I start going uphill or into a wind....

Interesting. How much seat setback are you running? The issues at the top of the pedal stroke sound like a fore aft positioning and or long crank issue. The other stuff (soreness in front of the knee for a low saddle or soreness behind the knee for a high saddle) are very normal.

Yeah, flexibility does come into things, mostly in terms of max knee angles you should target and the tighter you are the lower you should go but still in the range of say 140 to 155 degrees or so. Some good images and explanations of knee angle here: http://www.bikedynamics.co.uk/guidelines.htm

As a million mile guess I'd suspect that your saddle height might be close but you're either running very long cranks or your saddle is set back too far and that leads to the issues at the top of the pedal stroke. That could also contribute to the calves if you're having to reach a bit at the bottom of that pedal stroke in part because you're so far back.

I really don't feel my calves doing much of anything except stabilizing my foot while I pedal unless I'm really clawing at an oversized gear on a steep hill. Sure they do a lot as they're usually the first muscle to fatigue and start cramping at the tail end of a long ride but I don't really feel my calves even in Threshold or VO2 Max interval efforts. I sometimes pound big gears and sometimes spin faster during those efforts but I've never really tuned into a lot of active calf involvement during those focused hard intervals.

Tough call, but I'd still look at saddle setback and saddle height. If you happen to use Speeplays you could also experiment with their aftermarket base plate which allows more rearward movement of the cleats. Those are very nice for folks with larger feet.

-Dave

Thanks again Dave, appreciated.

Funny you post up that website as I actually used all the angles from it and did a bike fit myself a while ago, that included downloading the same software and videoing myself and then measuring myself hehe 🙂

I did a 60 miles ride yesterday, not really pushing much but I did notice my calves aching on the climbs, but I also noticed I was toeing down a little bit... it didnt register before but as I was paying a lot more attention to things yesterday I noticed it... as I was mid-climb I changed to a more heel down movement, sort of a concious effort to push my heel a bit more, and the calf ache went... 🙂

I also noticed I had lower back ache on the left side only, but I think that is a seperate issues as the last couple of rides ive been trying a slightly lower/longer reach on the bars... but I think I will move that back...

So, going forwards I have dropped the saddle about 4mm initially to see if it helps, that will also bring it forward a tiny bit as well... I will see how it goes from there.

Hi,

Just thought I would post up a follow up on this post.

So, since June I have continued to have issues although for a few weeks I actually had a good fit with no aches on long rides but I think I did too much trying to make up for lost time, then stupidly carried on tweaking my fit, even trying extremes with fore/aft for the saddle and seat height, even got it in my head that the frame was too big and started looking at selling the bike...

I spent some time going over my issues with Steve Hoggs and he said its a lack of flexibility causing the issue and asked me to try a few things to check my flexibility. Not 100% sure that is the case as riding my MTB is much better than my road bike, slight niggles but nothing like the road bike.

I also copied the MTB fit on my road bike and it felt very low and weird but eased the aching a bit.

I now think its more of a damaged muscle /tendon issue rather than a fit issue as I must have tried every possible fit on my road bike, that combined with bad flexibilty.

The hardest thing those is watching months of training go down the pan due to injury, its very difficult to keep off the bike but I need to think of the bigger picture....

Back pain = too low cadence?