Does low cadence in high gears = knee injury?

[Gains]

I only started riding about 2 months ago and am making good progress, but yesterday I noticed a sharp pain in my right knee and a dull ache in the other.
Since starting out I've generally favoured grinding away in a gear slightly higher than is comfortable rather than spinning the pedals in a lower gear.

Am I asking for trouble, or is the knee pain more likely to be a result of something else (saddle/ride position etc)?
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If another cyclist nods/waves/says hello, ignore them: to give any form of acknowledgement is a sign of weakness.

[Matteo]

[Gains]

Ok, will do.

Should I expect improvements to slow down if I use lower gears? I'd got it into my head that by using a higher gear, I was having to work harder and would therefore get more out of it. That may be oversimplifying things a bit though
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If another cyclist nods/waves/says hello, ignore them: to give any form of acknowledgement is a sign of weakness.

[Roy Gardiner]

Hmm.

I have badly arthritic knees (no shit! shout all the VRs who've been around a bit...) and I reckon for a normal person it's pretty hard to damage knees by cycling. Even mine are improved by it. Remember, running is far harder on knees than cycling and most get away with it, and can for years.

I would get your position checked, and make sure your pedals are straight.

You should do stretching exercises to make sure your muscles aren't tightening to 'compress' the knees.

Low gears are, however, good. 90rpm is really a minimum, 95-100 would be better. It transfers the effort from 'strength' to 'puff'; you will be more out of breath spinning, but your legs won't ache so much after training. That's what happened to me, anyway.
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"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." H. L. Mencken

"Everything in war is simple, but the simplest thing is difficult." Carl Von Clausewitz

[Billy Boy]

[Dogma Dave]

[Steve McGinty]

[Tucker]

[JimmyRay]

Learning to pedal properly will get you better gains than the strength based pedal training you are currently favouring.

Training should be a mix of big gear work, little gear work, and middle gear work... and similarly you should practise giving it plenty undergeared every bit as much as over geared.

As for knee injuries, what you are doing can lead to tendonitis more than anything else, so yeah I'd speed up teh pedaling.

Contrary to Roy, I'd say everyone has an optimum cadence, or more accurately an optimum cadence for a given effort, experiment to find yours... can range from 80-100/110. Mine personally increases as the effort goes up, not the other way around.

[Roy Gardiner]

[JimmyRay]

[Gains]

I've been trying this whole lower-gear-higher-cadence malarkey for the past few weeks and it seems to have worked a treat- no knee pain, ride times steadily coming down and climbing ability steadily going up.
_________________
If another cyclist nods/waves/says hello, ignore them: to give any form of acknowledgement is a sign of weakness.

[Tucker]

[MrLoverman]

[babydinotrackboy]

[fatface]

shabba

[Tucker]