I had a stroke in my 20s. I’m now in my 50s, and I still have right-sided weakness - my leg works but isn’t strong, and I don’t have use of my right arm.
I’ve recently started cycling again. Nothing ambitious - just short rides on my mountain bike to get out and moving. Last week I did about 5 miles in around 30 minutes. It felt fine at the time.
That night, I woke up with a really painful cramp in my left calf - my stronger side. It stayed tender for days afterwards. That’s never happened before, so I started looking into what might have caused it.
Compensation
The thing that kept coming up in everything I read was compensation. When one side is weaker, the other picks up the slack without you noticing. On a bike, that means one leg is doing most of the work while the other just comes along for the ride.
Looking back, that’s almost certainly what’s happening. My right leg can push a pedal, but it’s not contributing much. So my left leg - and specifically my left calf - is taking the full load. Five miles doesn’t sound like much, but if one leg is doing the work of two, it adds up.
The cramp didn’t hit during the ride. It came hours later, in bed. Apparently that’s typical - the muscle gets fatigued during exercise, then seizes up when you stretch it later.
The saddle height question
I’ve always kept my saddle quite low. It feels safer - I can get my feet down when stopping, and getting on and off is easier. But it turns out a low saddle has its own problems.
When the saddle is low, your knee stays bent throughout the pedal stroke. The calf never gets a break - it’s constantly engaged. You also tend to push more through the ankle, which loads the calf even more.
A higher saddle would help with this, but then I’d lose the stability I rely on. One thing I’m considering is a dropper seatpost - ride with the saddle higher, then drop it when stopping. Seems like a reasonable compromise. Whether it’s worth the cost for occasional short rides, I’m not sure yet.
Foot position
This one hadn’t occurred to me at all. Where your foot sits on the pedal makes a big difference to how hard your calf works.
If you pedal on your toes or the ball of your foot, the calf does more work. Moving your foot back slightly - more mid-foot - spreads the load to bigger muscles. I’ve got wide flat pedals with pins, which are good for keeping my foot in place, but I’ve never really thought about where on the pedal I’m placing it.
The other thing is ankle position. Pointing your toes down (“tiptoe pedalling”) keeps the calf under constant tension. A more neutral ankle - even slightly heel-down - takes the pressure off. Something to think about on the next ride.
Gearing and cadence
Even on what feels like an easy ride, pushing harder gears puts more load through the calf with each pedal stroke. The advice seems to be: use easier gears and spin a bit faster. Less force per stroke, less strain on the muscle.
On a mountain bike it’s easy to just push a bigger gear without thinking about it. I’ll try being more conscious of that.
Getting the weaker side to contribute
This is probably the most obvious thing in hindsight. If I can get my right leg to do even a little bit of the work, it takes load off the left.
I’m not expecting symmetry - that’s not realistic. But even thinking about both legs turning the pedals, rather than just pushing down with the left, might help balance things out a bit.
The right arm
This one’s less about the cramp and more about general comfort - but it came up when I was looking into all of this.
I rest my right hand on the handlebar. It’s not doing any work, but my physio reckons some light contact through the arm is better than letting it hang. The key word is rest - if I try to grip or put weight through it, my shoulder lets me know about it. I’m aiming for a relaxed arm with a slight bend at the elbow.
I’ve found that bar height affects this. When the bars are lower, I end up leaning forward and putting weight through both arms whether I want to or not. More upright seems to keep the right arm more relaxed.
I’ve also been looking at ergonomic grips like the Ergon GP1. They have a wider palm support section, which in theory means the hand can sit there without needing to actively grip. That matters for me because with post-stroke tone, gripping tends to increase spasticity - something my physio keeps reminding me about.
What I’m going to try
I’m not planning to change everything at once. For the next few rides, I’m going to focus on:
- Being more conscious of where my foot sits on the pedal
- Keeping my ankle more neutral rather than pointing my toes
- Using easier gears
- Trying to get my right leg to contribute something
If the cramps keep happening, I’ll look at raising the saddle slightly or getting a dropper post. But I’d rather try the free stuff first.
The ride itself felt completely fine - it was only afterwards that the problem showed up. That’s the thing with compensation: you don’t notice it happening until something complains.
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