Home

Saddles & Essentials Store

Cycling

Nutrition

White Papers

Testimonials

FAQ

B2B

News
About Us
Contact Us
Search
Links
Opportunities

Begin with your cleats at a neutral position. When things are not working well, best to go back to neutral and start over.

Shoes: Be sure you buy a quality cycling shoe that fits your foot well and will hold you foot snuggly in the shoe without any localized pressure points. If the sole of the shoe is not rigid you may experience aches and pains even cramping in your arch due to unnecessary stresses and loads on foot and ankle muscles and your Achilles tendon.

With riding socks (we recommend quality wool), and shoes on feet, use a White Out pen or appropriately colored Sharpie, find the ball of your foot. Use your thumb, side it back and forth (fore & aft) across that big toe knuckle many times before and after you put the shoe on until you're sure you have the middle of this large boney point, write a solid vertical line there on your shoe. Take shoes off, loosen cleats, clip shoe into pedal, position that mark slightly ahead of the pedal axle centerline and rotate the shoe to give a heal position of choice. Have tool in hand so you can turn the pedal over and snug the cleat screws before trying to unclip and fully tighten the cleats.

Look at this link to see an illustration of your foot bones: http://www.bartleby.com/107/illus268.html Your finger will find the joint between Metatarsus and Phalanges bones. The widest part of the Metatarsus behind the "Head" needs to be centered over or ahead of the centerline of the pedal axle.

The ball of your foot needs to be ahead of the axle c/l with pedal and shoe horizontal. This prevents overloading your toes and using the wrong muscles along bottom of foot and in your lower leg, which happens to anyone who successfully the shoe too far back and will thus use their toes rather than whole foot to bear down. Achilles tendons may give problems for this very reason.

Using the ball of the foot as the focal point, you are better off with shoe & foot too far forward, ruined if fractionally too far back. It is all about the geometry and physics of that weight bearing fulcrum relationship.

When you understand all that you'll be good to go the extra mile in relative comfort. The best shoes and insoles are no good for anyone with foot in wrong place relative to pedal axle. Your feet and Achilles will also give problems if the shoe platform (sole) successfully the slightest flexibility.

You want to consider a pair of these insoles: http://www.hydropedes.com/ We believe they do a fundamentally better job than custom orthodics. I've been using the brand exclusively in cycling shoes and some street shoes with excellent results since 2005 with excellent results.

Hydropedes insoles feature a patented, carefully positioned series of heat sealed dots that control flow of the glycerin filling so there is a constantly changing weight bearing surface area, changes with subtleties of load. This prevents localized pressure points, which leads to nerve and vascular overload issues as the miles pile up. Your feet will love you for using these.

One other suggestion. Consider a pair of Speedplay Frog pedals and mountain bike shoes which have flat bottoms, better on feet and legs when off the bike walking. Frog cleats are small, fit up inside the walking surface on bottom of mountain bike shoes so you can walk normally off the bike. That radical heal down angle places undue strain on soles, Achilles, calves, hamstrings and will lead to cramping. Frog pedals do not have the usual clip in pedal locking mechanism that requires sizable force to unclip and are double sided for simple entry. They also have wide ranging rotation. These attributes are all good as your body tires during longer rides. I use and recommend SIDI brand shoes because they are well engineered and the only company to offer narrow, medium, and wide widths. This is hugely important.