New cycling shoe cleat alignment

Tackleberry

Hi guys just wondering if any of you lads have any advise on how best to fit and align the cleats on a new pair of shoes to those on your old pair?

I've used the same shoes for around 7 years, but I recently bought a new pair and did my best to guess where the cleats should be positioned on the new shoe based on just looking at the old one, not exactly scientific!

But now after about half an hour on the bike I get fairly bad foot pains and numbness in my toes, I can shake it off pretty easily but then its comes back every 10 mins or so, not ideal.

Any advise would be great cheers

Dirk Gently

There should be small markings on the cleat. make sure you have them lined up correctly on each side. (e.g. second grove lined up with second grove on other side).

Could the shoes themselves be a bit narrow or tight. That tends to cause numbness in the toes.

Tackleberry

clown bag wrote: »

There should be small markings on the cleat. make sure you have them lined up correctly on each side. (e.g. second grove lined up with second grove on other side).

Could the shoes themselves be a bit narrow or tight. That tends to cause numbness in the toes.

Yeah thats what I'm worried about - not much I can do about that! Thanks tho I'll try follow your tips but I've never seen any markings on the cleat? Are these manufacturers marks or wear and tear? They're tricky little buggers

Dirk Gently

manufacturer marks on my look cleats. Think there's 4 or 5 lines. You match up the markings. 1-1 / 2-2 / 3-3 etc.

Don't think my spd ones have markings though so it could be manufacturer specific whether they're marked or not. I'll have a look at both sets when I get home and confirm.

skim

i use to get the pain and numbness 2 until i changed my shoes from shimano 2 northwave now there grand as for positioning i justmade a ruff guess first then during a ride id see which way it needed 2 go 2 feel comfrtable had them spot on after 2 short rides

Tackleberry

Cheers lads I'll have a look for those markings on the cleats

I tried sussing them out on the bike and then adjusting but its 4 or 5 spins later and I just can't get it right.

After spending 100 lids on them I'm determined to make em work!

doozerie

As mentioned above, the best bet is to position the cleats in roughly the right area by eye, clip your feet into the pedal and see whether it feels right. The problem is that clipping in and out will move the cleats so by the time you get to finally tighten them in place they may be out of position - you could tighten them more initially to avoid this but with some cleats (certainly Look, and SPD's too I think) this will leave indentations on the bottom of the shoe from the protrusions on the cleat and then fine tuning the position of the cleat becomes more awkward (also, if you make it too tight you can't fine jiggle the shoe around to adjust the position of the cleat once clicked in).

What I tend to do is position the cleats roughly half way across the width of the shoe by eye (and also roughly forward/back to what I think is about right), which them leaves me with fine tuning the front/back adjustment and the rotation adjustment to get everything right. For that I stick some masking tape on the sides of the shoe, and maybe on the underside too, put the shoe on, clip into the pedals, and move the shoe around until I get what feels to be the correct position - one rule of thumb is to get the ball of your foot directly over the axle, but some people like to vary it a little from this position.

Once you have it about right, leave the shoe clipped in but slide your foot out of the shoe. You can them draw lines on the masking tape to line up with parts of the cleat. You'll have to put your foot back in the shoe to unclip it, which will probably move the cleat position, but once it is off try to line the cleat up with your marks on the tape and tighten. Sometime this works well first time, sometimes it takes a couple of efforts. It's certainly not the only method, but it is one that may be worth a try. Remember that for most people their two feet are different sizes so the position of the cleat is likely to differ a little between the two shoes.

Re foot pains and numbness, the numbness is probably caused by restricted blood flow and this could then be leading to the pain. I had a similar problem recently with a new pair of Specialised cycling shoes. The shoes were very comfortable but on some rides the numbness and pain kicked in after a few miles of climbing. In my case I found that loosening the straps sorted the problem out - presumably as my feet were swelling from the exercise, and particularly from strenuous climbing, what started out as a snug fit in the shoe turned into too tight a fit. I hadn't had that particular problem with shoes before but these shoes are a better fit to my feet than my previous shoes so it seems to not take much to overtighten them. So, it is worth trying to adjust the straps while on the bike to see if this makes a difference.

doozerie

Oh, another useful guide to determining the correct rotational position of your feet on the bike: side in some kind of flat surface which is high enough to keep your feet off the ground. Let your lower legs just hang. Look down at your feet and see which way they are twisted, and the position of your feet on the bike should try to match that.

This is another rule of thumb, so some people will vary their foot position to suit themselves, but again it might get you in the right ballpark to start from.