here on bike fit tuesdays we're quite big fans of running cleats far back on the shoe
but what about mid-foot cleat position what's it
all about what are the pros and cons that's what today's video is about
what are you doing drilling a shoe
but it's exactly as it sounds isn't it so it's getting the cleat placement much more towards
the middle of the foot to the center of the foot shoe design tends to originate the cleat around
the ball of the foot and first metatarsal through these delicate toe bones the concept of cycling
is to get the click further back to take the the pressure away from the delicate structure of the
forefoot so if you consider that this is a lever it's comprised of almost 30 bones they're very
very small it's a very mobile appendage and in cycling what we're trying to do is utilize it as
a lever so one of the functions of a cycling shoe is to sort of lock the foot out and turn it into
an effective lever if you take the feet closer to the to the ankle joint which is where typically a
lot of instability tends to occur then what you're doing is effectively reducing the leverage of of
the foot which in turn intends to improve to burst through the ankle this in turn improves the blood
through the knees the hips and the pelvis uh to that end actually we found by taking cleats
further back on the shoes we can actually just dramatically influence pressure going
to the saddle there is an argument for taking cleats further back is midfoot too far back
shoe design and cycling in my opinion is pretty archaic
there hasn't really been much of a development in certainly in terms of
placement over the last few years has in my opinion always been a little bit too far forward
there are some brands that are further back than others and represent best of the bad bunch
lake is a very good example i have a very uh good relationship with lake um i feel the
cleat location is still further forward than i would like it there are really as far as we're
aware only two ways of taking your cleats further back on the shoe the first is to take a drill to
it which personally i wouldn't recommend and one of the problems with drilling a hole in the shoe
is that when a lot of shoes if you take a lake shoe like this which has a reasonable amount of
forefoot drop as you're taking that cleat further and further back actually what you're going to do
is you start deforming the cleats so the face isn't actually going to engage in the pedal
uh so i personally would discourage you from drilling holes in your shoes as well as the fact
you're writing off really nice but potentially writing off a really nice parachute potentially
the best remedy is a uh a company called midfootcycling.com i think they've got niffler
cycling uh they basically they build these these extender plates which allow you to get the cleats
i think it's around 20 millimeters further back so further towards the uh towards the midfoot this
is a very effective means of getting your cleats further back one thing i will say is that uh just
while we're on the subject of where the placement is going to be if your shoes are too big for you
your cleat cleat location is going to be further forward furthermore not all cleat placement is
created equal physique shoes for instance have a cleat placement that is about 15 millimeters
further forward than pretty much everything else on the market there are some other brands that
tend to have a more rear wheel placement lake's kind of one of them uh bont definitely has a much
more rear wheel clean placement and typically a much flatter sole as well which for certain
certain individuals actually isn't a great thing but uh it does allow a more real-workly
placement my point is that if you are sizing up the shoe to accommodate a wide foot for instance
you're going to end up with the cleat location significantly further forward than you probably
than it probably ought to be so you've got a a a steel or alloy plate it's it's quite similar
to the uh the speed play four after extender plate that no longer exists thanks to the idiots
or wahoo you have a steel plate that bolts the existing hot cleat holes of the shoe you then bolt
the cleats to that plate and it allows you to get the cleat significantly further back on the shoe
first and foremost you take a lot of pressure away from the forefoot which has got a very
dense capillary structure a it's a relatively mobile part of the foot and in turn you tend
to improve stability we'll also take it close to the sub taylor complex which again in turn
improves stability so one could argue that by improving stability at the foot you're
going to improve stability further up the kinetic chain through the knees the hips and the pelvis
one negative i would say from a from a biomechanic standpoint is that it's going to impinge the hip
so it's going to impinge the hip through the top of the stroke and make it more difficult
to get through the top of the stroke so i would argue that mid-foot cleat placement
should be carried out in combination of first and foremost a lower saddle height
because as you take the cleat further back on the foot you're effectively increasing
the extension or the reach to the pedal axle i would also potentially be reducing the crank
length as a means of enabling the rider to get over the top of the stroke more easily
thanks to the impingement that or the the possible impingement that a midfield placement might create
so i'm so aero
this is what you see like 90 percent of people riding around in richmond parkland doing
yeah i don't talk about aerodynamics very much because it's something that i can't quantify
and prove i don't have a wind tunnel on here unless i make you stand there and fart a lot
it's predominantly hypothetical uh especially in this environment we don't have a wind tunnel
and we can't prove any of the any of the findings many would argue that if you take the human being
lower to the ground you will improve their ability to adopt a more aerodynamic position
two-thirds of acute overriders frontal area is the human body themselves so if you can reduce
the size of the human being then uh you're going to make it more aerodynamic with a midfoot cleat
placement you are going to run the saddle really quite a lot lower as in lower to the
ground which means in turn the frontal area of the individual potentially will reduce
a mythical replacement makes a hell of a lot of sense for triathletes
particularly triathletes of a more endurance orientated nature so if you're doing 70.3
in iron man running the clip further back will help uh offload the calf muscles the
gastrocs and which in turn will tend to keep you a lot fresher for the run so if you think about
the calf muscles there are stabilizing muscle if they're not having to be activated to stabilize
the foot through the pedal stroke then they're going to be kept a lot fresher for the wrong
for a triathlete standpoint i mean i would be getting the cleat as far back as possible almost
this is toe overlap and to be honest there ain't a great deal over there is there with you
and this is this is a size 42 lake with a midfoot cycling cleat adapter run as far back as possible
and you're running what 42c time you're going to go at tower overlap on almost any road bike
it typically is a problem that presents itself at very low speed road marks aren't intended
to be ridden at low speed i'm talking when i say low speed i'm talking about
meandering through traffic i mean placement isn't an ideal solution for commuting but that's not
really what we're talking about here i think the tow overlap uh yes of course as you take the teeth
further back you in you inherently move the foot further forward so toe overlap is going to become
more of a concern i feel like due to the uh the the suing nature of americans most
american bike manufacturers tend to be really retentive about top overlap
i personally feel it's a non-issue uh because realistically you're not going to be pedaling
at very a lot of people aren't going to be pedaling very low speeds but it does
depend on the geometry of the bike so for instance my commuting bike uh my faithful old pearson has
got a very very slack head angle and a lot of fork rake which takes the front wheel very far
away from the bottom bracket which in turn means that i don't have any tar overlap uh furthermore i
have got shorts cranks on it as well so there are lots of things that will come into play that will
influence toe overlap frame geometry uh obviously the size of the shoe or the size of the rider's
foot where the cleats are placed on the shoe crank length head angle the fork rake the size
of the tyre whether you're running mud guards or not you see what i mean there's a lot of different
drivers here that will potentially influence tire overlap so you need to take into consideration all
of those things before worrying about it too much in terms of where you're gonna place your cleats
is midfoot cleat placement a good thing i think it depends on the specific needs of an individual
it can be a very good means of offsetting uh heavy pronation and helping stabilize an unstable foot
uh i must admit that i have never felt the need to take a cleat as far back as this for instance
these cleat adapters in the studio right now are removed from a rider's shoes because
frankly he'd been using them uh on a pair of shoes that were a size or two too big
and had to use the cleat placements the cleat adapter to get the key further back
i think the moral of the story there is if your shoes are wrong fix the problem don't try and
apply band-aid solution to it so if you're trying to if you click the locations too far forward on
the shoe consider whether the shoe is correct or not for the in the first place remember we
said earlier in the video about different shoe brands having different cleat placements secondly
i think for a specific application yes i think a mid-foot cleat placement can can pay dividends uh
certainly with regards to triathletes certainly with regards to ultra endurance riders anywhere
any individual who's going to be on the bike for extended periods of time there's a very very
strong argument for taking the cleat further back i think it's about time that shoe brands started
to step up and really start thinking about where they're placing their cleats because it's still
stuck in the 1970s and revolving around the first messed tassel the ball of the foot that marks the
end of today's episode of bike fit tuesdays if you want to book a fit with james there'll be
a link down below to his shop and if you have any questions for james put him in the comment
section down below and he'll do his best to answer them when he gets off his phone he's on tinder