Bicycle Mechanics - shoe rubs wheel in tight turn

Greetings,

I just bought a r700 Cannondale.

I bought spd clipless pedals so that I can use the same shoes I use on my specialized mountain bike.

When I do a sharp turn and my foot is at the bottom of the stroke, it rubs the wheel. Is this correct? Is something setup incorrect?

Can I not use Mountain bike clipless with this bike?

Thanks in advance,
David

It's fine: just be careful you don't lock up your wheel and fall on your head

I also use spd MTN shoes on a roadster.

Unless the MTN shoe you wear is drastically larger than the average road shoe, you'd probably experience the same foot-hitting-tire scenario with a road shoe, since the optimal position of your foot ,with respect to the pedal spindle, would not be that different regardless of type of shoe.

Another thing about a road bike: to hit the shoe against the tire, you have to turn fairly sharply. At typical road riding speeds, if you were to turn that sharply, you might have a fun flight over the handlebars :) This is unlike MTB riding, where you might often be doing really sharp, technical turns at low speed. The only time you turn this sharply on a roadie, is maybe if you're turning around like a U-turn. In which case, simply remember to keep the crank perpendicular to the ground (12 o'clock/6 o'clock) and just coast through the turn. Make sure if you're turning right, it's the right pedal at 12 o'clock and vice versa--you don't want the pedal hitting ground either. This way, you absolutely avoid any contact between foot with tire--and pedal with ground. This is the price we pay for riding vehicles that don't have engines, or rather, the engines run on PowerBars instead of gasoline.

If you do all this, you won't lock up your wheel and fall on your head :)

That's normal. The steep head tube and minimal fork rake on a modern road bike allow for quick, nimble handling, but it also means at low speeds you gotta watch out you don't turn your bars too far. You'll get used to it. :)

dude, you've got some really big feet.

At the bottom of the stroke? You might want to take off the clown shoes... ;)

Riders on smaller frames will occasionally have some overlap, but it's usually around the front of the stroke, when your foot is at it's most forward position (3 o'clock on the right pedal, 9 o'clock on the left). There should be no real difference between MTB and road pedals/shoes for this - in either case, the ball of your foot should be roughly over the pedal spindle, which will put the front of the shoe at roughly the same position in either case.

As ewh points out, you'll rarely turn that hard in any instance, and for most hard cornering you'll usually stop pedalling and put the outside foot at 6 o'clock.

Toe overlap.... very common. You'll get used to it & it'll never cause you any problem, guaranteed! :)

I should admit that very occasionally I take sharp turns at a low speed and my shoe does brush the front tire. I must not have my feet oriented quite at the right angle. Even though I know what's going on, and that there isn't a problem and just roll through the turn, the first 4 nanoseconds of foot/tire contact never fails to scare the bejeezus out of me!

This is pointlessly off-topic: I used to click out of my pedals by turning my heel in, towards the seat tube. (I used to think that unclipping this way was more comfortable.) Approaching a stop, I once jammed my heel into my moving back tire doing about 10 mph. Fun. The back tire locked instantly into a nice skid. Luckily I had enough "reflex intelligence" to start pedalling forward to avoid what would have been a beautifully ungraceful, low speed crash. Ever since then I have unclipped by moving my heel AWAY from the bike. Duh.

On a race bike it's not a problem but if you use the bike for commuting you may run into difficulties at junctions. You can't do track-stands very easily with toe-clip overlap.
What size is the frame and how long are the cranks?

Greetings,

It is a 50 inch frame.

From Cannondales's web site:
Crank TruVatiV Elita SL, 39/53

Thanks in advance,

for any advice!

Dave

I'm assuming you mean 50cm, and toe overlap is very common on a bike that small. I don't think it will prove detrimental to your riding at all. Heck I get overlap on my 56cm frame, haven't had any problems other than some difficulty trackstanding.