Bicycle Mechanics - Cleat Shim for SPD

Hello all,

I have recently been diagnosed with a leg length discrepancy. My right leg is .75cm longer than my left. I’m currently going through the process of putting shims under the left cleat of all my shoes. I’m shimming them all by .25-.5cm. This has been no problem for my road shoes, I just added a Sidi adapter plate underneath the Time cleats. My question is how to shim an SPD cleat on my mountain bike shoes. I assume I can’t just put a spacer underneath the cleat that is the same size as the cleat, since the bottom of your shoe actually acts as a bit of a platform on the pedal. I suppose I can put a larger piece of stiff plastic underneath the cleat with some super long cleat bolts, but I was wondering if anyone had any ideas or experience with this issue.

thanks

I use the Lemond LeWedge (http://www.lemondfitness.com/products/lewedge/index.html) to get the proper angle but you can also stack them opposite to each other to shim in a vertical direction as well.

I had something going on with my right leg which made it functionally shorter -- maybe hip rotation....i dunno. I knew my leg wasn't actually shorter (I actually went to the extent of having both crank arms on one bike facing the same direction to check my leg length:D), but it definitely felt like it when I was riding.

I ended up using a piece of a hard nylon/plastic kitchen chopping borad as a shim. They're strong enough, but also very easy to saw and file to shape. The only trick was getting the shim to fit the curve of the sole. There are different thicknesses available. Another problem is that I couldn't get longer screws with a large head (damn my large head :p ), but they were still usable.

However, I've since corrected my leg descrepency by doing a lot of stretching, especially hip flexor stretching.

I have some LeMond wedges to supinate my feet (which, by the way, I think more people should do), which are good, but would you believe the pack of 8 sells for 45 bucks down here???!!

I measured the thick side of a wedge to be 1mm, so, to use them as a 7.5mm flat shim, you'd need about a dozen (2 wedges used as a flat shim = ~1.2mm)! In my opnion, it would be too hard keeping so many together unless you tape them, etc. I'd be making my own shim with a thin nylon chopping board.

I have a discrepancy of 3/8s of an inch(about ten mm), but my body is so adjusted to it that I have more problems when I shim for it. Just about any non brittle plastic will work. I have a customer that uses the lids from icecream tubs.

I have a discrepancy of 3/8s of an inch(about ten mm), but my body is so adjusted to it that I have more problems when I shim for it. Just about any non brittle plastic will work. I have a customer that uses the lids from icecream tubs.

How'd you figure that..?

Which part? A eigth of an inch is just over 3mm, so three times three plus a little. It killed my knee when I shimmed my cleat. And I changed his cleats once and you could read the label on the shim. :)