Hypno Toad

Last Saturday, I did the Westside Dirty Benjamin, and with four other riders, we biked to the event. My total ride was 150 miles.

I got home and found my left big toe was in pain (didn't notice it while riding). The best way to describe it is like a horse stepped on my toe (my mom kept horses when I was growing up, so this happened a lot when I was a kid). I can see some bruising at the cuticle and the nail end (or whatever you call that?). For the first couple days, the toe was painful to do about anything. It's getting better, but last night (3 days after the Benjamin) I tried to put on the shoes I wore on Saturday... NOPE! I couldn't even strap the shoes on. I have an older pair of shoes with a roomy toe-box that I've been using this week. Reference, the problem shoes are an older version of this Shimano.

I find this shocking since I've had these shoes for over a year, and I did a gravel century in these shoes just last month (Almanzo 100) without any issues.

I'll just have to use the much older shoes until the toe heals, no big deal, just odd.

Anybody else have this happen?

JerrySTL

Gout. You probably got dehydrated on such a long ride and it kicked off a gout attack. The big toe pain is a classic symptom and it can cause what looks like bruising and cause swelling. IF you go to a doctor soon, there's a simple test that can tell if it's gout.

As a gout sufferer, I hope that I'm wrong about this.

Hypno Toad

Me too! I may have been dehydrated on the ride home. I finished the event and had a couple complimentary beers before riding back to my house (I'm full of good decisions).

rumrunn6

played cut-throat racquetball w 2 Russians once, both big toes turned blue and eventually lost the nails. I have no idea what happened except that it was a really rough game

JerrySTL

Besides dehydration, guess what can kick off a gout attack? Alcohol. There's a whole long list of things like shellfish, peas, lentils, and a few other things. And don't even think about taking a diuretic for high blood pressure.

rumrunn6

my latest gout remedy - lemon juice - 6-8 pr day, been working for me, also add a very slight 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda w the lemon juice after coffee. 1/2 glass water cut and squeeze 2 lemons, do that 3-4 times a day, drink plenty of water too. lemon is not like other citrus fruits, stay away from others. it neutralizes your blood and activates your kidney I think. recently backed off on dosing and had too many hot dogs and hamburgers this spring felt a gout attack coming on and went back up to my 8 lemons and the skipped the attack. if I keep this up till December w/o an attack a nd no pharmaceuticals I will be touting lemons big time.

unterhausen

I lose at least one of my big toenails about once per year on long rides. My pedalling gets sloppy, and repeated contact with the front of the shoe does them in. I had toenail pain on my recent 600k attempt, but it seems like the nail survived

I used to commute year-round in Wisconsin, and lost both big toenails to frostbite one year. I have seen something that said that the nails never really recover from that

karenashg

Just a little bit of pressure on the toe--unnoticeable over a short ride--can lead to bruising of your toenail over a longer ride. (Don't marathon runners notoriously bruise and/or lose their toenails?)

Keeping your toenails trimmed short can help with this--the longer the toenail sticks out, the easier it is to contact something and get pressure applied to it. As someone who has spent a couple decades dancing on my toes in pointe shoes, believe me, a tiny excess of toenail length can produce absolute misery...

unterhausen

agreed on the trimming of toenails. I was happy a couple of years ago that I made it past the 600k without losing any nails, but then I bruised one badly on a 200km ride and lost it. The nail had gotten too long, and I was too lazy to trim it

Hypno Toad

I think this is the most likely cause, since the small amount of bruising and the pain is all around the nail. The big toe nail is so thick, it will not flex and likely was hitting the end of the shoe pushing the nail back into the toe. The fit on these shoes is tight, and the toe-box is stiff. My nail was a little long, I will be more attentive before the next long ride.

A friend was into alpine snowboarding - This uses boots similar to ski boots. This guy was a nut for tight fit and control, he'd frequently loose his big toe nail after a trip to the mountains.

ThermionicScott 

I used to lose a couple of toenails each season when I ran cross-country in high school. Freaked me out the first time, but became NBD after that. I have hammer toes, so there was no shortage of pressure on a couple of nails, even if I did trim them short...

BadBurrito

I agree on the nail trimming. Once I bruised up a big toe like that. took a couple weeks to heal up. Now I trim the nails regularly and I've never had an issue since.

unterhausen

the single most important improvement to my long distance cycling comfort has been getting shoes that are too big for me. It's really only a problem if I pedal toes down, which I do have a habit of doing sometimes. It's amazing how much my feet swell. A few years ago, I wore some toe covers on a ride, and had excruciating foot pain as a result. Fortunately I figured it out. Those toe covers never caused me any trouble on short rides.

Chris Pringle

Funny you asked Hypno Toad. I am experiencing a very similar issue on my longer rides as I exceed the 100 Km mark. It only happens when daytime temps are warm/hot -- over 80F. So far, no nail bruising in my case, but my big toenail hurts a lot (usually the left one). I clip my toe nails often. I read that your toes/feet swell much more in hot weather. When I have remove my shoes to let them breathe and see no visual swelling of any sort (i.e. gout). I wear "Specialized MTB Comp" extra wide shoes, but I get the impression that the toe box esp. right around the big toe is not large enough. I actually do feel my toenail touching the top and the corner of my shoe, so maybe that's not good. I've even considered cutting a hole over that area, but hate the thought of damaging these nice shoes. For the longest time I rode with a pretty loose first strap (closer to the toes) on my left shoe but that seemed to make the nail pain a lot worse (more friction??). So on my 600K brevet, I did something completely counterintuitive -- I tightened the first strap considerably on that left shoe. Within 10 minutes I felt relief. So, I am really puzzled by this wondering if the extra wide shoes are right for me (or maybe they're just too narrow right around the toe box?) My feet are actually narrow, but went with the extra wide thinking the more room the better.

Just last night I cut an extra pair of used Specialized insoles right around the big toe area to give it a little more room. I will test this theory on a 120Km ride this Saturday. Not sure what else to do other than cutting a hole on the shoe(s) or gambling on new shoes. I don't even know what to buy.

karenashg

By tightening the strap, you might have made your foot less likely to move around in the shoe--including moving forward until your toe was hitting the shoe. Sometimes too-big/loose can be as bad as too-small/tight, as if your foot is moving around in the shoe a lot, it can cause blisters and weird pressure spots.

Also, shape can be as important as size--if you have really squared-off toes, but try to wear a shoe with a more tapered shape to it in the toe box--even if it's the right width and length--you might still experience a lot of problems with it. The ideal would be a shoe that is shaped exactly to your foot, so that pressure is distributed evenly across your whole foot, and you can effectively transfer power to the pedal with no sliding around in the shoe. Wouldn't that be a fun world where we all had custom-made perfectly fitting shoes!

karenashg

Trade off of control vs. toenails makes sense to me! But given my background, I am not at all in a place to judge the weirdness of people's choices re: activities and footwear. (When not dancing in pointe shoes, I'm usually dancing barefoot. Lack of shoes produces a whole new world of problems...)

79pmooney

As one who rides toes down virtually all the time including while out of the saddle, I can relate! I keep my nails cut short. Have for many years. I make it a point to make sure the top straps are reasonably tight on my shoes so my foot doesn't slide forward. When I buy cycling shoes, I put them on, go to the checkout counter and put my hands on the counter, I go up "on pointe" and put my full weight on the shoes. I even think "on pointe". (A sister and former girlfriend and thanks to her, Debra Hadley of the PNWB.)

Thanks for the memories!

Ben

rumrunn6

just a note about thick toe nails, there are small battery operated grinders that are used to thin toe nails. some toe nails can get thicker over time due to nail fungus and the grinder is used to thin the nail making it easier to trim and treat the fungus. not saying that's what the OP is dealing with, but since we were on the topic of toe nails. the little grinder I got came with 5 attachments and it seemed to help thin and clean the nails, just have to be careful not to overdo it.

JerrySTL

Great point! I have thick nails due to fungus. After years of digging out in-grown toe nails with sharp cutters, I bought a cheap grinder on EBay for something like $11 including shipping. Search EBay for "electric nail art drill pen shape machine manicure file polish tool & 6 bits us". It's great. They even sell replacement sandpaper disks for them.

rumrunn6

oh that one looks better cuz it's A/C powered! mine seems a bit week and if I press almost any at all it stops spinning
https://www.amazon.com/Bestcompu-Elec.../dp/B00VWR8DR2

StephenH

Once or twice while hiking years ago, and once or twice while cycling, I've times where my foot just happened to hit the front of my shoe too often or too hard- bruised my nail, made it turn black, etc. Solution would be clown shoes, I reckon, or just deal with it.

Hypno Toad

Update, here's the picture one week after the 150 mile ride. Yep, this one will be ripen nicely... before popping off. Happy, happy, joy, joy...

Hypno Toad

Happy update, the nail is more purple that the photo above, however, the swelling and pain are nearly gone. I was able to get to 'offending' shoes back on and ride 20 miles tonight. No pain. Now we wait to see if it'll fall off... I hate that part!

Hypno Toad

Update: The remainder of the old bruised nail fell off a couple weeks ago (beach vacation with lots of swimming and beach walking helped), and the new nail has a LONG way to go to be 'normal'. I think it will be a full year before the toe nail is fully replaced. Big toe nails are VERY slow to grow. Happy to say that there is no pain, just ugly and needs a little extra care.

Take away: trim toe nails and be certain that your shoes have enough room in the big toes.

Carbonfiberboy 

My cycling shoes are of a size that my toes press hard against the front of the toebox when walking in them. However I pedal with my heel cups so that never bothers me on the bike, no matter how far or how hot.