toobusi

Longtime rider that took a break for a few years and am now having shoe issues.
Left foot, second little and middle toes go numb after about an hour, my foot is wide.

When I started riding again I purchased Mizuno shoes and soon realized they were much too narrow for me, after some research I switched to a Diadora, better, but after 20 miles the misery begins.

My latest research shows that Lake makes shoes in wide withs, can I please get some input from the community, people who had similar issues and found a solution.

Thanks, Eric.

berner

I've had hot foot issues on several occasions. Wider shoes will help but on the recommendation of a professional ski boot fitter, I now use metatarsal pads in bike shoes as well as ski boots. They are inexpensive to try and are available at pharmacies and many other retail locations. I know this can seem like a hopeless situation so good luck with it.

philbob57

Lake, Sidi, and Shimano all make wide shoes that I know of; there may be others. The only ones I've been able to try on were the Sidis - nice but too costly for my budget. For that and other reasons, I switched to flat pinned pedals (DMR V12s, which are excellent IMO but one of many possibilities - Spry, Wellgo, Shimano, Vice all make 'em). I paired them with Five Ten shoes; the discontinued model I got has a big, high toe box.

Also, the low end Bontrager shoes from a couple of years ago had a tall toe box, and that may work for you. They fit me, but I got hotspots, both with SPDs and quills.

Flat pinned pedals offer more surface area than other pedals, so there's less pressure/square inch on your foot and lower likelihood of hot spots. They also allow you to move your foot as you ride to relieve various pains that you may get hit with.

Like clipless pedals, they're imperfect, but in different ways. Can't pull up much past 7 o'clock, and I lost maybe 5% of my (low) speed, but I can ride a lot farther on these than I could on SPD or quill pedals.

They may be worth your consideration.

toobusi

Thank you both for the good input.

Any help with Lake Shoes - true fit?

Machka 

Put your cleats back as far as they can go.

Craptacular8

Similar issues. I need a wide toe box, and though my old Shimano spd shoes were wide enough, I needed a smidge more length since my foot tends to slide forward and swell during rides. Went up a size in a newer shoe which helped. What also helped was going with compression socks (ankle length). That seemed to help me the most. I got hot spots using spd shoes without cleats on large platform pedals, and on spd cleated A530's, for me, it was socks, lol.

ReneV

I fixed hot foot but tightening my shoes less.

Zurichman2

I have had lots of trouble with the hot foot lately. I would suggest going to try on a pair of shoes at the end of the day when you feet have already swollen some. I just bought a pair of Shimano extra wide mt bike shoes for around $100 and today will be the first day I try them out. Go to a shop that has gone to fitting classes for shoes as I have gone to about 5 different shops and finally found one that actually knows how to fit shoes. Moving the cleats back won't help because that is where mine where and the Shop kinda of laugh and somebody installed them wrong. There is an angle from you big toe knuckle to your smaller toe knuckle that is to be over the center of the pedal somehow if I remember the explanation right for best riding comfort and most of the time I think that cleat should be in the middle of the shoe.

Good luck
Zman

dksix

My problem was the shoe's insole were too highly arched for my feet. Swapped them out with just flat foam insoles and have had no problems since. I don't have flat feet just a low arch, this is never a problem since I primarily wear skate type shoes which have little arch support.

JohnJ80

Several things I found that made it work for me:

I also have wide feet and suffered a lot of hot spot foot pain. Here's what I did to resolve it

1. Insoles - I use the Specialized Body Geometry insoles. Properly supporting your foot means it is hard for it to slide around and it stays planted in the right place in the shoe better.

2. Wide shoes - Sidi has worked well for me in their Mega sizing.

3. Upped my cadence so that each revolution had less pressure on the pedal. This was a major discovery for me. As I brought my cadence up from 65rpm average to 90rpm, the hot spots diminished and went away.

J.

Yendor72

I will give my advice based on my 3 pairs of shoes and countless miles of excruciating pain. First, what size shoe do you wear?

Here is my experice/advice. I wear a size 8.5 US EEEE. That's an extra wide for you that don't know.

I emailed Lake as I had head that they had nice wide shoes. After working with their sales rep I decided to pull the trigger and ordered up a pair of MTB shoes (can't remember the model off the top of my head). While they were wide enough they were too long. A too long of shoe puts the cleat position too far forward to be comfortable. As @Machka pointed out, put your cleat as far back as you can. There are many reasons to do that, but saving your feet is one of them.

Make sure there is enough room in your shoe, ultra thin socks help here as well. Your feet may swell up a little as they get warm that extra space is important.

As was pointed out, don't tighten the front of your shoe at all. I have a twin BOA set up on my shoes, the front is tightened enough to take up the slack, but no more than that.

At 20 miles of riding you are not far away from being comfortable. My feet used to hurt as I walked the 2 steps into the garage to get on my bike, shoe inserts just took up more space and made the pain worse.

Bottom line, email the companies you are interested in, they may be able to point you in the right direction. You may also want to measure your feet to see if they are different. Having the metric measurements can help the companies identify a proper fitting shoe as well.

toobusi

Thank you all for your help. I have just ordered a pair of the Lake CX161 Wide shoes, I will incorporate all the good advice, cleat position, compression socks, possibly changing insoles. Hopefully I will find the combination that alleviates the pain. I'm tired of my rides being cut short due to foot pain rather then fitness.