Baby Puke

I'm finding there is something funky with my right foot/cleat/pedal interface. I have the feeling that I need an outboard tilt rather than having to address a leg length discrepancy. Has anyone dealt with this/can recommend a product or service that deals with this?

Thanks.

slindell

Bike Fit wedges under the cleat or Specialized sells insole wedges. It depends on if you have extra room inside the shoe.

Baby Puke

Probably no room, already no socks! Will look into the Bike fit wedges, thanks.

Minion1

Specialized and bont shoes (probably as well as some others) have 1.5 degrees or mm (can't remember which) of varus tilt built into their shoes, as well as space to add wedges under the inner sole if extra is needed (up to 4.5mm). That means the soles are higher under the big toe than the little toe by 1.5mm, which can help if you have a pronounced varus tilt, which shows up on the bike by your ankle collapsing towards the bike. Also, the arch support can help align the ankle and knee, if your knee brushed the tt or your knees tracking isn't that great, then look at increasing the arch support to clean that up. These things are comfort based, so you can try and see what makes an improvement until it doesn't and stop there.
FWIW Sidi, Shimano (stock) and Giro shoes are pretty flat, and some innersoles (specialized, esoles, some that come with higher end Shimano shoes) can increase the amount of arch support in the shoe. At the extreme end, I've seen people with super high arches use grip tape to pack out the instep of their shoes to get the right support for their feet.

Baby Puke

Minion1, thanks for the words. I do have both of those issues, R ankle collapsing and knee occasionally brushing top tube. RH ankle also occasionally feels like a pinched nerve is happening, and when doing a flying effort, just after the sit my wheel sometimes skips out to the right due to some weird sideways torque in my right leg power delivery. I finally thought, "I should do something about this" after getting a sports massage and the masseuse saying, "what's up with your right ankle?" without any pre-explanation from me.

slindell

You can test things by folding paper into wedges to go under your insole before committing to the final solution.

carleton

Pfffft. That doesn't cost enough money. There is no way that will work :-|

slindell

20$ bills are about the right size for the task. The plastic bills would work better if you are out of the US.

carleton

Hahahaha!

Baby Puke

Already tried the bar tape under the arch method and it seems to be a step in the right direction. Put a surprisingly big pile of tape in there before an effect was felt! Might just try some hard arches from a shoe store as the next step. If possible I'd like to avoid the complication of wedges under the cleat.

Minion1

If you try a pair of forefoot wedges you can use a bit less "stuff" under the arch - 6 of one and half a dozen of the other can lead to a good comfortable solution. The forefoot wedge will make the bigger difference, and then you can muck about with arch support after that. Post 4 in this thread from somewhere else, Strange shoe fit issues..any advice? HELP! has a good picture that illustrates what a bit of varus tilt does for your knee tracking

Baby Puke

Thanks, Minion1. Do you have a specific product to recommend?

Edits: how about these? https://www.bikefit.com/c-2-in-the-shoe.aspx

Minion1

Frankly I just scrounge Specialized ones from bike shops, that have a bag of them lying around - the orange ones are the ones you're after, they're easy to get, relatively cheap, and because Specialized, they're everywhere. They do take up a bit of volume in your shoe, so if you can take your shoes with you to try them out. Most bike fitters (erk! Byebye money) should have something that will do the job.

Innersoles are a bit more personal, and will depend a bit on how much space you've got left in your shoe, and how much more support you'll need once the wedges are in. Shimano ones are nice and slim, but if you're already experimenting with grip tape, I'd keep doing that and see how much more packing you need.

Baby Puke

Sweet, thanks for the advice. I'll post my progress with this stuff in case it's of use to others who might have a similar issue.

Interestingly, I did this little check https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQEJnH8Rd6Q and it seems that my right foot has pretty radical varus compared to my left.

Velocirapture

An alternative to wedges etc etc in the shoes is to get to a biokineticist and/ or chiropractor. Preferably one that comes recommended in your cycling circles. I've travelled a road of orthotics, inserts, knee issues on and off the bike for years (I saw my first knee specialist at age ~8, and had first orthotics at ~13). I've got very flat feet, and it kinda makes sense to prop them up and get everything nicely aligned, and orthotics and anti-pronation sneakers definitely have a place.

The best solution i've found, though, has been a little more effort, but far more worthwhile, and that has been to identify and correct my (unknown to me) muscle imbalances with tedious and time-consuming little customized exercises.
From years of cycling, my quads were always very strong, and i assumed my 'legs' were strong - turns out my glutes and hammies were super-weak; the end result being that my knees were not properly stabilized, and especially when fatigued, my knees would start to 'collapse' inwards resulting in various sorts of pain and issues.

I don't use orthotics anymore, although i do make sure my shoes are not to old and still have some support, but my years and years' worth of knee issues are pretty much a thing in the past.

Aside from my own experience, a guy who used to train with my group went for a bike fit, and was given shoe wedges to correct his knee tracking. A summary of a long story is that what was not really an issue resulted in such bad ITB that he's undergone surgery and been out of proper training for about six months, even although his wedged knee-tracking was 'corrected' (by a medical bike-fit person). I guess for me its a caution against treating the symptom rather than looking at the origin of something.

Good luck, either way. Body-niggles keeping a person of the bike are just lousy.

700wheel

I have only heard good things about the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine
https://www.bcsm.org/sports-science/bike-fit/
Zinn cycles and Boulder Center for sports medicine ultimate bike fitting with Lennard Zinn and Andy Pruitt | Zinn Cycles website
I intend to visit for a bike fit towards the end of the year so I can get used to any position adjustments in the new year.

Maybe there is a similar facility in your locality.

Minion1

FWIW, ITB syndrome is generally caused or exacerbated by cleat alignment, with the cleats being aligned in a way that is significantly different to the person's gait (I can't remember if it's toe in or toe out that makes it worse for most people) That's how I understand it anyways, it's a good idea to experiment until you're comfortable, or uncomfortable and then pull it back a bit. There is no golden rule for getting alignment right, it's a combination of comfort and correcting alignment using visual cues. If it gets uncomfortable, stop and take a step back.
WRT a bike fit causing ITB, fitters usually make a range of changes to a rider's position, so it's pretty hard to pin one change as the cause of ITB syndrome. The only way I can imagine wedges would exacerbate it is if they packed too much under the instep and arch, forcing the knees out away from the centre line of the bike (Imagine a fat guy squatting). It should go without saying that if anything gets that uncomfortable, you should stop riding and address the issue before it gets any worse.
(Not a medical person or bike fitter, just worked around bike shops long enough).

Baby Puke

Thanks for this, Velocirapture.

I'm a guy who back in the (early) 90's believed in every little new gadget to come along and tried everything back then to address what at the time was a fairly recent knee injury. Loads of float on pedals (original TIME, ala Lemond), insoles, I think even cleat wedges (probably home made).

When I started track relatively recently a coach advised me to bin all that and the philosophy that goes with it-- that we need to use a lot of technology to make it so we can pedal our bikes fast. All of a sudden I'm on clips and straps with slotted cleats, and on my road bike, fixed/no-float cleats. It worked better, and I had less knee pain, in fact, I had NO knee pain and still don't.

But I've known for a while that there's a hitch in my pedal stroke on my right side. Just been ignoring it. The only reason I'm trying to address in now is because it was pointed out to me by a masseuse at Marymoor, and I know it's mostly me addressing what's weird with my body and only partly adding junk to my bike. I've been doing some new stretches to address the limited mobility at my right ankle, as well as putting new junk on my bike. Too soon to tell if anything's working, but feels like i'm going it the right direction.

Thanks again.