Bike Forums - Cleat Position

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This article by Steve Hogg seems to indicate the cleat positioning for a track sprinter should as forward as possible. Do you guys agree? It's so hard to find good articles about bike fit for track riders!

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work effectively. Conversely many track sprinters also demonstrate readily that a far forward cleat position can be made to work just as effectively for them. Published studies of cleat position generally conclude that cleat position doesn’t have a lot to do with the ability to generate power. However cleat position has a profound effect on the relative pattern of muscle enlistment.

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My experience is this – generally speaking (and I include that caveat because there will always be exceptions), the shorter and more extreme the effort, the further forward the ideal cleat placement.

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• For general track riding, I would reduce the amount of foot over the pedal by a mm or 2 depending on shoe size and event.

• For sprinters and kilo riders, I would at least halve the recommended amount of foot over the pedal

Personally, for the track I ride my cleats as far forward as they go, but I wouldn't have them much more further forward. My analogy of how this works is that you run on the balls of your feet (unless you own a pair of these shoes with too much heel padding, provoking heel strike). The natural way to run is on the balls of the feet (as I'm sure almost all barefoot runners would agree with), so why would it be different on a bike?

I do however put the cleats back a little for the road, the calves become the limiting factor for me if it's over an hour.

I set up my cleats with these guys method (its time consuming, but thorough, logical, and worth it imo);

https://www.stevehoggbikefitting.com...leat-position/

interesting read, too.

Edit: DOH! helps to check what the original article is. sorry about the duplicate, people.

but as an aside - this method helped resolve knee issues i was having. my L and R cleats also turned out to have slightly different positional requirements.

After some talks with Carleton, I'm thinking about moving my cleats back (feet relative forward) about 5mm. Can someone who's experienced with this recommend a corresponding amount of saddle drop to go with this? Thanks.

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Originally Posted by Baby Puke (Post 16592218)

I might just move my saddle forward 5mm to compensate (which will also have the effect of lowering it slightly). Or a combination of a couple mm forward and a couple mm down.

What's the theory behind moving the foot forward on the pedal?

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Originally Posted by Quinn8it (Post 16592376)

What's the theory behind moving the foot forward on the pedal?

Stiffer connection to the upper leg; shorter leverarm at the ankle=better power transfer. Tradeoff is it is harder to spin at high rpm and you have less bike control (hard to "dance" on the pedals when you are flat footed).

Its all in that article, Quinn. Seems like it has the effect of making power transfer more efficient at the bottom and mid range. Some rather extreme placements are dscussed that probably wouldnt suit sprinters, im just talkin about 5mm. Seated low to mid range power is one of my weak points and this might help.