Originally Posted by
Bob Dopolina
What you are talking about is Q-Factor. Basically it is the distance your feet are apart on the bike (really the distance between the outer surface on the crankarms where the pedals thread in).
When manufacturers went to external bearings they altered the angle of the cranks arms to maintain, or in some cases narrow the Q-Factor. My guess is the difference is less than you think.
Having said that I'm not sure why everyone is convinced that narrower is better. I really don't like super-narrow Q-Factors and I am only comfortable shifting my cleats to the inside essentially widening my Q-Factor. You may be in a similar situation.
Other than BBs and frames are all other factors the same? Were you careful to duplicate the positioning on the BB30 frame or did you make any adjustments?
No I did not duplicate any positioning.
I set up my cleats like you. I normally set them on the inside more, so much that even the edge is hanging off the hard part of the shoe bottom. However, recently I changed my cleats for new ones and placed them in the center, to see how things are. Anyways long story short, I need to set up my position where my feet are farther apart from the frame/bb/crank whatever...
Like I said I will first adjust my cleat and see if this is going to make a difference, if not. I will like to change to a pedal with a longer spindle (speedplay).
Note, one thing that I noticed was that when I rode my Look 555 with the normal BB, my foot would have no clearence issues. However, on the supersix bb30 frame, my shoes skim the crank arm from time to time (not always) but enough that there are visual scratch marks on both cranks from my shoes scratching the crank arm.
Thus, I think I need to try a longer spindle or adjust my cleat to the inside more or both.
Thanks for reading and helping.