Originally Posted by
rpenmanparker
Although your experiments are a bit hard for me to reproduce, I take your point. Thanks for the detailed explanation of your view. I think it has merit. Am I right that you're saying with stiff cycling shoes the point of connection to the pedal is not so relevant; the shoe sole allows force to be applied from front to back? I could see that.
Your last comments are definitely in line with what I was saying about getting the fitting done right by a true professional rather than an LBS wonk.
In bold...No, not right. You can easily try this experiment with a carbon cycling shoe without a cleat. Step on a curb with toe pressure and then again more towards the heel. Mechanics and foot loading is completely different including moment/torque applied to ankle. For those for example that suffer with Achilles tendon pain, often times this is alleviated by moving the cleat back because it reduces the effective length of the foot and amount of torque on the ankle. This is the whole predicate of mid arch cleat location versus spindle forward. It completely changes the load path of how the foot is pressured 'within' the shoe. A rigid carbon base of a cycling shoe, helps distribute the load more evenly about the bottom of the foot but cleat location is big to force distribution along the bottom of the foot longitudinally.