Originally Posted by
Notcarproof
I have a pretty specific question about SPD-SL cleats and I’ll explain why, but to put the question upfront-- Do the yellow tabs that form the bottom two points of the triangle on the cleats (sorry, can't post photo) serve a purpose besides giving you an extra point of contact with the ground when you’re walking (off the bike)? I’m wondering if I cut them off, would it have any negative effect that I’m missing?
Basically, I was broad-sided by a car that blew a stop sign. I ended up with a couple fractures and some ACL damage on my leg that the doctors say came from a twisting motion. No cuts/scratches on that side, so it never touched the ground/car. I suspect my foot got hung up in the pedal while I was busy eating it, because I didn’t really see it coming and went down hard. The outer point of that cleat was broken off where it looks like it got hooked/pulled off with quite a bit of force.
Maybe it wouldn’t have made any difference, but I’m curious if hacking off those back points would let my foot rotate out a little easier in the event of another surprise attack. It certainly doesn’t seem like I’d need those side “barriers” to keep my foot from rotating during regular riding, but they do create one more point that can get snagged while you’re rolling around on the ground. Maybe it’s half-baked, but just a thought. Anyone knowledgeable on the subject? I guess the other option is switching to multi-release pedals, but that means getting new gear..
There's a mechanism of injury with alpine ski bindings that is probably similar called the
"phantom foot injury" that is behind a lot of ACL tears. But what happens on the binding level is that the point of rotation starts to move aft from the toe of the binding towards the heel. When that happens, the only way you are coming out of the binding is if the screws are torn from the skis since heel bindings have no lateral release typically only at the toe (like a pedal). That never happens because your ACL goes first an isn't as tough as the screws. My bet is that is exactly what happened to you - the car came at you and prevented your pedal from releasing in the manner in which it was supposed to because it placed all the force on an axis on the pedal that would not rotate. You, in your fall, rotated around the pedal instead of your foot around the spindle. If you were to push straight at the outside of the foot from the outside with no twisting, that pedal would never release, If your weight were thrown backwards in the fall while that force was pressing at the foot, and if the wheel was planted, as you body moved aft and laterally, all the force would go to your knee and the pedal would not release (it's designed not to, in fact). Changing the cleat isn't going to change that, you'd need a pedal that was designed differently but no one is going to design a pedal that is designed to release when struck by a car from the side.
Also, I'd guess that messing with the cleat is more likely to cause some other problem or instability in the cleat that would lead to some other unintended consequence. It's not that complex of a mechanism but because of the litigious nature of bicycle equipment injuries, I'm betting that the pedal engineering team spent a lot of time an energy making sure that the pedal was designed correctly based on problems they had seen in their research. I'd be cautious about messing with that.
Having had a torn ACL from the days before they could repair them without an 8 month stint on crutches, I feel your pain. The coulda/shoulda/woulda feelings that go with that are about as tough as the rehab. Good luck to you.
J.