Bike Forums - View Single Post - pedal pain or just pain?

12-09-06 | 02:21 PM

#3

aicabsolut

Senior Member

Joined: Dec 2006

Posts: 1,505

Likes: 0

From: Washington, DC

Bikes: 2006 Specialized Roubaix Comp

From a www.cyclingnews.com Fitness Q&A:

Foot pain while road riding

I use Nike cycle shoes and have Shimano Dura Ace pedals. I have low arches. I have a Trek Madone 5.9SL. While riding I get severe pain in the outside of my feet. I recently had a CTS bike fit. I put the Superfeet insert in the shoes but this had no benefit. I changed to a specialized bike shoe…still the same pain.
The pain is primarily on the area of the outside edge of my left foot and to a lesser degree the same area on my right foot (the outer edge muscle area). I have the Shimano Durace PD7800, and the centre of the ball of my foot is approximately 7mm behind the centre of pedal axle (I do not get pain in the heels or the ball of my foot).
Could the LeMond LeWedge be of any help in my case?
Peter Hoban
Steve Hogg replies

Peter,
Thanks for that. Here is a check list of things to do.

1. Firstly, unless the description of your cleat position has a typo in it, your cleats are way to far forward. Have a look at this post and this post on cleat position and position your cleats as suggested there. This will mean substantial rearward movement of the cleats which will cause you to extend your legs more. That will mean that it is likely that you will have to drop your seat around 5mm lower than currently. It will also mean that your foot is much more stable on the pedal.

2. The SPD - SL's that you have are a good system but they don't have much rotational movement. Unless a lot of care is taken with the angle of the cleat on the shoe sole, it is easy to have the cleat in a position that doesn't allow the foot to be exactly where it wants to be. If your heels want to be slightly further out than the cleat angle allows, then you will put pressure on the outside edge of your foot trying to gain the angle that your feet need on the pedal. Once you have moved the cleats back as suggested above, go for a ride and put some pressure on the pedals and then coast with right foot forward. The try and move your heel outwards. Is there free movement?

If so, good. Pedal and coast again and repeat by trying to move the heel inwards. Is there free movement?

If the answer to either is no, stop and change the angle of the cleats. Simply if you want to move the heel outwards on the pedal, point the nose of the cleat outwards. If you want to move the heel of the shoe inwards, point the nose of the cleat inwards.

Repeat this on the other side.

3. Assuming you have done both the above and the problems persists, get some Lemond wedges and experiment. If you have a reasonable amount of forefoot varus on both feet (very common) then you may be loading up the outer edge of the foot as an unconscious measure to keep your knees tracking straight. Typically, this can be on of the 3 common compensatory mechanisms for varus forefeet in the cases where the rider feels no knee pain. Remember too, to recheck the cleat angle of each shoe with the pedal and coast test outlined in 2 every time you add or remove wedges as the use of wedges will change the angle of your foot on the pedal.

Reply

0