Shimming Shoes.
 

Hey guys, first time poster, just got my first road bike last week as well as my first pair of pedals, cleats, and shoes. I need help with one thing, I was born with one leg longer than another to the point where my right leg was 7 cm longer. i had a surgery ten years ago and they were able to make my right leg shorter by 5 cm. that leaves me with about 2 cm difference still, I dont wear inserts normally anymore. I was told by a friend that i should have my shoes shimmed and maybe also have inserts added too. I definitely feel a slight loss of power as well as some discomfort on a 33 mile ride i did this weekend. Anyone have experience with this? Maybe point me to the right direction? Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks for all the great posts here!

What type of pedals do you use. There a few ways that I can think of to create a 2cm spacer to put between the cleat and sole of your shoes but you may just want to have a spacer fabricated by a cobbler, machinist, plastic fabricator, friend, you, etc. to just use whenever you buy a new pair of shoes it can just be transferred over. If it were me I would just buy a 2cm thick block of nylon or aluminum and shape a spacer with the two or three hole bolt pattern to fit between the sole and cleat. You might want to try stacking some metal washers on the mounting bolts between the cleat and sole and experiment with different heights first. I don't like the idea of inserts as this can create shoe fitting and comfort problems. You may also want to post in the Adaptive Cycling: section as there may be businesses that already do this sort of thing.

Hi there, I don't have any experience to offer you any advice here, but perhaps consider posting your question in the Adaptive Cycling forum; or maybe they're geared mostly to amputees and such, but if you don't get a response here that might be a place to try.

Ah, I see Cranky was typing at the same time as me, but actually contributed an actual idea as well!

I'd approach the problem differently.

Shims between the shoe and pedal put the foot too far from the spindle and cause instability in the pedal which will want to rotate (cam) under your foot.

Before dealing with a Shimmed pedal, I'd try mis matched cranks, using, say a 180mm for the long leg, and a 165mm for the short one. You might get by with a narrower differential, adjusting the saddle height based on the shorter leg.

If there's a bike co-op where you live (it helps to list your city of residence in your profile) drop in and see if you can borrow or rent a variety of cranks to experiment with, and if that leads to a solution you can buy a nice pair of cranks and make it permanent.