I just switched to speedplay frogs with my specialized comp shoes and my knees feel a lot better. But what is weird is that I now get numbness on my left two little toes. I tried loosening the straps on my shoes, backing the cleat as far back over the ball of my foot, and even put in a superfeet gray insole per advice on this forum. That helped a lot in delaying the numbness by about 20 minutes which is a lot of relief on a 50 minute commute. But it feels like the left part of my left foot is still unsupported (I feel like I have good support on the right half of the left foot but the other half feels like it's dangling). It feels like sliding the cleat a little further to the left would help but I don't think the frog cleats allow for side to side adjustement like spd's. Does anybody have another suggestion on what to try next? I was thinking about a drugstore metatarsal pad next. Thanks for looking at this post.

I have the same problem. Haven't found a solution yet. If you do, please let us know.

Happened to me before. I figured it was a seat issue with circulation. My left leg is a little longer than my right one. Never really figured it out. Doesn't happen often. Unclipping and stretching the left leg out ocasionally is good.

I also tried inserts, looser straps, and messing with the cleat. All helped some, but not a lot.

The one thing that I found most helpful was modifying my stroke. When I have the numb foot problems, it's when I'm maintaining too much pressure on the pedals throughout the stroke - which not only causes bad circulation, it also is wasteful when using clipless pedals.

When I get numb feet, I look at it as a message from my shoes to start spinning more. I pull up more on the upstroke which gets the pressure off my foot for a while during each stroke, and my feet come back.

Note that this is applicable to circulation problems, maybe/maybe-not nerve problems. The way to distinguish - are the affected toes cold when you get done riding? If so, it's circulation.

Good luck!

Thanks for this advice. I will check to see if my toes are numb. I was in a hurry this morning and cranking a lot harder than usual and I didn't notice the numbness as much. I wonder if that had to do with spinning faster with more pull on the upstroke like you mentioned.

I used to have something similar. Unclip and stretch every once in a while.

Since I've gone to platforms all problems have disappeared.

Ditto for me, years ago I had a neuroma (nerve irritation) in the middle of the ball of the right foot. Turns out many SPD pedals put a lot of pressure on just a relatively small part of the foot, even if you wear relatively stiff bicycle specific shoes.
About three or four years ago, I put platform pedals (MKS BMX style sneaker pedals) on one bike and started riding it around in flat sole sneakers or sandals. No foot pains at all with the platforms. I'm age 52 and pedal about 5K to 6K miles a year. Been experimenting with different shoe combinations, but over time all 4 of my bikes ended up with platforms and I don't really ride any slower or different than I did when using SPDs. I have timed a 32 mile mostly non-stop route that has lots of ups and downs, and have no pedal or shoe caused time differences of any significance. Lately I've been riding with Keen Venice H2 sandals that have a nice beefy toe bumper for good protection up there, but my feet get to breathe well too. The footbed of these things are great, and they don't slip around the platform pedals. Great walking shoe too.

When I had some of this on longer rides, I got in the habit of wiggling my toes a bit every few minutes, as well as focusing on pedaling *around* the bottom bracket, instead of up and down