After readinbg a few posts on this forum I thought I would give you guys a question. Im 70 years old, 2 repoalcement knees, been riding seriously on and off for near 55 years. Since my last knee replacement I have developed arthritis in my left foot big tow. its right abouve the ball of my foot. I ride 3 bikes, road bike, mountain bike and a Specialized Sirrus 6.0 "fitness bike" I have less post ride pain on my flat pedal mountain bike, road bike is worse and sometimes very painful. Now my question. I use Shimano SPD on my road bike. What do you think of my placing my cleats as far back on my shoe as possible meaning more of my instep is on the pedal than ball of my foot, anyone tried this? Im not training for the Grand Tours, did that in the '60's lol!!! Shoes are Fizik R1 infinito, super stiff, for me anyway.......

A quick thing you could try is to lower your saddle just a bit, then try to pedal with your heel cups, relaxing your ankle as much as possible. If you think about it for a minute, you'll see that, having a super stiff shoe sole, it doesn't matter where your cleats are, only what you do with your ankle in terms of putting pressure on that toe. If while pedaling with your heels, your knee angle is too small, lower the saddle until it feels right again. Looking in a mirror while pedaling, the bottom of your foot should be level or even a hair heel down. Adjust until that's true. I realize that retraining one's pedaling after decades is not easy.

Nothing wrong with moving your cleats to find out where you prefer them to be. If you were training for Grand Tours, some might say putting your cleat more to the rear of the shoe gives you a better transfer of power and keeps your foot from flexing too much.

Others might say you are going to create interference between your foot and your front wheel, but if you are going more than a couple MPH, then I doubt anyone will ever want to turn their front wheel enough for that to matter. Though I did watch my son get crossed up by it when he was at a dead stop waiting on a traffic light last year.

I like my cleats a little further back than most others I see, but I'm not so far back that some extreme thinking people take it to. I does takes some getting used to. Mainly it just feels odd at first.

I had to move my cleats back due to gout damage to my big toe joint. No problems. Depending on the shoe you may need to modify or drill new holes for the cleat bolts.

Hey thanks guys, all good info. Im just going to try a few things on my rollers now I havec them set up. You guys are awesome.....

Could you let us know what worked for you? Thanks.

Did a bit of playing with the cleats. Moved them as far back as possible, seems toy be better so far