You guys forget that I ran a poll thread a while back on this topic, https://www.bikeforums.net/road-cycl...-question.html, that showed fairly conclusively that toe overlap was more prevalent in smaller frames and less so in larger. The frame geometry differences are more significant than the foot size differences.

If you suffer with toe overlap, you need to sharpen your handling skills. Toe overlap is a normal aspect of bicycling. It causes no problems and doesn't need to be corrected.

I notice mine mostly at stop lights. For whatever reason, I sometimes turn the front wheel the way of my forward foot. During normal riding, there's no problem.

Careful with wording lest people conclude what you're saying incorrectly.. your poll showed that more than half of the respondents with larger frames had toe overlap; less than half of larger-framed bikes did not have toe overlap (25 vs 19). So for larger frames, toe overlap was more prevalent than no toe overlap.

In smaller frames the score was 53 yes to 7 no. A whopping 88% of the frames had overlap. In larger frames the score was 25 yes to 19 no. Only 57% had overlap. So you are right, but so am I. The fraction of overlapping was much higher in smaller frames. If I had split large and small at 55-56 cm instead of 54-55, the larger frames might well have had more noes than yeses. The split I chose was just arbitrary. A distribution by size, cm by cm from say 46 to 63, would surely show the weighting of overlap in smaller sizes.

My guess.. your poll is likely highly correlated as to the ownership of road race geometry vs endurance geometry bikes.
Eg. a 52cm Endurance frame, generally has about the same wheelbase as a 60cm road-race frame (arbitrarily using Trek Domane vs Emonda as proxies)

Riding fast, no problems will occur , :innocent:

it's the sharp, slow speed turns, where you need be mindful of that issue..

Yeah, toe overlap on fix gears can get really interesting. I've broken fenders when I have caught my toe on the hardware and realized it is either the fender or me.

Ben

You didn't have to run a poll. Front center is on most geo charts these days.

Riding 48-51cm frames I have had toe overlap on all my bikes from race bikes to endurance to cyclocross and adventure/gravel touring. The only time it is a problem is cyclocross where pedaling and steering (not just leaning) simulataneously is necessary. After awhile you learn how to time your pedal strokes so they don't interfere. The worst was endoing on an off camber when I got my foot caught on the opposite side of the tire, luckily the mud/grass was soft.

I have a 52cm Fuji Sportif road bike, a 54cm Raleigh RXM cyclocross, and a 56cm Diverge, and they all have toe overlap, as did the Fuji Cross I test-rode. It drives me crazy. I'm coming from a lifetime of only riding mountain bikes where it was not a thing.

I have managed to trap my foot on the wrong side of the wheel on my track bike in a low speed maneuver.

Correct, which is why they turn like freight trains and often have to dab their foot down to make the turn.

Or worse, they STOP, bringing the whole group to a halt.

I think we're talking about low speed maneuvers, which is pretty much the only time that the wheel is turned far enough over for toe overlap to be a factor. At such low speeds, leaning is not part of the turn.

Who are you talking about that ride in groups and puts their feet down to turn? I've never seen anyone ride a bike that way outside a nursery school.

Sadly, some of my fellow Sacramento Bike Hikers. While they are all great people, their bike handling skills can vary widely.

Particularly the sharp downhill turns off the Watt Bridge and similar spots cause a pile up if the group is together..

But it should still be part of the turn regardless of the speed, otherwise you don't turn sharply, but instead turn like a jackknifed 18 wheeler.

Even on a motorcycle, you lean the bike at low speeds, lean yourself at higher speeds otherwise you turn like crap.


The dynamics are the same:

I have a motorcycle license and took the course. You steer at low speeds with the handlbar.

There is simply no way to make a corner on a bicycle at 8 miles an hour while being vertical. You would fall to the outside of the turn.

You mean you've never seen a bike with a damaged head tube? Come on.

Now imagine a bike with a 2" tall head tube. Doesn't that tell you that a 4" head tube is doing it harder than a 6" head tube?

Now consider some of the less robust headset systems getting around these days.

Not really - I've seen a lot of bike with damaged top and down tubes where they enter the much thicker head tube, and they were all larger bikes.

Short head tubes are generally more robust because the top and down tubes a braced against each other, making the head tube stiffer. Moving the headset bearings closer to each other doesn't make anything weaker, either.

And, small bike are ridden by lighter people. So I don't know where you're pulling this from. But I'd love to see pictures of these damaged short head tubes.

You might steer with the handlebar... and that might be what you were taught at the beginners course, but that is not how you ride a motorcycle effectively or efficiently. Experienced riders lean the bike and stay upright at slow speeds. Less experienced riders try to horse the motorcycle at low speeds and it is painful to watch.

The hilarious part is I just showed you video of people being trained to do differently than you, and doing it very effectively. And you don't believe your lying eyes.


People's definition of slow is different. 8 miles per hour or 1 mile per hour, leaning the bike is required to make it turn. Motorcycle or bicycle.

YOU don't have to lean, bu the bike does.

I don't know if we are talking about two different things or not.

Having two wheels, two wheel vehicles must shift their weight to the inside of the turn or they will highside if they are going faster than a few miles an hour. This is "leaning", and it can be initiated solely with steering inputs.

At very low speeds, the bike has no real "centripetal force" to counter, so the bike is not leaned into the turn, because it would fall over.

The bike has to lean to turn. Physics. Period.

YOU don't have to lean, and since you outweigh the bicycle 10 to 1 or more, it does not take much to stay upright while the bike leans a few degrees under you. Most people don't even realize they are doing it, thus the erroneous idea you DON'T have to lean the bike.

A lot of these lower skilled/low confidence riders get tensed up, and since you vastly outweigh the bike you cannot lean the bike effectively to turn effectively, resulting in a wide, flat, failed turn.

And then they hit the brakes which stands the bike up and the turn really fails.

You have to lean your body to change direction at more than a few miles an hour because you would high side otherwise. Period.

Granted, the rest of the frame has a harder time resisting braking and impact forces when the head tube is longer; I should have been more specific. But moving the headset bearings closer together most definitely puts more force on the head tube (if the 2" example didn't illustrate it for you, imagine no space between the bearings). I've seen a few steel frames where the bottom of the head tube is deformed to the point the cup just falls out, a couple of which where it was so severe you could see the deformation. And I've seen an aluminium frame that had developed a crack in the head tube behind the lower cup.

Now, these were all old-school frames with 1" forks; a larger diameter head tube would arguably be more robust. And sure, most of the steel frames I saw with this damage were low quality. But modern systems aren't all more robust; I'd say from my experience as a mechanic that threadless headsets are more commonly loose, which can greatly exacerbate the potential for damage, and the style of head tube with integral bearing seats just begs to be destroyed by these sorts of loads; the only thing holding the bearings in place is the preload forcing them into the tapers. I've had to rescue bikes that had damaged seats by adding aluminium tape around the outside vertical face of the bearings so they were a press fit, providing some extra lateral location. Otherwise the frames were a bin job.

It's a similar sort of oversight in rear hubs with floating cassette bodies; with the drive side axle bearing close to the centre of the hub, unless the axle and bearing are beefed up to compensate (which is rare), the durability just isn't there. Just because a lot of companies make and sell a design, that doesn't mean it's a good design - cf. all those creaky BB standards necessitating the aftermarket band-aid fix of a clamping threaded BB.

As I said, it's only a problem for me on bikes that are too small, so I haven't had a lot of practice dealing with it. But I don't know how you trackstand - maybe you can manage it without having one foot forward? How is that supposed to work?

Thats quite a theory, just lacking in reality.