I'm in the market for a new set of road pedals and wanted to tap the infinite wisdom of the forums about an unusual, but by no means unique, physiological issue before I made a purchase. My right leg turns out approximately 15 degrees at the foot, such that if I were to sit on the edge of a table with my feet hanging in the air and my knees straight my left foot would be at 90 degrees to the table but my right at about 75 degrees. This presents an obvious issue with clipless pedals. While actually pedaling my foot only turns out about five degrees (which is good, otherwise my crankarm would be a mess by now), but on some pedal systems this can make the chances of accidental release much, much greater. The way I've overcome this in the past is to install the cleat slightly off-angle, in that the rotational arc of the pedal float aligns with the natural positioning of my foot. Installing the cleat straight and cranking up the release tension has a propensity to either leave me with no toe-out float, which diminishes comfort on longer rides, or to force my foot into a "normal" position, which is a strain on my knee. Conversely I don't want to accommodate my right foot and leave my left foot, which is happy to sit within 2 or 3 degrees of straight no matter how hard I'm hammering, skating on an insane amount of float.

I'm currently on old-style SPD pedals, where the two-bolt install makes offsetting the cleat a snap. I'm wondering what modern road pedals allow for this. Sports medicine folks I've spoken with say that this is a reasonably common problem, so has anyone else out there with a less-then-optimal neutral foot position found a set of pedals they love, or perhaps some other solution I'm not thinking of? Geometry would suggest that a 3-bolt system wouldn't allow much cleat offset, eliminating any pedal that didn't allow a large amount of float, such as the Speedplays or the Time Impacts that every shop seems to have on clearance. Am I wrong?

Thanks for advance for any good tips.

If offsetting an SPD cleat has worked for you in the past, why change?

I'd like to move to a pedal with a larger platform area, mostly. The fact that the days of SPD road pedals seem done is another factor-- I'm a little loathe to put a pair of mountain pedals on my road bike (mostly due to platform size and weight), and my understanding is that the newer SPD-SL pedals use a three-bolt Look-style system, which I'm not sure will allow the adjustment I need. Maybe there's a SPD-based road pedal that's light and offers a large platform and short cleat-to-axle distance out there somewhere, but I have yet to find it.

Crank Brothers Quattros or Candies. Both use a two-bolt pattern, offer six degrees of rotational float, relatively low stack height and offer a platform that the original Eggbeater does not.

The cleat for my right foot shoes, both Looks and SPDs are a wacky angle to accomodate how my right foot is naturally at an angle. Weird, but it keeps the knee pain away.