i seem to have conquered the hands problem awhile back (yep - gloves, stem height, seat angle, varied bar postions, all that), but on particularly long rides (30+ miles) my toes start going numb. i run clips and straps, so the obvious answer would be to loosen 'em, but i've tried it and the lil' toes still get all tingly a few hours in. what else could it be? maybe i finally ought to convert to clipless?

Stiffer shoes(which will be much easier to get for clipless).

Stiffer soles amd/or correct size clips.

or just convert to clipless, it is the jammy jam (for me at least)

Don't know what you have for shoes but good insoles will help. There are some cycling specific but running or work ones can do the trick.

Yeah, but running shoes are usually terrible for riding more than 5 miles... too flexy, hence inefficient.

Stiff soles are the key, and shoes that go w/clipless pedals have very stiff soles.

Sometimes if I'm on a long ride I unclip (1 leg at a time) and just kind of wave my legs around and wiggle my toes in my shoes, this usually helps.

This is pretty common as softer soled shoes do not offer the support needed when apply force to the pedal. Basically, the pedal cage ridges will end up cutting off circulation slowly to the point of numbness. Stiffer soles or use MKS GR-9 pedals and see what happens.

also - if you are runnning clipless, look at the position of your foot on the pedal when you are clipped in and pedaling. If the overall placement is incorrect, you will experience uncommon numbness and hotspots. This may take a bit of time to dial in, but it is well worth it. Also, once dialed in, mark/note/annotate whatever you can so you have a quick reference if you need to swap cleats, etc.

Now in that regard, what qualifies as "proper placement"? I've been tweaking the cleat position with my SPDs (I had no problem setting up the Look pedals on my roadie), but the wee cleats make it a bit more challenging. Tips?

generally ball of the foot over the pedal spindle

You might be interested in this post I posted about a few weeks ago concerning numbness in the foot:
https://bikeforums.net/showthread.php...ight=foot+pain

thanks for the suggestions. i wear skate shoes pretty much all the time which offer good support but have pretty flexible soles. i'll get my hands (or feet) on some stiffer ones.