I don’t get why people want more float on their clipless pedals? what’s the benefit? (not saying they are wrong. I just want to understand).
I basically want my feet to point forward the whole time. why would you want to move your heel around? wouldn’t you want to find the best angle then just a few degrees around it?
I have the shimano 2 degree cleats (blue) and was looking at speedplay who advertises up to 15 degrees. I see shimano also has 6 degrees and look has up to 9.
tyty
I assume it’s due to people’s different anatomies or injuries.
Injury prevention if your knees / ankles dont track well.
If you’re throwing the bike around out of the saddle your feet are technically rotating a little I think. I wouldn’t want to unclip in a sprint (or put the level of torque required to stop it happening through my knees) so that’s one possible reason.
This. No bike fit is perfect bc legs aren’t pistons. You want some play, just not an annoying amount. I used to ride shimano blue, but now just use mtb pedals bc I’m getting older and less cool
Float is more precise then Integer.
See a Float is a decimal number, so if you want to do precision math, you would have to use Float, otherwise you will lose precision, and we dont want that. That said, I would recommend the use of Double instead. It is also a decimal, but can hold much larger decimal values.
Best of luck on your programing!
I was doing a gravel race with road pedals. Wanted to be able to unclip as quickly as possible so made the pedals so I took all the tension off.
After the fact. I noticed my left right balance went from 46/54% to 49/51%. I left them with the maximum amount of float.
Haven’t pulled out once.
For reference, here is what you actually get in functional range of motion between the yellow & blue Shimano cleats. The heel range of motion is closer between the two despite a different angle of rotation because of the relative location of the rotation center point.
Overall, cleat float is generally a good thing and the amount used may vary with each person’s preference, with body issues & injury history possibly leading to more float than less in most cases. As mentioned, our bodies are not perfectly aligned and symmetric machines. Many of us benefit from some amount of float while at least some can make zero or lesser amounts of float work too. No single solution, just like everything else here.
I used to think the same thing. Tried 0 float for about a week and developed knee pain that took months to get rid of. Proceed with caution if you’re considering.
@alexgold123 your profile pic is WAY to close to @mcneese.chad …
I was confused for a second!
Just because a pedal has a lot of float doesnt mean your foot is flopping around using it. Rode speedplays for years, nope didnt need all 15 degrees of float, but it sure didnt bother me either.
It feels comfortable 
I’m so glad someone went here lol
I always suspected but confirmed during a bike fit IIRC that my knee rotation varies ever so slightly during the pedal stroke. Letting it float freely allows for this without weird tensions and whatnot. I also could never seem to get the rotation EXACTLY right on systems like SPD-SL. Switched to Speedplays and never looked back. I’ve never had problems with declipping or weird sloppyness, even in sprints up to 1100W.
Float was invented because people started getting knee pain. The first Look clipless pedals were fixed. Time came along with their float and Look came out with the floating cleat.
Back in the day you could get a cleat fit with a device called a RAD that would precisely determine the clean center.
My take is that with float, most riders would get cleats good enough using feel.
Pedals with toe clips had all sorts of slop in the system especially when paired with old style black leather cycling shoes. They floated similar to the way modern pedals float and the shoe could also rock side to side on top of the pedal to accommodate any needed movement. Old style cleats would wear in to the riders natural pedal stroke.
Clipless pedals and modern plastic shoes are much less forgiving.
Exactly this. My bike fitter actually locked mine down saying it was better or more efficient or something. Knees killing me within a week. Loosened up the speedplays back up and no knee pain or other issues since.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding what you’ve written but float and pedal tension are two different things.
You’re absolutely right. I guess when I back off the tension I feel like (perhaps wrongly) my knees track more freely.
Right? My first job I had to run simulations of 12-bit vs 14-bit vs 16-bit integer arithmetic in order to achieve adaptive equalization in the receiver of a 9600bps / 14.4k modem! How times have changed!
Am I wrong then to say if locking your feet in hurts your knees, your fit is wrong somewhere?
like in this case, your leg wants to twist and a lot of float let’s your foot twist…locking down something else (knee) twists.
I get a few degrees fudge factor…but I don’t see needing 6. I feel like with 2-3 degrees I still am not hitting the end…and clipping out seems a little less twisting.
Also I have ridden flats and my float is basically zero once my feet are down and into the spikes. I’d have to lift them to reposition.
Just wanting to.undestand.
Ty for posting
