Even if you could get the same stack and reach, you’d have to make so many odd changes to the components that the bike would not ride well.
Either that, or the 56 was way too small for you. How tall are you and what is your inseam?
I would not think going from a 56 to a 61 would work so you are essentially buying a bike that doesn’t fit you which there is no reason to buy it which is why I said it is like throwing your $$ in a fire.
If if happens to work then I would be shocked. I understand the di2 thing and the value. I would love a sworks sl7 as well but I am probably just going to put aerobars and aerostem on my sl6 that has di2 and save the $$.
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I’m facing an issue when setting up cleats. My left foot is almost 1cm shorter as you can see in the pic below where i marked my first metatarsal bone for reference.
I have been struggling with knee pain for a while and suspect it down to my foot. The bikefitters i went to tried to fix it with cleat wedges which got the knee tracking closer to the frame. It did help a little but they couldn’t really give me an answer as to whether i should adjust my cleat position to make up for different length of my feet.
Do you guys reckon i should adjust the center of my cleats (look keo) to match my first metatarsal bone even though they’d end far apart on my shoes?
Any feedack would be greatly appreciated.
I have a similar foot size issue where I am the opposite with my Right foot about 1/2 size smaller (US sizing 9/8.5). As such, my 1st Met is more rearward towards the heal since I set my feet firmly in the rear of the shoe for riding.
Purely from a “feel & force” perspective relative to the right foot, I place the right cleat more rearward by that same size difference. I am using the “new neutral” placing where my cleat position sets my foot over the pedal axle about evenly split between the 1st and 5th Mets. So my Right shoe is effectively more forward compared to the Left. Below is a single example of one position within the 1-5 range vs the older idea of the spindle dead center over the 1st Met (ball of the foot).
I do this primarily because if I match the Right (short foot) to the Left (long foot), I get more tension and loading on the Right calf and related support muscles since I am more “on my tip toes” compared to the Left. So I place each shoe with respect to the individual foot as needed to hit that placement above.
That delta there can lead to a functional difference in leg extension during pedaling since the shoe is more “forward” and tends to stretch that side more than the one on the other side. This may help or hurt some riders with regards to other fit issues, so my solution may not be right for all.
It’s entirely possible the ideal for some would be to match the Left & Right sides based on the either the forward or rearward 1st Met. The only way to really know for any of these 3 use cases is to try it and likely try at least one of the others for a direct comparison. That is unless you have clear indicators of issues in one case, and either of the options seems more likely to be a change in the desired direction.
Does that help at all?
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Thank you for sharing your experience Chad.
I’m going to try matching my feet and see how it works out. As with many things in bikefitting it comes down to trial and error i suppose.
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Yeah, sadly it does take that. I liken the process to “targeted guessing”. We have some decent rules of thumb, starting points and guidelines. But nothing is absolute and every rule is meant to be broken.
The one thing stressed by Dr. Pruitt when I had my final level 3 training was that the challenge in fitting lies in knowing when to follow the rules vs break them 
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Hi guys,
Anyone had injuries from overpronation of the foot. I feel a tightness across the top inside of my knee, and have a feeling it’s because of overpronation and walking. any advice?
Generally speaking, foot alignment (pronation / supination) are details reviewed during a fit and can have an impact on discomfort, pain and injuries in cycling. Short story is that we try to put the legs into a relative alignment that “matches” the rider in a general state off the bike. If they pronate inward (valgus in the cycling terms) and that leads to a more inward (medial) position of the knees while standing for instance, we try to mimic that within reason on the bike.
Changing things like cleat / stance width and using varus or valgus wedges can alter the position of the leg and related joints. It’s highly individual and is the reason that a physical assessment prior to the actual bike fitting is part of most fitting processes. You need to see and understand the rider in their current state first, then try to adjust the bike (and shoes as part of that) to meet the fit requirements.
That said, it’s best to see a fitter in person to review and address most of these issues.
Here is one related article on the topic.
I have a fit booked for my CX bike for a couple of weeks time, so this is just for me getting feedback on whether I’m asking the right questions.
I had a fit on my road bike last September that resolved hip pain issues I’d been getting - amongst other things it moved my cleats a lot further back on the shoe. I’ve been riding with this setup since then, and it’s so nice not to have to deal with hip pain on the bike, so I thought I could just apply this position to the CX bike directly. However, if I put the cleats way back on my CX shoes, I get a lot of toe overlap with the front wheel. Clearly this is not ideal, and given the twisty nature of some CX courses I don’t really want to ride like that, but the nature of CX geo (short, steep, bigish tyres) seems to encourage that. It’s not just a couple of mm, so going down a crank size won’t help much.
My questions:
How much of a priority should avoiding toe overlap be?
Can I learn to ride around it, and how hard is this going to be (ie how many extra crashes am I going to have! 
)?
Is it a bad idea to have different cleat setback on road and CX (I train on the road bike but don’t race on it)?
If I want to keep the road setup and avoid toe overlap, how can I find a bike that will accommodate this?
Anyone want to hazard some answers, or indeed if I’m asking the right questions at all?
I know it’s not a cheap alternative (what is in cycling anyway), but would it make sense to have different size shoes for each foot?
Using the Bont sizing (just as an example), say left was 280mm (size 44) and right was 290mm (45.5). Maybe that’s too much to make up for with cleat position/wedges etc?
I definitely considered doing that. You can’t put a price on comfort while riding your bike.
What kept me from pulling the trigger is that i actually never had any foot pain. It’s the knee that causes problems up the chain.
Additionally i’m worried about is that it would make the whole situation even more complicated.
Would different shoe sizes change my effective leg length aswell?
Would i have to make up for it with cleat position/wedges?
My best bet is going to even more bikefitters until 1 of them eventually knows how to address the issue in the right way. Otherwise i’ll have to figure it out myself by trial and error.
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Gotcha that makes sense. I think there’s a little bit of voodoo in a good bike fit and I’m certainly no expert!
I’m hoping these are enough for some guidance. I suffer from some facet joint pain and have had muscle soreness in my lower back pretty much since I’ve owned the bike. I’ve tried adopting so many positions including more conservative ones. Around 10-15 miles in I start feeling it in my lower back and sometimes QL region. Of course facet joint gets irritated too. I don’t think I’m in a very aggressive position so not sure it’s that. I’m running out of ideas,however. I work on my core and strength train so I know it’s not that. I’m at a desperate point because I can’t just enjoy it without thinking what I should be doing different. I know this doesn’t happen on my MTB. I e had fittings. Kind of a crap shoot. The only thing left I thought was/is to lower my saddle a bit maybe? I also probably don’t keep cha he’s very long because my patience is shot at this point. Any insight would be greatly appreciated
apparently i don’t have notifications turned on or something.
I’m about 186-188cm tall depending on the day and an inseam of about 86cm if I measured it correctly.
In the end, that particular bike sold, I found another I could use as a donor and swap all the components, but then my lovely lady bought me a pair of Assioma’s for my birthday, and I have decided that UCI sanctioned ITT’s and their rules can go jump off a high bridge. I’ll stick with mech for now and just revert back to my very comfy tri fit.
By the time I got through the scrutineering jig the bike was so uncomfortable that I don’t think even going to Di2 was going to save me. If I go down that road again I’ll just run an uncompliant bike and not go for points until the UCI take their heads out of their asses. The rules they have seem pretty shit to me, buy that’s a whole different thread.
Not entirely understanding what you mean by “you’d have to make so many odd changes to the components that the bike would not ride well”. All I envisaged was moving the saddle to the right spot and adjusting the bars to have the correct stack/reach from the saddle as I did on my current bike? Unless like TSS, not all stack/reach are measured equally? I know the reduction in stem length would play a small part, but I’ve ridden from 80mm-130mm stems without much issue on the current bike?
Cheers.
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I’d have to look at your exact numbers, but assuming the 56 is the correct size for you, and you have a “normal” amount of stack for your bars, to fit on a 61, you’d have to run a very short stem, possibly short aerobars, and possibly require a -17*
Your front wheel would also not have much weight on it since you would be so stretched out.
Got a bit of a question/experience that I wanted to get some thoughts on. Got some new shoes and having some “issues” with setting up the cleats. I say it in quotes because I’m pretty sure I’ve figured out the issue. I’ve been using Giros (46) with the cleats slammed all the way back. They’ve been great, no issue. Picked up some S-Works Torch (45) and placed the cleats where I thought they matched up with the Giro. I started slammed all the way back, but moved them slightly to get them lined up to the Giro’s spot. Went for a couple rides and just couldn’t get comfortable. Left leg was ok, not great, but the right leg just felt weird. No pain, just felt like my entire pedaling style and fit were off. I started to wonder if the shoes could make that much of a difference. Got home today and took a closer look. Marked my 1st joint on the medial side on all 4 shoes and compared. Picture below.
7mm difference, more rearward on the S-Works (hard to get a representative picture but measured multiple times). Well, now I know why I felt off. I think I just did a visual setup with the cleats, but the size difference between the shoe threw things off. So my question is, would this 7mm be enough to throw off my entire fit? Like the entire 2 rides, all I could think about was the strange feeling of pedaling. Every part of my fit felt off.
The other question is, could I get used to this? I keep reading about the benefits of rearward cleat position. Would I need to change other parts of my fit like my saddle height and fore/aft?
Morning @CaptainThunderpants,
There are potentially a few variables here.
The picture you’ve included doesn’t really show us the key bit i.e. the distance from the heel to the cleat. I’d put both shoes, sole down, with the back of the cleat against a straight edge such as a tabletop. Then I’d compare the cleat position by looking from above where the heels are relative to one another not the toes.
Have you used the same insoles in each pair of shoes? Different arch support and metatarsal buttons will alter the feeling.
New shoes on old cleats in the picture. Did you keep the left cleat on the left shoe and vice versa when you rode in them? Cleats wear differently on either side so they could feel different as a result.
Potentially there could be a difference in stack height between the shoes.
Also Specialized used to make claims about adding a varus correction to their shoes. I’m not sure whether they do, whether it’s on this model or what Giro does but it could be that there are differences there too.
With 3-6 weeks of regular riding generally, people adapt to a positional change.
Pushing the cleat back increases knee extension so you may expect to reduce the saddle a mm or so. For your fore and aft check whether you still feel balanced when hovering your hands above the bar.
There are usually fewer issues with cleat back than forward. Wheel/Toe overlap and less explosive power are a couple but improved steady-state power output, less calf loading and foot comfort on the other hand.
Cheers Scott
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If you’re cleats are farther back even more, then your saddle should come down a bit to compensate, or, the cleat needs to move back to your original location.
Hump
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Thanks for the reply.
Yea, that’s what I meant by it was hard to get a good picture. I was trying to line up the shoes, then hold them in one hand and take a picture with the other hand. I can assure you the heels are equal. That is, the inside edge where my heel rests against the back of the shoe is equal.
They’re actually pretty new cleats, like 3 rides. Though one ride I got a flat so had to walk a little, that’s why they look worn. But they have maybe 100 miles on them if that.
These could be different. The new S-Works shoes are advertised with the varus wedge so maybe.
Either way, I may move them forward a bit and split the difference to see how it feels. Thanks for the input.
This might sound daft but hey ho - If I angle my cleats/feet one way can it move the knee the other way?
What I mean is, say my right leg, if I angled the foot anti-clockwise could/would it push the knee out and vice versa?
I ask as for whatever reason my right foot just doesn’t feel in the perfect position, initially it felt too far forward so I moved the cleat forward a bit and this has helped the fore-aft feeling but the twist doesnt feel right and my right inner thigh is rubbing on the saddle. Not enough to chafe but enough that I can feel it and am conscious of it.