Unusual shoe cleat position

"Pat Fleming" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Do any top riders have the shoe cleat positioned closer to the arch of the foot, rather than at
the ball of the foot? Any advantage or disadvantage?

Don't know about them having a rearward cleat, but a lot of them point their toes down which
achieves a qualitatively similar result, reducing strain on the calf muscles (top riders have been
put out with achilles tendon problems)

If it doesn't hurt I see a slight benefit and no disadvantage to a rearward cleat.

OTOH if you have strong calves and wish to use them for power output via a traditional ankling
style, or you are worried about calf muscle development then the rearward cleat could be a
disadvantage (a lot of the toes-down pedallers seem to have "no calves"😉.

In the days of the toe strap you had to factor in the placement of the strap too and that could
influence how "right" your cleat position felt.

I keep saying I'm going to test a cleat set into the heel of the shoe
- very little calf strain, lower saddle - all benefit until you get your foot stuck in the
front wheel.

Andrew Bradley

Pat Fleming said:

Do any top riders have the shoe cleat positioned closer to the arch of the foot, rather than at
the ball of the foot? Any advantage or disadvantage?

A lot of recumbent riders prefer this position, but I can't remember why. You might visit
www.bentrideronline.com and post on their discussion board for some information. Many of the 'bent
riders also ride "wedgies", as they like to call upright bikes, so they can probably offer some
relevant opinions.

--Kevin

"Pat Fleming" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Do any top riders have the shoe cleat positioned closer to the arch of the foot, rather than at
the ball of the foot? Any advantage or disadvantage?

I'm not a top rider by any stretch, but I set my cleats as far back as they'll go. This seems to put
less stress on my arches and allows my toes to move- important with my poor circulation.

Jeff

Pat Fleming asked:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Do any top riders have the shoe cleat positioned closer to the arch of the foot, rather than at
the ball of the foot? Any advantage or disadvantage?

Kevin C. said:

A lot of recumbent riders prefer this position, but I can't remember why. You might visit
www.bentrideronline.com and post on their discussion board for some information. Many of the 'bent
riders also ride "wedgies", as they like to call upright bikes, so they can probably offer some
relevant opinions.

This is a rerun:

Conventional wisdom is that you should pedal with the ball of your foot. This is widely repeated,
but what is the source of this recommendation? What is the biomechanical reason for it? I've never
seen any studies of this, but the recommendation goes back to the late 19th century.

I have two theories about this:

1. If you are wearing soft soled shoes, the ball of the foot is best suited to take the pressure,
while the arch is not normally intended to be a load-bearing part of the foot. But what if you're
wearing stiff-soled cycling shoes? This brings us to:

B. The "high-wheeler" theory: In the 1880s, the high-wheel bicycle was the state of the art. Since
bicycles of the era had direct drive, with the pedals attached directly to the driving wheel, the
only way to vary the bicycle's "gear" was to use a larger or smaller wheel.

In practice, the limiting factor in wheel size wasn't how high a gear you could push (typical
gearing for single-speed bikes is in the range of 65-75 inch equivalent) but rather how big a wheel
you could stretch your legs around and still keep your feet on the pedal at the bottom of the
stroke. Back then, the longer your legs were, the higher the "gear" your bike could have.

It turns out that by pedaling on the balls of your feet and pointing your toes, you could ride a
slightly larger wheel than you would otherwise be able to straddle. It is my belief that the custom
of pedaling on the ball of the foot arose from this, and has stayed with us by sheer momentum.

Since following this line of reasoning, I've started setting my cleats as far back in my shoes as
they'll go, lowered my saddle a smidgen, and have had no ill effects.

Sheldon "Archie" Brown +-------------------------------------------------------------+
| I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation. | --George Benard Shaw |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+ Harris Cyclery, West Newton,
Massachusetts Phone 617-244-9772 FAX 617-244-1041 harriscyclery.comharriscyclery.comOpen ↗ Hard-to-find parts
shipped Worldwide captainbike.comcaptainbike.comOpen ↗ sheldonbrown.comsheldonbrown.comOpen ↗

Sheldon Brown said:

Pat Fleming asked:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Do any top riders have the shoe cleat positioned closer to the arch of the foot, rather than at
the ball of the foot? Any advantage or disadvantage?

Kevin C. said:

A lot of recumbent riders prefer this position, but I can't remember why. You might visit
www.bentrideronline.com and post on their discussion board for some information. Many of the
'bent riders also ride "wedgies", as they like to call upright bikes, so they can probably offer
some relevant opinions.

This is a rerun:

Conventional wisdom is that you should pedal with the ball of your foot. This is widely repeated,
but what is the source of this recommendation? What is the biomechanical reason for it? I've never
seen any studies of this, but the recommendation goes back to the late 19th century.

My hunch is that it was a matter of comfort. Your foot is designed for carrying your weight on the
heel and ball while walking or standing. When running, your weight is carried primarily on the ball
of the foot. Modern running shoes, with a thick heel and padding, encourage you to run on your heels
which is unnatural- but then running for long distances at a time is probably also unnatural. Our
ancestors probably only ran in short sprints, not marathons.

On a bike, I suspect that riding long distances on bad roads with comparatively high gears meant a
low cadence and a lot of pressure on the foot. With the pedal underneath the arch, pain probably
developed. Velocipedes were pedaled with the arch, according to the drawings of the time, but high
wheelers with their larger wheels (and hence taller gears) seems to have been pedaled with the ball
of the foot. I suspect this is because rides were getting longer and more likely to be out on the
open road rather than in city parks.

I'm not sure off hand when the steel shank was invented. Heels were not possible on shoes until the
sole could be adequately stiffened, which required a shank. (There's a fascinating history of
cordwaining and medieval shoe design somewhere on the Internet called footware of the middle ages.
There were no heels on shoes at least until the late 1500's). With more flexible shoes, foot
discomfort was probably a bigger issue for our cycling ancestors than for today's riders.

Modern shoes tend to be so stiff that one can't really feel where the cleat is, even when standing
and climbing at a slow cadence. We have more options as to where the cleat ought to be, and can move
them back to relieve the Achilles and the hamstrings if we wish.

Sheldon Brown <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Pat Fleming asked:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Do any top riders have the shoe cleat positioned closer to the arch of the foot, rather than at
the ball of the foot? Any advantage or disadvantage?

Kevin C. said:

A lot of recumbent riders prefer this position, but I can't remember why. You might visit
www.bentrideronline.com and post on their discussion board for some information. Many of the
'bent riders also ride "wedgies", as they like to call upright bikes, so they can probably offer
some relevant opinions.

This is a rerun:

Conventional wisdom is that you should pedal with the ball of your foot. This is widely repeated,
but what is the source of this recommendation? What is the biomechanical reason for it? I've never
seen any studies of this, but the recommendation goes back to the late 19th century.

I have two theories about this:

1. If you are wearing soft soled shoes, the ball of the foot is best suited to take the pressure,
while the arch is not normally intended to be a load-bearing part of the foot. But what if
you're wearing stiff-soled cycling shoes? This brings us to:

B. The "high-wheeler" theory: In the 1880s, the high-wheel bicycle was the state of the art. Since
bicycles of the era had direct drive, with the pedals attached directly to the driving wheel,
the only way to vary the bicycle's "gear" was to use a larger or smaller wheel.

In practice, the limiting factor in wheel size wasn't how high a gear you could push (typical
gearing for single-speed bikes is in the range of 65-75 inch equivalent) but rather how big a
wheel you could stretch your legs around and still keep your feet on the pedal at the bottom of
the stroke. Back then, the longer your legs were, the higher the "gear" your bike could have.

It turns out that by pedaling on the balls of your feet and pointing your toes, you could ride a
slightly larger wheel than you would otherwise be able to straddle. It is my belief that the
custom of pedaling on the ball of the foot arose from this, and has stayed with us by sheer
momentum.

Since following this line of reasoning, I've started setting my cleats as far back in my shoes as
they'll go, lowered my saddle a smidgen, and have had no ill effects.

Sheldon "Archie" Brown +-------------------------------------------------------------+
| I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation. | --George Benard Shaw |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+ Harris Cyclery, West Newton,
Massachusetts Phone 617-244-9772 FAX 617-244-1041 harriscyclery.comharriscyclery.comOpen ↗ Hard-to-find parts
shipped Worldwide captainbike.comcaptainbike.comOpen ↗ sheldonbrown.comsheldonbrown.comOpen ↗

Dear Archibald,

I like both 1 & B. As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, might III have something to do with
rat-trap toe-cages?

By the way, I loved your book about bicycles and tricycles--it was really sharp.

Sorry, but I can't resist a third pun.

Archly,

Carl Fogel

21 Nov 2003 14:12:41 -0500 Sheldon Brown said:

Conventional wisdom is that you should pedal with the ball of your foot. This is widely repeated,
but what is the source of this recommendation? What is the biomechanical reason for it? I've never
seen any studies of this,

Here's how I would explain it.

If you want to maximize the power you can put into cycling for a sustained period of time you want
to involve more than 1 set of muscles. I think it's fair to say that no matter how much you
exercise, your calves and thighs together will always be more powerful than your thighs alone. The
trick is to use both muscles together in a way that uses each in proportion to its strength and
endurance.

The energy put out by a muscle is given by the force times the distance that muscle (or some body
part attached to tha muscle) moves.

Since the thigh muscle is clearly stronger than the calf, we expect the thigh to do most of the
work. The thigh moves the knee through a long arc with a large amount of force, while the calf moves
the ball of the foot thru a relatively small arc (with respect to the ankle) with an identical
amount of force.

Thus the burden of pedaling is divided between the thigh and the calf in proportion to the ratio of
the lengths of the stroke of each. If you move the pedal contact point rearward along the sole of
the foot then this reduces the share of the burden given to the calf muscle.

In general, since the ball of the foot is THE point where the we are built to press hard with our
soles, it is likely that the human body has evolved and adapted to make this radius the optimum.

It's also clear that we are not all built alike and we're not all likely to have matching calf/thigh
strength proportions and knee/ball radius proportions, so that there might clearly be reason to
experiment a bit.

If you agree with this, then you also have to agree that there may be people out there who would do
well to move their cleats forward of the ball.

Personally, if I felt that one of these muscles on my body was having trouble "keeping up" with the
other, the first thing I'd do would be to work to develop the weaker muscle so that it could keep
up. Only if that failed would I consider moving the cleat away from the ball of my foot.

OTOH, in my case, I've never noticed that one muscle seemed unable to keep up with the other;
they're ALL weak.

-
-----------------------------------------------
Jim Adney [email hidden] Madison, WI 53711 USA
-----------------------------------------------

Sheldon Brown <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Back then, the longer your legs were, the higher the "gear" your bike could have.

Good theory about ball of foot pedalling, though it might not have been quite such a big man's game
after all.

There is another way to vary gain on a high wheeler and that is shorter cranks. I know you're
usually keen to talk gain rather than gear...

Quoted message said:

It turns out that by pedaling on the balls of your feet and pointing your toes, you could ride a
slightly larger wheel than you would otherwise be able to straddle.

Did any high wheeler riders use cleats? Otherwise you could only point toes down to any extent near
the bottom of the stroke (or else your foot would slip off the pedal).

Are we touching on the origins of "traditional" ankling here too?

I also wonder how many of the top pros would be able to pedal as they do without cleats. With some
toes-pointed techniques the thrust surely goes through the front of the upper of the shoe more than
the sole - so ball or instep being the best place for pressure doesn't even come into it.

Andrew Bradley

Sheldon Brown may have said:

It turns out that by pedaling on the balls of your feet and pointing your toes, you could ride a
slightly larger wheel than you would otherwise be able to straddle. It is my belief that the custom
of pedaling on the ball of the foot arose from this, and has stayed with us by sheer momentum.

Since following this line of reasoning, I've started setting my cleats as far back in my shoes as
they'll go, lowered my saddle a smidgen, and have had no ill effects.

Some of us who still don't ride clipped to the bike at any point have found by simple
experimentation that there are times for riding with the foot on the pedal with just the toes
overhanging in front, maximizing the ankling, and times to slide the foot forward until the heel of
the shoe catches on the pedal...but that most of the time, the ball of the foot seems to produce the
best results. I came to this conclusion without having ever been told who did what with which; I
didn't know or care how anyone else did it, I just experimented and found what worked for me. It did
not surprise me to discover, after many years of riding that way, that this was also the globally
preferred method.

Sometimes things are the way they are because that's what works, either at an individual level or
commonly. This does not prevent some people from trying to reinvent mature technologies or revise
long-standardized practices, but such endeavors seldom produce a real change, and even less often an
improvement. When they succeed, they often become the new standard, displacing the old one
entirely...but this is far less common than the failures. History is littered with the debris of
such efforts.

It is probably possible to design a cleat mount that would allow the clip point to be easily shifted
along the bottom of the shoe, but somehow I suspect that over the long haul, the cleat on such a
shoe would end up pretty much where it is now.

--
My email address is antispammed; pull WEEDS if replying via e-mail. Yes, I have a killfile. If I
don't respond to something, it's also possible that I'm busy. Words processed in a facility that
contains nuts.

(Andrew Bradley) may have said:

Did any high wheeler riders use cleats? Otherwise you could only point toes down to any extent near
the bottom of the stroke (or else your foot would slip off the pedal).

ISTR seeing high-wheelers with pedals that had a leather strap to help keep the foot on the pedal.
It's interesting to note that the toe clip appeared on safety bikes at least as early as 1890; it
was probably used earlier on high-wheelers and boneshakers, since it's such an obvious concept. I
doubt that any of the early riders used cleats; I can'r recall seeing anything that looked like a
clipping mechanism in any pedal, though of course an inventive rider might have had a cobbler nail
an extra strip of leather to the sole of the shoe to drop into the slot of the pedal structure. I
personally consider this unlikely since it would have made the shoe much less useful for walking,
and the cleat would have been fouled with mud and manure too easily. These were, after all, the days
when a bootscraper next to the front door was a ubiquitous fxture for most establishements and
residences.

--
My email address is antispammed; pull WEEDS if replying via e-mail. Yes, I have a killfile. If I
don't respond to something, it's also possible that I'm busy. Words processed in a facility that
contains nuts.

Sheldon Brown <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Conventional wisdom is that you should pedal with the ball of your foot. This is widely repeated,
but what is the source of this recommendation? What is the biomechanical reason for it? I've never
seen any studies of this, but the recommendation goes back to the late 19th century.

For completeness sake let me just add that one of the most quoted studies in the literature (Google:
Multivariable Optimisation of Cycling Biomechanics) recommends setting the cleat as far _forward_ on
the shoe as possible. It also throws up a cadence of 115RPM and a crank length of 140mm for "average
man" at 200W (music to the ears of the "spinners"?). I think think the model is flawed but won't get
into that here.

However I do wonder whether sprinting might not suffer on a short foot lever since "ankling depth"
increases greatly when riding out of saddle (especially for non-anklers). A short foot lever would
tend to nullify this natural tendency and reduce the possibility for power output from the
not-insignificant calf muscle group.

Set-back cleats might make it less worthwhile getting out of the saddle - or is that a
good thing...?

See asb-biomech.org219Open ↗ for a description of how ranges of joint movement
vary when you get out of the saddle.

When in 2084 the new thing is a little switch on the bars which moves the pedal spindle back and
forth under the foot, remember you heard it here first.

Andrew Bradley

Quoted message said:

Pat Fleming asked:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Do any top riders have the shoe cleat positioned closer to the arch of the foot, rather than at
the ball of the foot? Any advantage or disadvantage?

Sheldon Brown replied:

I have two theories about this:

1. If you are wearing soft soled shoes, the ball of the foot is best suited to take the pressure,
while the arch is not normally intended to be a load-bearing part of the foot. But what if
you're wearing stiff-soled cycling shoes? ...

Most of us have started cycling as children with soft-soled or relatively soft-soled shoes. Like
most cyclists, I started with rubber pedals, then with metal "racing" pedals (that's how they were
called in the 1970s), then added toeclips around 1980. Back in those days, walkable cycling shoes
were not readily available and even today, I'm not sure too many parents would buy them for their 7
or 8 year old child.

So I started with the ball of the foot, using the heel as a good place to push against, but as
Sheldon hinted, you can't push too hard that way or you'll feel pain. Then with toeclips and lately
with clipless, use of the ball of the foot is promoted.

I find that even with SPD cycling shoes (and too long toeclips), if I cycle with the arch, I will
feel pain and irritation after not too many kilometres. Is it that SPDs are not *that* stiff or is
it that I don't have enough practice? Probably both.

That leaves with two options: pedalling with the balls or with the heels. More muscles are being
used with the balls -- which is generally a good thing. But I think an important additional
consideration is that pedalling with the balls of the feet offer some moderate shock-absorbing
properties. IOW, one doesn't need to ride off the saddle through all pavement cracks.

Jim Adney said:

If you want to maximize the power you can put into cycling for a sustained period of time you want
to involve more than 1 set of muscles. I think it's fair to say that no matter how much you
exercise, your calves and thighs together will always be more powerful than your thighs alone.

This assumes the limit on power output is not cardiovascular.
--
David Damerell <[email hidden]> Distortion Field!

Jim Adney <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

If you want to maximize the power you can put into cycling for a sustained period of time you want
to involve more than 1 set of muscles. I think it's fair to say that no matter how much you
exercise, your calves and thighs together will always be more powerful than your thighs alone. The
trick is to use both muscles together in a way that uses each in proportion to its strength and
endurance.

You sound like a fellow ankler, but i think we are a small minority.

The calf muscle will output little power in most peoples seated riding style, perhaps just a bit of
a flip at the bottom of the stroke. IIRC a study showed that during running blood flow in calf and
thigh is similar but that during cycling it is significantly less in the calf.

Quoted message said:

Personally, if I felt that one of these muscles on my body was having trouble "keeping up" with
the other, the first thing I'd do would be to work to develop the weaker muscle so that it could
keep up. Only if that failed would I consider moving the cleat away from the ball of my foot.

My advice to anyone looking to output power from the calf is to start off only doing it in short
bursts, they could well find the natural lever a bit too long for more than that. Ankling is worth
investigating though as it can make a nice change on a climb, rather like getting out of the saddle.
That's how i started using it.

Quoted message said:

OTOH, in my case, I've never noticed that one muscle seemed unable to keep up with the other;
they're ALL weak.

You're too modest - if you can ankle on a full foot lever your calves are probably strong. Most
"beginners" can't keep it up for more than a few hundred yards and in one notable case permanent
damage occured.

Andrew Bradley

[email hidden] (Michel Gagnon) wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

That leaves with two options: pedalling with the balls or with the heels. More muscles are being
used with the balls -- which is generally a good thing.

Only if the extra muscles are outputting power, otherwise it is wasted muscle work. And even then in
the aerobic situation the advantage is contested. In a max power situation and perhaps for fatigue
reduction the benefits are easier to accept.

But the calf muscle has to shorten to output power and you need to see a pronounced opening of the
ankle joint (since just locking the calf will also open the ankle somewhat). Eyeball method says
that doesn't seem to happen much for most people.

Andrew Bradley

David Damerell <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Jim Adney said:

If you want to maximize the power you can put into cycling for a sustained period of time you
want to involve more than 1 set of muscles. I think it's fair to say that no matter how much you
exercise, your calves and thighs together will always be more powerful than your thighs alone.

This assumes the limit on power output is not cardiovascular.

Yes, it is the same debate as the Power Cranks debate.

I'm still waiting for the definitive post on that.

Andrew Bradley

Andrew Bradley said:

David Damerell <[email hidden]>:

Quoted message said:

Jim Adney said:

If you want to maximize the power you can put into cycling for a sustained period of time you
want to involve more than 1 set of muscles.

This assumes the limit on power output is not cardiovascular.

Yes, it is the same debate as the Power Cranks debate. I'm still waiting for the definitive
post on that.

Well, from the department of anecdote and speculation; about 2 years ago my commute changed from
being around 2 miles in difficult urban conditions (so speed mostly limited by traffic and lights)
to 11 miles (each way) in much easier conditions (so speed limited by available power).

At first my legs hurt and I grew bigger leg muscles; but then my legs stopped hurting and my lungs
started to be the problem. On large climbs, if I have to stop, it's always to get my breathing
under control.

However, I'm asthmatic, which clearly makes me unusual; but I suspect a not-regular cyclist has
cardiovascular capacity in excess of leg strength, but since leg muscles can be developed rapidly,
they quickly come to exceed cardiovascular capacity.
--
David Damerell <[email hidden]> flcl?

"Andrew Bradley" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

the calf muscle has to shorten to output power

1. The gastrocnemius crosses the knee joint, and thus can contribute to power production even if the
ankle is fixed.

2. What y'all are speculating on has (of course) already been measured by scientists - try a PubMed
search using terms such as "cycling", "inverse dynamics", possibly "biarticular muscles", and/or
for work by individuals like Gregor, Hull, etc.

Andy Coggan

"Andy Coggan" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

the calf muscle has to shorten to output power

1. The gastrocnemius crosses the knee joint, and thus can contribute to power production even if
the ankle is fixed.

Sounds neat, but is mechanically impossible on the power stroke (unless you can elucidate some fancy
gastrocnemius energy storage effect).

1. That (calf) muscle, like all the others, has to shorten to introduce power into the system
(simple mechanics, no fancy physiology required).

2. It cannot shorten if the ankle-joint is to remain "fixed" since it would then want to CLOSE the
knee angle which is opening up on the downstroke. In fact that muscle would have to
lengthen/stretch to maintain a "fixed ankle" and forced lengthening is _negative_ work as I'm
sure you know.

Quoted message said:

2. What y'all are speculating on has (of course) already been measured by scientists - try a
PubMed search using terms such as "cycling", "inverse dynamics", possibly "biarticular
muscles", and/or for work by individuals like Gregor, Hull, etc.

Top patronising Andy (that "of course" though you don't know the research yourself - class).

I mentioned one high profile paper earlier in the thread (Gonzalez, Hull) which came out in favour
of the longest foot lever possible and some other strange stuff. I have studied said paper in great
detail and as I commented earlier, I think it is flawed.

If you know of studies with something useful to say on cleat position please let us know the
findings and your verdict on them.

In fact, let us in on any scientific research which has something conclusive to tell us about how we
should sit on our bikes.

Andrew Bradley