Incorrectly fitted cleats can cause knee pain or even injury. We speak to a bike fitting expert on how to get yours sorted.
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00:00 Hi, I'm Hannah Reynolds, fitness editor at Cycling Weekly. Today I'm at Bespoke Cycling's
00:11 flagship store in Canary Wharf with expert bike fitter Ben Hallam, who's going to show
00:15 us how to fit our cleats to our road shoes. Today we've got SPDSL cleats with 105 pedals,
00:22 but the principles are the same whatever cleat and pedal system you're using. We've loosely
00:26 fitted them, so now over to Ben. Where do we start?
00:29 What we need to do first is a standing and moving assessment to understand how the body
00:33 moves off the bike so we know how to set up the cleats on the bike. Now you can do this
00:37 in front of the mirror yourself and be able to see your body's natural movement patterns
00:41 and where you may need to move your cleats. So first thing I'd like you to do is have
00:45 a little march on the spot for me and then stand whatever feels nice and comfortable
00:48 for you. That's good. So we're looking for are the feet rotating out, rotating in? Are
00:54 we naturally standing very wide, in which case the feet when you're riding may need
00:59 to be moved to the outside. Here we can see on the left hand side we have a slight rotation
01:04 out. Next thing we want to do is look at a little bit more dynamically what happens as
01:10 you move. Stand about shoulder width apart and I want you to rotate feet straight ahead
01:16 for me. Now this may feel a little unnatural, but we want to see where your body moves out
01:23 of that straight alignment because it gives us an indication of what we may need later
01:26 on when we're fitting the cleats. Raise your arms up in front and sit back and down into
01:31 a squat as low as you feel comfortable going. What we're looking for here are do the feet
01:36 rotate out as we move? Do the knees bend out? Do the knees drop in? If the knees drop in
01:42 we may need to allow some rotation in the cleat to not restrict this movement. So next
01:49 Hannah what we need to do is a seated assessment to look at rotations around the knee. Take
01:55 a seat on the end of a bed or a couch with your feet dangling in the air like this. What
01:59 you're looking for if you look down from the top, does your foot sit straight? Does it
02:04 rotate in? Or does it rotate out? This is going to indicate where we need to potentially
02:10 set your cleats so that you're not forcing your foot to be in a position it does not
02:15 want to be in. So Hannah, next we're going to deal with the cleat position fore and aft.
02:21 Now this is very important because if the cleat is too far forward the pedal axle ends
02:27 up underneath your toes. That will lead to you gripping with your toes which can often
02:31 lead to cramping in the foot. It also is a less stable position to be able to push through.
02:37 If you imagine climbing a step and only having your toes on the step then think about how
02:43 much pressure you could put through your foot. Vice versa, if the cleat is too far back then
02:48 we're losing out on a lot of leverage and efficiency can be affected. So to measure
02:53 this what we're going to do is use a flat surface like a skirting board to be able to
02:58 get a reference point of how far the balls of your feet are away from the back of your
03:03 foot. So what I want you to do Hannah is stand with your heels against the back of the skirting
03:08 board. I want the feet to be nice and straight, so if you're straightening up your feet, good,
03:13 and I want your ankles to be in a nice neutral position, so not dropping your arches all
03:17 the way in. Next we're going to take a tape measure and we're going to measure the distance
03:21 from the back of the skirting board up to the ball of the foot, so the knobbly bit on
03:27 the inside of the foot at the base of the big toe. And here we're at 17.5cm. Now we
03:35 want to transfer that measurement across to the shoe. Now the best way I've found of doing
03:40 this is putting a little piece of electrical tape on the side of the shoe to allow you
03:44 to place a mark on the shoe without actually damaging your shoe. What I prefer to do is
03:51 to actually place the cleat slightly behind that first ball of the foot, because underneath
03:56 that first ball of the foot there are a couple of little caesamoid bones that are similar
04:01 to a knee cap to allow the transmission of force around there. If we load those, some
04:06 people find them a little bit sore, so I want to hit just behind that point. So what I tend
04:11 to use is just the thickness of the back of the shoe to add that little bit of length
04:16 to hit just behind there. Now, if your shoes have a little bit of plastic on the back,
04:20 like a city, we want to add that measurement to the measurement we've already taken. Next
04:26 we want to place the shoe against the skirting board in a straight position. Take the tape
04:33 measure along the inside of the shoe, take your pen and mark the measurement that you've
04:39 made just up the inside of the shoe. So here we're at 17 and a half. Every cleat has a
04:46 mark on the side showing where the axle sits underneath the cleat. This is what we want
04:52 to line up against the mark we've just made. Next we want to deal with rotation. Here at
04:58 Bespoke we use a fancy little tool from Ergon to allow us to replicate exactly the rotation
05:04 of the cleat every single time. But you can do this very quickly with a piece of corrugated
05:09 cardboard cut out to the same shape as a cleat. For Hannah, on the left hand side, we need
05:16 a slight rotation here in, and then tighten up the bolts. Next what we want to do is deal
05:23 with the position in and out, so the lateral position and relationship of the foot, knee
05:29 and hip. To do this I would ride on a turbo in front of a mirror so that you can see the
05:34 position of your hip, knee and ankle. If knees and hips are tracking outside of your foot,
05:42 then the cleat probably needs to be pushed inside which will put your foot slightly further
05:47 out, a little bit wider. Vice versa, if your knees and hips are inside of the position
05:54 of your ankles, then the opposite needs to happen. Push the cleat to the outside of the
05:59 shoe which will put the foot closer in. Lastly we need to deal with rotation. Hopefully we've
06:05 done the majority of this with the body assessment that we've already done. Now we need to feel
06:12 if we are sitting on the edge of the float that is available. Often I find it easier
06:17 to close your eyes and feel if your foot is being forced to sit in a position that isn't
06:23 natural. If you feel like your foot wants to be more heel closer to the bike or heel
06:28 in, then this is where we would want to stop, reorientate the position of the shoe and then
06:34 check again. Do this in small increments because it sometimes only needs a few degrees to be
06:42 just perfect. Today we've been using the yellow SPDSL cleats but is there a difference in
06:47 float between the different colours? Yes, so with SPDSL it comes in three different colours.
06:53 It comes in the yellow, the blue and they also do a red. Now these indicate different
06:58 amounts of float. Now float is how much freedom the foot has to rotate before it comes out
07:06 of the pedal. The yellows have six degrees, the blues have roughly two degrees of float
07:14 and the reds are completely fixed. Look run a similar system, they run red for nine degrees
07:20 of float, grey for four and a half degrees of float and black for fixed. Speedplay had
07:27 the ability to micro adjust the float. Does everyone need float in their pedals? Float
07:34 is important if you have a restriction in your movement, that means that your knee is
07:39 not going to track in a perfect straight alignment. This can come from the hip, knee or simply
07:45 a core instability that will pull everything out of alignment. Your foot needs to be able
07:50 to rotate with that movement otherwise the knee has to take up that additional movement.
07:57 This can overload structures in the knee and cause pain. I believe it's a misconception
08:03 that everyone needs float and sometimes if you have knee pain more float may not be the
08:09 answer. If the reason you're getting knee pain is because you have instability and are
08:14 unable to control the movement of the foot, increasing the amount of freedom your foot
08:19 has will just exasperate the issue. In this situation potentially less float may give
08:27 you more stability and control but this is something that you should get checked by a
08:32 trained fitter. So how would I know if my cleats were set up wrong? You may get an indication
08:39 if your cleats are set up incorrectly because you develop a knee niggle, a pain or if you're
08:45 feeling that you're on the edge of the float and your foot is not tracking and sitting
08:50 in a position that feels natural. If your cleat is not positioned correctly fore and
08:55 after you may find that you drive through your heel more or tend to point your toes
08:59 or grip. This can often lead to foot numbness. This may be another indication that your cleat
09:05 position may not be quite right. So what we've done today is a good starting point for getting
09:10 your cleats in the right position but it's a very complicated part of bike fitting. So
09:17 if someone still has any discomfort or pain or any concerns, the best thing to do is to
09:22 go along and see someone like yourself I imagine. That's correct. There are areas on top of
09:28 this including angles of the foot and the cleat and also dealing with leg length differences
09:33 which we'll do from the cleat. Thanks Ben, that's really helpful. If you've got any more
09:38 questions on bike fit, leave it in the comments box on the page below this video and for more
09:43 bike fitting information visit www.cyclingweekly.co.uk
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