- 10 hours ago
Cycling shoes are key to getting comfortable on a road bike or gravel bike and are an important part of any bike fit. To help make your next cycling shoe purchase as comfortable as possible we contacted a professional bike fitter to see what tips they had to find the right cycling shoes for you.
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00:00These are my new cycling shoes and I'm very pleased with them,
00:04but that shouldn't come as much of a surprise because I was meticulous
00:08in my shoe buying decision making.
00:16However, new shoe day isn't quite such a slipper-like experience for many people
00:21and so we thought we'd share some of the buying mistakes that we've made when it comes to cycling
00:26shoes and get some expert advice from a professional bike fitter here at Synergy Performance.
00:31Let's get into it.
00:35So Luke, whilst you set up my cleats, why is getting the right shoe important?
00:42To keep it simple and straightforward.
00:44Effectively, what you've got to imagine, we've got a set of scales,
00:47the front of the bike, on the saddle and down at your feet and what I'm trying to do is
00:51stabilize you on the bike by passing weight through your feet and by passing this weight
00:56down through your feet and stabilizing your foot, you can have a happy, comfortable foot
01:00that's going to deliver power better and yeah, maybe a few extra ones.
01:06So, point number one, buying a shoe we like the look of rather than actually how it fits your foot.
01:12I bet that happens quite a lot. I see that a lot, so I bet you see it all the time.
01:17I do, and this brand of device, really effective way of understanding the size of your foot,
01:22most importantly the width of your foot, to understand what may be a good direction of
01:27cycling shoe to go in. What we see a loss of is an industry driven by Italian design,
01:34when actually the British person's foot is not shaped like that. So, having a little look at
01:40the shape of your foot, the shape of your toes, are you maybe an arrow pointed foot, are you maybe a
01:46more of a box or square-like foot? And this width is a really key metric to understand where,
01:52what direction do I go in with the shape of the shoe? And that's the important thing to start with,
01:56is the shape of the shoe before you go down the route of, oh, this one's on discount and I like the
02:01look of that, I'm going to buy this one. So, what are my feet like? So, it's important to understand your
02:08foot shape when you're standing up. Oh, okay. So, if you stand up for me, yeah, see how your foot spread out
02:14there and gain the width and size. And this is how you analyse your foot. So, not when you're sitting
02:20down. Now, pretty simple metric, 42 and a half, pretty standard, first amount of tarsal location.
02:28So, you're pushing out in a D in width. So, you've got a little bit of forefoot width to your foot shape.
02:38The second thing to discuss about is how not all 42 shoes fit the same.
02:44Now, not everyone has access to a brand of device at home. A simple way to understand is your foot
02:50the correct length for your shoe is to take the insole out of your shoe and place your foot onto
02:57the insole and stand up. And this is a good indication of how your foot wants to connect with
03:03the shoe. So, how much should you have at the top? What I would like to see is no kind of excess fabric
03:10or insole towards the head of the toes. And I ideally don't want to see your foot overhanging
03:16the edge. So, what you can see here is you fit this insole quite nice. If I was seeing
03:24lots of this overhang at the front, probably an insight into the sideshoe you're in is not the correct
03:31size. It's worth pointing out that as soon as you fit a cleat to it, you can't send them back.
03:36A hundred percent. So, do that first. A big thanks to FLR Shoes who've sponsored this video and made it
03:46possible. The shoes that I went for and have been using are the FNT 9 Knit. That's a world tour level
03:52shoe. They've won two stages of Puerto Espana. I believe it's the U.S. national champs as well at
03:57some point. They've got three layers of woven yarn and that makes them really breathable, which is
04:02something that I really want because I've been riding in lots of hot conditions. I get to go and
04:06ride my bike in lots of very nice places. So, that's something well up my shoe buying list. FLR though
04:12make a whole range of shoes to suit a whole range of foot shapes and budgets. So, you can check out
04:18their whole range from mountain bike shoes, road shoes, downhill shoes, every kind of shoe. You can
04:24check them out on the FLR website and we'll pop a link down in the description below. Whilst I've got you
04:28hit, make sure you're subscribed to the channel and now back to do some shoe fitting.
04:35Point number three, sizing up to accommodate a wide foot. I see it all the time where people maybe
04:42wear a size 42, 43 trainer and they assume that that's the size of their foot, whereas actually
04:47they may be a smaller foot but they need more width than the shoe. I mean, I can quite see how that
04:52would be a problem but what are the consequences of buying a shoe that's the wrong size?
04:58Inherently, this is a very poor lever. My job as a bike fitter is to reduce how much of a poor lever
05:04this is to stabilize your feet. What I see a lot of the time is if you're doing this thing of inherently
05:10sizing up to accommodate a wider foot, quite simple, these cleats are going to be too far forward and
05:15the consequence of these cleats being too far forward, foot numbness, hot spots on feet and most
05:21importantly that people don't really understand is an inability to stabilize your foot is then going to
05:27pass weights elsewhere on the bike. Yeah. Hand numbness, knee pain, saddle sores, asymmetry on the
05:34bike. All from the wrong size of shoe. Potentially. Point number four, the most overlooked part of
05:42buying a new shoe, what goes on inside of this? In particular, arching points. So this thin piece of
05:48foam that comes inside of your shoe, ideally what I wish the cycling industry would do as a whole,
05:54sell you this shoe with nothing inside of it. So you then had to go, oh, maybe I should go and get
05:59something made designed for my foot. I would find that a little bit weird, but I do get your point.
06:04Yeah. Do any brands do that? No brands do that. One industry does it really well and that's the ski boot
06:10industry. You go and buy a set of ski boots, you have to have a ski boot fitting. Why do I need arch support?
06:16So let's give your arches a little measure. You're pushing around about 25mm of arch height. Not uncommon.
06:25I see that a lot. Anywhere from sort of 20 to 25mm is really quite common. Now here's a pretty simple
06:32representation of what your foot is doing inside of this shoe. Your foot is basically not touching all of
06:39this space here. Now this stiff carbon sole, this is not going to mould up to your foot. Your foot,
06:46this is rigid. It's my job to get your foot to touch the bottom of this. One, we can get more of your
06:51foot touching the bottom of this. Delivering power and stabilising your foot is going to be far easier.
06:56Why tend to say to people if they've got a budget of £300 to spend on a shoe, it's better to put £200
07:03into the shoe and £100 into a custom insole and that's why insoles is simply the best bang for buck
07:11upgrade on your bike. Right, so I've got my new shoes. I'm ready to go. Definitely not yet. You can
07:21still mess it up. So this next point we're going to be talking about cleat setup and a little bit about
07:28something called foot correction. Generally, if I'm going to give any kind of advice, it would be to
07:34trial moving your cleats all the way backwards. Why might I want to do that? Covering the things
07:40we've talked about where people are sizing up to accommodate a wide foot, potentially these three
07:45holes being drilled a little bit too far forward for my liking, mainly driven by quite old school
07:51methodology around the centre of the pedal aligning with the ball of your foot. Now manufacturers are getting
07:57better with making these holes further back and what we are aiming for when we're setting your cleats
08:03is to reduce the tension and pressure that's going through the forefoot. So the first metatarsal is
08:09this big bone in your foot. A really simple way at home of measuring this is place a little bit of
08:14tape over the ball of this foot and on a Shimano pleat they've got a little bit of plastic here that
08:19denotes the centre of the pedal. Quite easy, pop another bit of tape there, measure how far that is
08:24behind and what we want to see is at least 1.5 centimetres. Now that's a starting position,
08:32you can go anywhere beyond that to try and improve the stability of someone's foot and that's sort of
08:38the base point to start with. What you may find is that's not far enough. Okay so that's the fore aft
08:45positioning done, anything else to consider? There are a few more things to take into consideration,
08:51how this basically the shifting this cleat inwards and outward is going to affect how far away your
08:58foot is from the pedal. Now a really really simple method at home you can understand this is just let
09:05your foot dangle over maybe the surface of the sofa or a table and just look at how your foot falls.
09:11Okay so if I sit on like a high counter? Yeah for sure yeah and if your foot naturally falls quite heel in
09:17or your foot kind of splays outwards it may be a good indication that this is how we're going to want
09:23to set your cleats up. Now this is not a how to set your cleats video. I would generally, I would
09:29definitely recommend people to go to your local bike fitter because this is definitely something that
09:35takes a little bit more detail than what we're discussing here. So basically to bring this back
09:39to shoe buying advice, obviously when you buy a new set of shoes they don't come with any cleats on,
09:44so take your time to carefully position those cleats otherwise you'd bugger it. Definitely,
09:50I would strongly suggest either using your current cleats and the way they're set up on a shoe
09:56as a guide, go see a bike fitter, go see someone in your local shop, they'll definitely be able to help.
10:05So to conclude what we kind of covered, your feet are the most important connection point with the bike,
10:11so it's definitely worth investing a little bit of money, a little bit of time in making sure you
10:17are in the right shoe. Well it is absolutely beautiful weather outside, so I am going to
10:22go and use my new shoes and enjoy the weather. Happy days. We'll be back soon for another video,
10:28so keep your eyes out for that one. See you then.
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