# cleat direction



## saga (Jan 4, 2008)

Both my feet stick out away from the crank arms. Do I point the cleats outwards a little? Am I thinking correctly here?


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## muscleendurance (Jan 11, 2009)

when you sit on the edge on a table (and dangle your feet lower legs over the side) do your feet in general point outwards (duck footed) or inwards towards themselves (pigeon toed)?
the is the direction that your feet want to be adjusted to when in your cleats and in the 'no float' natural position when clipped in to your pedals.


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## PJ352 (Dec 5, 2007)

Interesting reading:
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/pain.html

And an excerpt:
Cleat Adjustment
Some knee problems result from incorrect placement of shoe cleats. Everybody has a natural angle that each of their feet prefers to be at; some are duck-footed, some are pigeon-toed, whatever. When you walk or ride with plain pedals, your foot assumes this angle, and everything is hunky-dory. If you use cleated shoes and matching pedals, it is important that the cleat is adjusted so as to permit your foot to be at its natural angle. If your cleats are misadjusted, the resulting twist on your lower leg will affect the alignment of the knee joint, and cause serious problems.
This is less of an issue if you ride pedals with "float" (limited rotational freedom) in the cleat attachment. Most newer clipless pedals offer at least some float.

The N.E.C.A. Fit-Kit © includes a cleat adjustment procedure called the "R.A.D." (Rotational Adjustment Device) which is very worthwhile for "problem" cleat fittings.


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## saga (Jan 4, 2008)

Thanks for the replies and link. Most of my cleats allow a good amount of float, mtb and road. As mentioned above with float the cleat angle isn't so critical but what I'm finding is that by turning my cleat towards the outside of the foot allows my feet to point at least straight or slightly outwards. With "stock" dead-straight cleats my shoes want to point slightly inwards which I don't think I want as I'm duck footed.

The thing is with the float it doesn't matter if I mount my cleats dead straight or tilted as my feet find their position with even float on either side of the foot. This could be called natural release angle as changing the cleat angle will effect how much you have to twist outwards to release.

Now if I do what I think a lot of people do and point the cleat slightly in the direction that the foot sticks out what I appear to be adjusting is the angle of release more than anything. So with my cleats pointing to the outside of the shoe on either side, this position allows less float on my foot pointing outwards but "keeps" my foot in it's natural position of slightly outwards but stopping my foot from rotating even further outwards (heel hitting the cranks) so by having the cleats pointing outwards slightly it creates a closer lock-off-point of where my foot stops. The only problem I see with this is there's a larger angle of release as I've got to twist further as the cleats are turned outwards instead of dead straight. Or is this bad and should I not be trying to "lock" my feet into their natural position.

Sorry don't know if I've explained that well but I'm sure some may know what I'm going on about. Any questions just ask as I could do with some more guidance. Thanks


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## PJ352 (Dec 5, 2007)

I think I understand what you're saying, but I disagree. Here's how I see it.

I'm duck footed just like you, so I set the cleats so that _inward_ float places my heels < 1.5 cm's from the cranks (and toes pointed out). Do I find that in the course of pedaling my feet find their natural position, sometimes at the center of float? Sure. Does this setting somehow affect release? Not that I'm aware of, but then I use Shimano's yellow cleats which limit float to 6 degrees. This is the part of your last post that I may have misunderstood. 

I think as closely as you can, position the cleats so that the pedal spindle is under the ball of your foot and float is set about midpoint to where you think your feet will settle. If you're like me, your knees will tell you if the position is correct or not.

FWIW, I'm not sure we pedal like we walk. I know there have been lots of articles countering that point, but IME it's not entirely so. When I walk I over pronate and am duck footed, but find that the 6 degree float adjusted as I've described suites me (and my knees) perfectly.


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