Should you move your cleats back to ride faster? Perhaps placing the cleat under the ball of your foot might be a better idea.
Professional bike fitters consider these factors daily, but finding the perfect cleat position can be complex.
When cycling, each foot rotates around the bottom bracket more than 5,000 times per hour. Road cycling, in particular, is a highly repetitious sport where overuse injuries are common, so adequate cleat positioning is vital. In addition to forward and rearward cleat adjustability, most pedal systems have scope for lateral, float and angle adjustments.
In this article, my focus will be on the fore-aft adjustment. This aspect of bike fitting has undergone significant changes in the last decade, and nowadays, most riders prefer their cleats positioned further back compared to previous years.
There are some obvious limitations when considering a single facet of the bike fit process. Hopefully, by reading on, you can gain insight into the intricate process of making decisions during a bike fit.
Bike fit orthodoxy tells us that the traditional position for cleat placement is one where the pedal spindle sits directly underneath the ball of the foot [1-3].
The main rationale for this placement is the ball of your foot provides a firm platform to transmit the power from your legs into the pedals. This was particularly important twenty years ago when most cycling shoes had flexible nylon soles.
If the cleat is positioned too far behind the metatarsal heads in the foot, the shoe bends, and riders feel like they lose power. This concern is still relevant for many modern cycling shoe designs.
Entry-level and mid-range shoes often have more flexible soles compared to higher-quality models, which usually have completely rigid soles. As an example, the mountain bike shoes that I currently own are a mid-range model offered by Northwave. The first thing I think of when I stand out of the saddle when climbing a hill is, wow, these shoes have a lot of flex. I can feel exactly where the cleat and pedal are under my foot as the pressure transfers from my foot into the pedals. Conversely, I have a top-tier pair of road shoes from Crono, and the flex or cleat position doesn’t even cross my mind when climbing or sprinting at max effort. I simply can’t feel the cleat or pedal at all.
With this in mind, when people see me for bike fits, I’ll consider there more scope for fore-aft cleat adjustment if people have a good quality pair of shoes versus entry-level options with softer soles.
Is running the cleats behind the ball of your foot more efficient?
If you are a racing cyclist looking to enhance performance, my simple answer is, probably not. Despite the current trend to shift cleats closer to your midfoot, doing so is unlikely to make you ride faster [4]. In fact, a posterior cleat position could be making you ride slower.
Several studies have been completed over the years considering cleat position and performance. Most of these studies monitored cyclists riding at, steady-state intensities [5]. Most research shows that adjusting cleat position doesn't affect performance. Unless, of course, you are a sprinter or a triathlete.
If you're a sprinter, moving your cleats backwards can hinder some of your lower leg muscles, shorten your lower limb lever length, and possibly decrease the amount of power you can exert on the pedals while sprinting [6]. Although there may be some conflicting evidence in the literature [7][8], in my personal experience, this theory holds some validity.
On the other hand, if you are a triathlete who rarely has to sprint on the bike, having the cleat too far forward can fatigue the lower leg muscles you need to use when running. If you have the cleat in an anterior position, your bike time won’t necessarily be slower, but your running performance may suffer once you transition off the bike [9, 10].
Assuming you don't have any lower limb issues affecting your bike fit, the fore-aft position of cleats for triathletes and sprinters may differ significantly, while recreational road cyclists and mountain bikers usually have a cleat position somewhere in between. It's complex.
I always describe bike fitting as an art of compromise.
My job is to help a rider find the right balance between performance, comfort, injury prevention [11] and, believe it or not, for many riders, aesthetics.
Where we settle with cleat position will depend on the rider’s goals, physical limitations and riding style. When working with Olympians, I focus heavily on performance; comfort is a secondary consideration if a gold medal is at stake. And most weekend warriors want to balance all of the elements with more emphasis on comfort.
Even if there are no obvious performance benefits to positioning the cleats in the popular rearward position, there are still many instances when I will recommend a rider shift their cleats back.
Here are the most common reasons.
When should cleats go backwards?
1. Hotfoot. Plantar neuralgias such as Morton’s neuroma is a somewhat common condition where small nerves in your feet get irritated as they pass through the ball of your foot [12]. There are several causes for this typically sharp or burning foot pain, but sometimes shifting the cleat away from the metatarsal heads helps reduce pressure on these nerves, particularly if the rider uses shoes with a soft sole and the cleat pressure transmits directly through to the foot.
2. Achilles pain. Racing cyclists have more Achilles pain than recreational cyclists due to higher training intensities and volumes [13]. Triathletes are particularly susceptible to Achilles issues due to the diverse soft tissue stresses caused by on-and-off-the-bike training and competition. Like plantar neuropathies, various factors can lead to riders developing pain. However, shifting the cleat rearward behind the metatarsal heads helps stabilise the foot and unload the ankle muscles, often relieving pain and irritation to the Achilles tendon [2].
3. Crank Rub. Some riders have a natural stance where they point their toes out to the side. This stace is often caused by rotation of the hip or tibial torsion. Still, occasionally, I see a rider with a congenital deformity or altered lower limb alignment due to trauma that can't be corrected with rehab or physiotherapy. In these instances, the heel of the affected leg often angles insofar as it rubs on the crank arm or chain stay. Bringing the cleat back often helps provide the rider with more heel clearance to the frame and crank [3].
4. Triathletes. As mentioned, running the cleat back won’t make you ride faster, but it may make you run faster.
5. Anterior ankle pain. Some cyclists suffer from pain at the front of their ankle, at the point where the tongue of their shoe pushes into the tendon of the tibialis anterior. This pain tends to be more of a problem in riders who have their saddle in a forward position or the saddle low; these saddle positions lead to increased ankle dorsiflexion. Shoes made with a hard-edged tongue can cause more problems than those made with soft fabric or leather. In this instance, bringing the cleat back reduces dorsiflexion and the risk of anterior ankle impingement.
6. To gain more leg extension. There are two simple ways to increase leg extension when cycling. Either, move your saddle away from the pedals or shift the cleats back on the shoes. Occasionally, I will address leg extension with cleat position rather than saddle height if increasing the height will create an excessive saddle-to-handlebar drop. Nudging the cleats back can be a good compromise in these scenarios to promote an efficient degree of leg extension without hindering comfort, particularly if the rider has long legs, poor flexibility, or a too-aggressive frame for their physique.
When should cleats come forward?
1. Sprinters. For sprint specialists and track riders, performance is the top priority, with comfort taking a backseat. If the cleat is positioned too far back on the shoe, it can compromise their performance. To minimize power loss and help these high-performance riders achieve their goals, we will not use a mid-arch cleat position for my sprinters.
2. Toe Overlap. Sometimes, riders have concerns about excessive toe overlap.
It’s relatively normal to have some toe overlap where the back of your front wheel hits your toe if you turn the handlebars sharply. Toe overlap isn’t an issue when riding at speed because you never turn the wheel sharply enough for the overlap to happen; however, overlap may occur when you stop at an intersection, ride slowly in your apartment or practice track stands at red lights.
Moving the cleat forward can give you more clearance from the wheel if toe overlap is a significant concern. I don’t have to make this adjustment often, but it does occasionally happen, primarily with newcomers to the sport.
3. Shin pain. If shifting the cleat rearwards helps to disengage your calf muscles, it can sometimes cause over-activation of the large tibialis anterior muscle that runs down the front of your leg and is responsible for ankle dorsiflexion. People sometimes feel an intense muscle burn along the front of their leg if the tibialis anterior is over-active. Shifting the cleats forward slightly can help to balance right for muscle activation in the lower leg.
As you can see, quite a few variables and considerations occur when trying to dial in the fore-aft cleat position in cyclists. Naturally, if you adjust the saddle or handlebar position, joint angles, muscle lengths and activation patterns can likewise be altered.
We know that for most riders, cleat fore and aft adjustments don’t improve or hinder cycling performance, but if you are a triathlete, a sprinter or someone who is injured, we will have to spend some time working on that "art of compromise" to get your cleats positioned in an efficient, comfortable and low-risk position.
After that, all we need to do is establish your perfect stance width, cleat angle, and degree of float. Oh, and consider if any cleat shimming, wedging or special footbeds are needed. I’ll leave those factors for future posts.
REFERENCES
1. Swift, P. and V. Schoenfeldt, The Bicycle Fitting System, A. Pruitt and R. Mohr, Editors., Bike Fit Systems.
2. Pruitt, A., Andy Pruitt's Complete MEdical Guide for Cyclists. 2006, Boulder, Colorado: Velo Press.
3. Burt, P., Bike Fit 2nd Edition : Optimise Your Bike Position for High Performance and Injury Avoidance. 2nd ed. 2022: Bloomsbury Sport.
4. Paton, C.D., Effects of shoe cleat position on physiology and performance of competitive cyclists. Int J Sports Physiol Perform, 2009. 4(4): p. 517-23.
5. Van Sickle, J.R., Jr. and M.L. Hull, Is economy of competitive cyclists affected by the anterior-posterior foot position on the pedal? J Biomech, 2007. 40(6): p. 1262-7.
6. Yeager, S., Fast feet, in Bicycling. 2009. p. 042.
7. Chartogne, M., et al., Effect of shoes cleat position on physiological and biomechanical variables of cycling performance. Journal of Science and Cycling, 2016. 5(2).
8. Oh, N. How to set cleat position on road bike cycling shoes – reduce your injury risk and boost your efficiency. Cycling Weekly 2022 [cited 2023 30/08/2023]; Available from: https://www.cyclingweekly.com/fitness/bike-fit/cleats-explained-how-to-set-them-up-correctly-23575.
9. Evans, S.A., et al., The Effect of Cleat Position on Running Using Acceleration-Derived Data in the Context of Triathlons. Sensors (Basel), 2021. 21(17).
10. Viker, T. and M.X. Richardson, Shoe cleat position during cycling and its effect on subsequent running performance in triathletes. J Sports Sci, 2013. 31(9): p. 1007-14.
11. Clarson, B., Biomechanical aspects of injury in specific sports, in Brukner & Kahn's Clinical Sports Medicine, P. Brukner and K. Khan, Editors. 2018, McGraw-Hill Education: Sydney. p. xxvii, 697 pages.
12. Silberman, M.R., Bicycling Injuries. Current Sports Medicine Reports, 2013. 12(5): p. 337-345.
13. Althunyan, A.K., et al., Factors associated with Achilles tendon pain in cyclists in eastern province of Saudi Arabia. J Family Community Med, 2021. 28(1): p. 35-41.