I’ve been toying with my bike’s setup, and I’m certainly not afraid to experiment. So when my friend and riding partner Chris started talking about flat pedals on a road bike, I was a bit curious. I remembered my trip to Texas a couple of years ago when I was visiting my son. I hadn’t packed my shoes, and his were a bit beat up, so I just went out and bought a $15 pair of flat pedals and wore my regular shoes to ride around Austin.
And honestly, I couldn’t really tell the difference. My concern had always been with pulling on the upstroke but a) you seldom do it and b) when you do it is entirely unnatural.
So here I am, suffering from the occasional excruciating pain in the ball of my left foot, and I’m looking into bike fitting and focusing on cleat position. It’s fascinating, actually. It turns out there is quite a bit of evidence pointing toward mid-foot position as optimal for efficiency. It takes heal drop out of the equation. The only problem seems to be that it reduces explosiveness in acceleration, so it’s not something that a professional would consider, but for the more casual cyclist…like me…it could actually work out quite well.
The thing is, you can only go so far back on the shoe with your standard cleats, and when I paid attention to it on my ride this morning, it seemed I was quite well balanced as it was. But there is always a little more room to move back. The one thing you don’t want to do is move your cleats forward toward the toe. The more you do, the more your heal will drop, especially if you have floppy ankles.
But back to Chris. He finally put a pair of flats on his bike last weekend and has done a few good rides on them, and his verdict so far is that they’re great. It may take some getting used to – you may need to play around with how you position your foot on the pedal when it’s free to go wherever you want – but in the end the payoff is worth it.
And remembering back on my Austin rides, I can see that.
And since Chris has liked it so much he’s bought a few pairs of flats, I asked him if I could give some a try, so tomorrow’s ride will be the first and I hope it resolves some issues. We’ll see. If I can make it 50 miles without excruciating foot pain, I’ll be sold. And let’s not forget the possibility of getting off the bike and walking around freely and comfortably.
I look forward to it.
