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When Should Cleats Be Replaced?

01.17.2010 by Ray Niekamp // 7 Comments

When riding earlier this week, I had a heckuva time trying to engage my cleats. Usually, I can click in without looking, but on this particular ride I missed the pedal every time. That’s especially bothersome when trying to cross a busy intersection, even when the cross traffic is stopped by a red light. When I got home, I took a look at my cleats:

Yipes! The right one, especially, the one I use to click in almost exclusively, seems to be beyond worn. No wonder I couldn’t get the cleat to engage the pedal. It’s a far cry from what they looked like when they were new:

Then, I joined our regular Sunday morning club ride today. About halfway through the ride, I realized I was having no trouble getting the cleat to click into the pedal. I was — still am — baffled. Why did it give me such trouble four days ago, but not today?

And just when should cleats be replaced?

I know from experience that they should be. The cleat I had in my previous shoes wore this badly, and once it came right out of the pedal at a bad time — when I was applying power to climb a hill. In fact, that happened more than once, and the second time I crashed because I lost control of the bike.

So I’m going to get a new set of cleats ASAP. As I said, they’re obviously way past replacement time. But just when are cleats worn badly enough to merit replacement? Are there things to look for that serve as replacement clues?

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Categories // Equipment Tags // cleats, Equipment, shoes

Random (Noob) Tips

08.22.2009 by Ray Niekamp // 3 Comments

Jeff Hemmel diverts us from talk of stop lights and tickets with a sampling of tips for noob riders.

HemmelsRide

As noobs, we have a lot to learn. I originally found this blog when I was trying to find out how to align my cleats. Chances are, many of you have also stumbled across it because you were searching for useful information. On today’s ride I started thinking about whether I had anything worthwhile to share. Not the basic stuff you see on bike sites everywhere, but random little tidbits people often overlook. Here’s a few items that made the list…

Helmet Pads – I don’t know about you, but mine get soaked in sweat. That gets nasty after a while. The best suggestion I’ve heard as to how to wash them is simply take your helmet in the shower. Gently lather the pads up with shampoo, rinse thoroughly, and allow to dry. Simple.

HelmetPad Inevitably, however, those pads will start to peel apart if you ride enough. I’ve found that by talking very nicely with the people at the helmet companies, they’ll send you a new pair free of charge. The rep that helped me most recently mentioned it’s supposed to be a one-time courtesy, but I’m pretty impressed that Bell has replaced the pads on my old Ukon twice, and just took care of my current Furio. That’s good business…just don’t tell them I sent you.

Silver Sharpie ­– Noobs are still dialing everything in, and as such should be encouraged to experiment with the position of handlebars, seat height, even the cleats on their shoes. Problem is, a lot of us are probably hesitant to try anything for fear we’ll never get things back where they were should we not like the result.

SharpieEnter the silver Sharpie marker. It shows up on things like black handlebars, seat posts, and shoe bottoms. As a result, you can mark anything you decide to change and, if it doesn’t work, find your way home again. My handlebars have a nice little dot that shows just where they should line up with the seam on my stem, my seat post shows my current preferred height, and my cleats are traced perfectly against the soles of my shoes, so when the current cleats wear out, the new ones can go in the exact same position.

Cleat

Thanks silver Sharpie.

Cleat Markings – And speaking of cleats, most noobs probably know they should be roughly centered under the ball of your foot, at least as a starting point. But did you know that most cleat manufacturers mark that spot so you don’t have to estimate? Look closely and you’ll notice a small hash mark that designates the center for fore-and-aft adjustments. Thanks, uh, cleat-middle-marker-designer dudes.

Trim the Front Derailleur – Here’s a biggie. The chain on my road bike had the annoying tendency to rub against the front derailleur cage when I ventured into the highest gears. I mentioned this at the shop where I bought it; they originally told me it was just a simple cable adjustment. After the fix, friends mentioned it to me; they could still hear it chattering when drafting behind me. I even mentioned it at a different shop during a ride; they told me the crank wasn’t true, and that to fix the problem it would have to literally be pounded into submission with a mallet. Yikes. Thankfully the original shop owner finally revealed I just didn’t know how to “trim.”

Important noob point: I don’t ever recall that lesson when I bought the bike, and never saw anything about it in the owner’s manual, but many front derailleurs can be micro-adjusted on the fly to allow the chain to clear the inner and outer plates — those parallel metal bars that push it left to right — when the chain starts to rub. With my Shimano components, if the chain is on the big chainring and one of the smaller sprockets, a slight inward press of the larger (brake) lever on the left shift (listen or feel for a slight click) will push the front derailleur slightly outward, creating enough space to silence the noise. Conversely, when on the small charinring and largest sprockets (the “easiest” gears), a slight inward push of the small, inner lever will slide the derailleur to the inside to silence the chatter.

Amazing insider information that will make you ride faster than a speeding bullet and able to leap up tall hills in a single bound? Nah…just the random thoughts of a fellow noob.

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Categories // guest post Tags // cleats, handlebars, helmets, tips

Cleat position

02.19.2009 by Ray Niekamp // 8 Comments

Some things, I just can’t stop experimenting with. Like ways to make my feet feel fine after a long bike ride. Yes, this is sort of another post about my ongoing numb toe problem — but I think I’ve come to grips with that.

This time, I want to tell you about something I’ve tried with the cleats on my biking shoes. When I first complained about numb toes last summer, I got a suggestion to move the cleats back about one-quarter inch. I did, but didn’t see much difference, and with those older shoes, it didn’t help my numb toe any.

When I got the new bike shoes for Christmas, the bike shop installed the cleats, and put them right over the ball of the foot. That was okay, but the toes pointed just a little bit to the inside, and I could feel strain on my knees when I rode.

My feet naturally splay out a bit when I walk, and something I read somewhere (I gotta do a better job of citing my sources — in my real life I do academic research, after all) said your cleats should place your feet in a way that matches your walking gait. So I fiddled with the cleats a bit, and now my toes point ever so slightly outward. But then I remembered something else I read somewhere else (this would never get through peer review) that said just go ahead and move the cleats all the way back. So I did.

shoe1If you look closely, you’ll see the little ruler markings right behind the cleat. The photo was shot from slightly behind the cleat; if you looked straight down at it, you wouldn’t be able to see the marks at all.

I’ve been on several rides since doing this, and I can hardly tell the difference. Some riders seem to think you get more power to accelerate and climb with the cleats this way. Maybe — I can’t vouch for that. I can vouch for there being no negative effects from the cleats back this far.

And there are some who say that even all the way back in the slots isn’t back far enough. Endurance cycling coach Joe Friel takes what I might would call a radical view. In a post on his blog from two years ago, he said you should mount the cleats as far back toward the heel as you can. He’s mounted cleats below the arch of his foot, and thinks you’re likely to get even more power if you mount them back farther still.

That’s not me. I was uneasy doing the cleats back in the slots thing, and even though it seems to have worked out fine for me, I’m not going to drill holes in the soles of my shoes and play around with cleat placement. I’m still unsophisticated when it comes to training — I just ride — and for now, my cleat position suits me just fine.

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Categories // Equipment Tags // cleats, shoes

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