Flat pedals Vs cleats and foot rotation

[Manc33]

I recently found that using a clipless setup, the cleats can rotate slightly, at least mine do - it's the same foot rotation you use to get your foot disengaged from the pedal with cleats, or maybe as a beginner you don't and fall sideways at least once

I found this:

"Even professionals, who ride their bikes for 20-30 hours a week use 2-6 degrees of float almost universally. Only some sprinters use 0 degrees of float, and several of them, including the likes of Greipel and Cavendish have stated that they don’t recommend it for anyone not concerned with absolute power output in a sprint, and that they do experience knee pain at times due to the locked in position".

It seems that being "locked in" is just not right and I agree. I found that at different parts of the pedal stroke, my foot is angled at different rotations on different parts of the full pedal stroke. The fact that the cleats "float" in this way is really important.

Then I realized, I have used flat pedals for my entire life until recently using cleats. On flat pedals, you don't have any heel rotation at all. This is an added benefit of cleats I never even thought about until using them. You are locked in as far as the crank rotation (vertically) but now on cleats your foot can rotate slightly (horizontally).

I ended up thinking "Yeah I'd never use cleats that don't allow horizontal rotation" but every single kid riding a BMX and most other people riding a bike, have no foot rotation because a flat pedal dictates that! I mean you could perhaps rotate your foot around when cycling on flat pedals but that would also mean your foot is not planted to the pedal, in fact far from it. I just never thought about this before using cycling shoes with cleats.

Maybe a lot of knee pain is being caused to a huge number of cyclists by using flat pedals or rather, pedals where you can't rotate your foot horizontally?

It's probably been invented already, but it wouldn't be that difficult to make a flat pedal that did this. There's no reason the platform can't "float" as if it was a cleat setup, but it's not clipless. Gap in the market? Should I have kept my mouth shut? Steal the idea, I'm OK with it. The sales pitch and marketing would make me buy the pedals.

[Nearholmer]

Surely the foot can, and does, rotate while using a flat pedal, even ones with aggressive pins poking up? Most shoes don’t mate with the pins in a super-firm manner, the sole is a bit rubbery, or has gaps in the tread that are wider than the pins, permitting movement?? And, with no pins, or the sort of vestigial knobbles that one finds on cheap pedals, there is a lot of freedom of movement.

I personally use magnetic pedals where I want some retention, partly because my right knee and foot need to be given quite a lot of freedom to rotate, otherwise I get a load of aches in ankle, knee, and even hip. There’s even a distinct rub through the paint at one point on the right chainstay on my favourite bike, where my heel wanders in and scuffs it when I’m tired. Years ago, I got on fine with toe-clips; SPD when I tried them were too firm, even on lightest setting (I think there are better variants now); and, rubbery soled shoes on flat pedals with pins I simply found alien.

[531colin]

Just goes to show how different people are!

I was a late adopter of cleats. The main trigger for me to try SPDs was I could never do toe clips and boots; some folk can, I could never get comfortable, and I wanted boots for Yorkshire rough stuff in winter.

I expected SPDs to be efficient, and they were, but what surprised me was the comfort! Suddenly my feet could rotate (a bit) free from friction in the cleats, whereas with clips and straps my feet were far more “anchored” by friction between the rubber shoe sole and the pedal, and between the shoe upper and the toe clip and strap.

For a short time I had used toeclips straps and nail-on shoe plates, where there is less friction stopping your shoe rotating, but I filed out the slot in one shoe to let that foot rotate a bit more.

[NickJP]

Horses for courses. In my younger years, before the advent of clipless pedals, I both raced and toured for more than 20 years using quill pedals with cleats and toeclips and straps, which allowed no foot rotation, and never felt the need for any nor had any foot or knee problems. And that included races over 200km in length and 24-hour and 1000km randonnees. I still don't like float in pedals - these days I use Speedplay Syzr pedals, as the cleats allow me to completely lock out all float, which is what I do. Unfortunately those pedals are no longer on the market, but I have several pairs of them and plenty of spare cleats, though neither the cleats nor pedals seem to wear in use - hopefully what I have will see me through to my coffin.

[pwa]

There is another factor in how much your heels can sway from side to side when using cleats, and that is how tightly you retain your feet in your shoes. I have never liked my shoes done up tight, and I reckon the bit of extra movement that gives my feet must be an extra degree or so.

[Brucey]

.... I filed out the slot in one shoe to let that foot rotate a bit more.....

BITD I did something similar to the RH Sidi Titanium. I found that a kind of hourglass shape was best. This way the foot could still rotate a little, but could not move easily in the fore-aft direction. With SPDs, I found that the left cleat wore because of all the unclipping in town but the RH cleat wore almost equally quickly, because it was this foot that tended to 'squirm' under pressure, ie. where I most needed the float.

[Bmblbzzz]

Surely the foot can, and does, rotate while using a flat pedal, ...

My thought and experience too. And not only horizontal rotation, but longitudinal and lateral slippage occasionally!

OP, are you talking about flat, open pedals or old style toe clips and straps, possibly with plates too? FWIW with clips but no straps, or even with straps unless they're very tight, you can still rotate your foot.

[bluespeeder]

I rotate my feet a lot when pedalling and find SPDs allow for this (about 8deg of movement). I have always ended up wearing the steel platform out on the pedal well before the bearings give any problems so have never had to service the pedal bearings. Unfortunately this means I go through pedals every couple of years (about 20k miles).
My current shoes didnt allow the float when they were new due to the rubber sole binding on the pedal and stopping metal to metal contact. This caused knee pain within a few miles, so I filed the rubber down sufficiently until the cleat sat on the steel platform and problem solved.
I also have to protect the cranks and shoes with duck tape to stop excessive wear when my feet rub against the crank due to my heel rotating inward.
Its a small price to pay for avoiding knee trouble.

[peetee]

SPD's were a revelation for me when I started using them in the early 90's. Up to that point I used clips and straps and any longer ride or shorter, high effort one resulted in knee pain. My right leg clearly had a liking to being 'toes-out' and my knee proscribes a figure of eight oscillation each pedal rev.
Incidentally, there has been an unexpected additional benefit from ditching cage pedals. I have yet to wear a pair of SPD's out. The Shimano ones are incredibly durable and I still use my original DX pedals on my MTB. Having more than one bike their use was sporadic for much of the intervening 3 decades but they were used daily for commuting for 15 years and an estimated 22,000 miles. Not suprisingly the shoe release action is getting a bit tetchy but the bearings are untouched and feel buttery smooth.

[drossall]

Surely the foot can, and does, rotate while using a flat pedal, even ones with aggressive pins poking up?

Yes definitely. Flat pedals have unlimited rotation, although obviously you'll eventually hit a crank or some other component with your heel, which doesn't have unlimited rotation anyway

The shoe plates that we used before "clipless" pedals limited rotation far more, because they just had slots that went over the back plate of pedal.

[Samuel D]

Flat pedals obviously allow free foot position any time you want it, but they don’t usually slip at the shoe-pedal interface.

Sure, with soft-enough soles, etc., there will be movement, as there must be between foot and shoe also to some extent. But it’s not the floaty feeling of SPDs.

SPDs are cheap, durable, and convenient, so I have repeatedly tried to like them over the years, but so far I haven’t found the key. And float is a major part of the difficulty.

Especially in the wet – maybe because then there isn’t enough friction between sole and the abbreviated body of most SPD pedals? – I have the feeling of pedalling on ice. An hour of that and the supporting muscles down the sides of my calves, those nameless little tendrils, start twitching, I think because they’re overexerted to stabilise the foot angle. (There tends also to be a lack of stability in the roll axis with the SPDs setups I’ve tried.) I came home with aching calves and even cramps no matter what I did.

When you walk, there isn’t much float. Though we probably all know someone who lifts their heel a fraction at the start of a stride and does a little twitch before lifting off. So even there, people apparently vary.

With ‘road’ pedal systems like the Look Kéo, I gravitate to the zero-float cleats – aware as above that my foot still floats in the shoe a little, apparently enough. It’s a nuisance dialling in the no-float cleat position, because I’m far from agnostic about the angle of my feet, but once found, I don’t want to move much. Or more precisely, I can’t stand involuntary movement and am willing to give up voluntary movement to avoid it.

But even with floating Kéo cleats, the float meets some frictional resistance; it’s not the springy greased lightness of SPD float.

About sprinting: I’m nobody’s sprinter but of course give it a dig up the odd hill or whatever. And it’s actually then, out of the saddle, that I most feel that I want a slightly different foot angle. So it’s interesting what the pro sprinters say about this. Do they pedal the whole race at a bad angle to optimise the last minute, or does a bad angle not actually harm sprinting, or (likely) are they just different from me in this wish of a different foot position seated and sprinting? I’m fine climbing out of the saddle, mind you. All very curious.

I notice I pedal knees-in seated, nearly knocking the top tube. I walk toes-out and even have a bit of a cowboy’s bandy knees (can’t make my knees touch while standing straight) but don’t pedal that way at all.

[531colin]

..........Especially in the wet – maybe because then there isn’t enough friction between sole and the abbreviated body of most SPD pedals? – I have the feeling of pedalling on ice. An hour of that and the supporting muscles down the sides of my calves, those nameless little tendrils, start twitching, I think because they’re overexerted to stabilise the foot angle. (There tends also to be a lack of stability in the roll axis with the SPDs setups I’ve tried.) I came home with aching calves and even cramps no matter what I did.
.............

This sounds very like something I used to get in one leg because I was holding that foot against the limit of the float in the cleat.
In the end, that was because I was leaning the bike as i rode.....

............I notice I pedal knees-in seated, nearly knocking the top tube. I walk toes-out and even have a bit of a cowboy’s bandy knees (can’t make my knees touch while standing straight) but don’t pedal that way at all.

I don't think there is any relationship at all between how I want my feet when I'm pedalling, and how I want my feet when I'm walking.
Some people recommend sitting on a table letting your feet dangle, and setting the cleats to reproduce the angle your feet dangle at.....that doesn't work for me, either.

[axel_knutt]

On flat pedals, you don't have any heel rotation at all.

You're just overestimating the amount of friction between the shoe and the pedal.

[Brucey]

On flat pedals, you don't have any heel rotation at all.

You're just overestimating the amount of friction between the shoe and the pedal.

and/or the compliance of the sole

[Brucey]

.....SPDs..... I have repeatedly tried to like them over the years, but so far I haven’t found the key.....

Especially in the wet – maybe because then there isn’t enough friction between sole and the abbreviated body of most SPD pedals? – I have the feeling of pedalling on ice. An hour of that and the supporting muscles down the sides of my calves, those nameless little tendrils, start twitching, I think because they’re overexerted to stabilise the foot angle. (There tends also to be a lack of stability in the roll axis with the SPDs setups I’ve tried.) I came home with aching calves and even cramps no matter what I did

SPDs are a major step forwards for most folk but they ain't perfect, not by any means. A lack of roll axis stability would be high up on my list too. Fortunately in most cases a perceived shortcoming here merely indicates the lateral cleat position is not correct. If so, moving the cleat and/or using longer pedal spindles may prove effective. Had they simply used a slightly wider cleat to start with, it could have been very much simpler.

If you want much less float than normal, the easiest method is probably to use older pedals with current cleats. When SPDs first came out, they used a sightly narrower jaw opening and a matching cleat. So by combining older pedals eg PD-A525 with current cleats, float is dramatically reduced, to the point where most people can't use this combination without also incurring knee pain.

Being made of steel, it is not difficult to modify SPD cleats via welding and grinding. In this way, float can be reduced or removed entirely. Also, it is possible to make the cleat wider, too.

For me, SPDs were definitely an improvement overall, but they were not better in every possible way, just a better compromise.