Sunday 21 August 2011

Hot feet adjust your pedals Right side

This time on the same bike ride I moved the cleats all the way forward and tried the same route as before. On return my muscles did not ache as much as last time but I had tingles in the sole of my right foot. I am guessing now that if I move the cleats somewhere in between the two extremes I can stop the hot foot or tingles if the cleats are positioned correctly.
Pictures below of shoe and cleat position.

map of the route

Tuesday 16 August 2011

Hot feet adjust your pedals

After a bike ride today, see my maps, I returned to think about some of my journey and how I was trying to put in place theory and learning of the articles that I had read on cycling with pedal motion and bike fit.
The main issue for me returning was a feeling of pins and needles in the bottom of my left foot when I returned home. This could have been acute due to the move that I had tried to adjust the cleats on the bottom of my specialised elite shoes with campag chorus pedals. In the picture you can see the clips are as far back as possible. This puts the foot position with the cleat far back. After the ride out using these positions I found my Quadriceps upper thigh muscles also aching. In particular my left more than my right. Either I was compensating by using the right more as I am stronger on that muscle or trying to keep up with the right muscle by making the left leg work harder. I intend to try moving the cleats forward in the other direction to see the difference. I also think it could be the shoes and have started to look into a wider fit shoe. While I started out I made a effort to place the top strap on one ratchet and the velcro straps on the lower foot as loose as possible. Hopefully this helps although I need to test moving the cleat forward also.
I read a lot of information recently on Steve Hogg (www.stevehogg.com). I like his site in that he is always ready to debate his views and look at other ways if they are better or can be improved.

One of the benefits of exercising my core was that when cycling up a hill I could feel the muscle tighten in my stomach area but I was able to keep breathing while I also put pressure on the pedals to remain in the seat and using a scraping action on the pedal stroke to keep power on the downward stroke and upward. When the motion is correct you can feel the bike pick up speed and the pedal motion feel constant on the circular motion.

Vinny