Manon: Now that the worse of the winter is behind us, hopefully,
I've got myself a brand new pair of cycling shoes and I can't wait to get out and ride them,
especially in New York in sunshine or in Southern France. Hopefully, one day. In the meantime,
I have got a little bit of an obstacle to overcome before I can get out and ride them.
Fitting new cleats. Now, it's not my favorite thing in the world to do but it is important
to get it right to avoid any little niggles or injury. In this video, I'm going to chat
you through the process of fitting new cleats to new shoes. Let's get started.
[sound effect] There are a few things that you're
going to need. You're going to need some grease, a marker pen, Allen keys, some tape, some cleats
and obviously, your shoes. I'm using LOOK cleats but the same principle goes for whatever cleats
you use whether it's Shimano or Speedplay. The two main things we need to consider is the fore
and after the cleat and the angle of the cleat. Once you've got all your things, let's get to it.
The first step is sticking your new shoes on and find the balls of your feet. You want
to feel along the inside and the outside of your foot until you come to sticky out bits.
This is going to determine how far forward or back you have your cleats. Feel along the inside
of your shoe until you feel the bone sticking out. Do the same on the outside of your foot.
Put some tape on your shoes to mark where the balls of the feet are. I'm doing this because
I don't want to put permanent markers straight onto my brand new shoe. After that, you then want
to mark with the permanent marker onto the tape. Once you've marked the balls of your feet on both
shoes on both sides, we're now going to stick the cleats on in quite a neutral position, but before
we do that, we want to stick some grease on. Now, I'm using this bio grease from Muc-Off and this
is very important. This is going to make it a lot easier to get the cleats off a few months down the
line. I've actually got an old pair of cycling shoes that permanently have very worn cleats
seized onto the shoe that I just can't get off so don't miss this step. Most cleats provide a marker
on the side, a little notch, or a line to indicate the center of the pedal axle. It's just a case of
lining up your mark with theirs. [music]
Next up, we're going to do a little seated assessment to see how your feet naturally fall.
That's all you need to do is sit on the end of a high desk or a chair
and dangle your feet off the edge at 90 degrees. You want to look down and see
how your feet have naturally fallen. Most people will find that their heels might be slightly in.
This is going to determine where we put the cleat on your shoe, so we're not forcing your
foot into a natural position. Now that I know what my left foot is pointing out slightly,
I'm going to transfer that to my cleat by turning out ever so slightly.
Next step, you're going to need your bike. If you've got a static trainer, make sure to get
that out too and get it all set up but if you haven't got a static trainer, then don't worry,
you can just lean up against a wall or get a friend to hold you. If your cleat is too
far forward, it'll feel like it's underneath your toes and it can actually lead to clumping.
Likewise, if it's too far back, you won't be getting enough leverage and it's very inefficient.
You can also move your cleats left to right depending on how close you want your feet
to the center of the bike. If you do tend to pedal up with your knees outwards at the
top of the pedal stroke, you might want to look to have them closer to the bike.
Likewise, if you pedal with your knees inwards at the top of the pedal stroke, you might want to do
the opposite. You can make little adjustments until you feel happy with your cleat position.
Now that we are nearly there with our cleats, the next thing we're going to do, we're going to take
a little video of us just pedaling on the indoor trainer just so we can get a good look of what
our new setup looks like and if anything needs changing. It'd be good to get one from straight
on and from behind really focusing in on how you're pedaling and how your cleats are sitting.
Now that you're happy with your cleat setup, you are ready to ride. I'd always recommend
doing a nice easy ride in your new cleats before you go out and do any monster rides.
Always take a little Allen key or a multi-tool with you on the first ride in case you need to
make any little adjustments. If you want to keep exactly the same cleat position on a current shoe,
then a little trick I used to use was to draw around the old cleat while it was still on,
preferably with maybe a white marker that was going to show up on a black sole,
then you take the cleat off, come to put your new one on and you know exactly the position to put
it in. It saves a lot of time faffing. Trust me. If you don't want a mark on the sole of your foot,
you could use a pen that will wipe off quite easily once you've got your cleat on. Just
take a wipe and wipe it off. Other factors you need to take into consideration when setting up
new cleats is that you perhaps might not sit squarely on your saddle or perhaps you might
have one leg longer than the other. In that case, you might need to have spaces underneath
your cleats. Now, these can fit nice and neatly underneath the cleats. If you are struggling,
it might be best to go and see a professional bike fitter that can fit them for you.
Hopefully, this video has helped you get your cleats set up. If you have any
questions, please leave them in the comment section below and we will do our very best
to get back to you. If you have enjoyed this video and you are looking for more maintenance tips,
we have just bought out this road bike maintenance book that literally has everything you need to
know about your bike. Go check this out. [00:05:27] [END OF AUDIO]