i'm meant to be filming a bite tuesday so why have we got a bazooka
bazooka fit tuesdays so i came here to film an episode of bike fit tuesdays but
what are you doing see look looks great let's talk about something that doesn't
require the room for beds foot beds let's talk about footbeds
today's episode we're going to talk about insoles we're not just going to talk about any insults you
can talk about this inner soul as well mostly mostly but this is the insult that i sell the
most of i guess i'd like to start off with one question first do you need insults in your cycling
shoes i've never used insults before i started cycling so why would i need them now arch support
and cycling is a relatively simple concept first and foremost a complete disclaimer this isn't my
theory this is steve hogg's theory he's a bite fitter in australia so kudos to him um but i
believe it i think it makes a lot of sense to my mind so it's basically all about proprioceptive
awareness of the foot all right proprioception is your body's spatial awareness is what stops
us from walking into [ __ ] your body's covered in millions of proprioceptors like sensors where
they're everywhere everywhere where there are so many of these proprioceptors that your
brain can't monitor them all simultaneously so in order for one group of proto-receptors to be
noticed and monitored they need to be stimulated for example you're not thinking about your left
knee until i go like that and your brain goes that's my left knee right when you
put your foot into a shoe any shoe you have a tendency of losing spatial awareness in the foot
all right which has a tendency of uh potentially destabilizing these the hips and the pelvis
that's essentially what this is intended to do is it tended to reestablish the connection
between the brain and the feet if i'm completely honest i don't understand the full science behind
it but what i do know is that i've been able to prove using pressure mapping that i can reduce
pressure going through the saddle by up to 50 just by administering arch support so you know
you think you're having saddle issues actually it could be something to do with feet so when i
bought a set of cycling shoes recently they had insoles in already what's wrong with those ones
that's an excellent question where they belong look at this insole and how supportive it is
there's no support to it whatsoever so ski boots is an interesting concept if you ski
with any amount of regularity you are considered a [ __ ] if you don't have art support in your
ski boots and yet we have scores thousands millions of people riding bicycles with
no arch support whatsoever the footwear is very similar ski boot doesn't allow any flexion of
the foot neither does a cycling shoe nor or nor should they arch support is something that needs
to be tailored to the individual you can't uh group human feet into three different heights
of arch archival so for example there are certain brands out there that will offer a footbed and it
will have high medium and a lot so surely a custom footbed is the best option though fully tailored
to your own foot with one of those squishy machines where you put your foot in a good chair
i have a number of issues with custom footbeds um first and foremost they're only as good as
the person that makes them i've made quite a few of them i've done all the training i have with
tooling i had the tooling until recently i sold it um because my issue with custom is it's expensive
it's unrepeatable you can't get exactly the same footbed time and time and time again
which is kind of one of the things i like about this thirdly it's corrective and i frankly don't
like the concept of correcting people's feet for a number of reasons firstly i'm not a
podiatrist there haven't actually been that many studies surrounding how a human foot interacts
or moves inside a recycling shoe that is that is kind of fundamentally my stance on them
i'm not saying they're bad uh if they're comfortable and they work for you great
there are some there are certain people who are making custom footbeds who do an amazing job
and but at the same time don't think that just because your local bike shop's gonna bought a um
footbed molding machine that they necessarily know how to use it or um that they're gonna
make them they're gonna make you a good set of footbeds you keep pointing over to these what
are these now we're not sponsored by these guys at all you do sell them at your shop but you're
you're a big fan of these and i'd like to know why well you and i've both ridden across countries
with these haven't we what is it that's our lego this is uh an australian product it's a g8 2620
modular footbed four different sizes of footbed which are then uh trimmable to a uh to fit the
size of your shoe they're relatively wide so if you've got a wide fitting shoe the thing doesn't
move around inside of the shoe they then have five interchangeable arch pieces five different heights
which are movable in both a four and aft plane but also a medial lateral plane which allows you
to get the arch support right in the place that you want it it's a relatively soft arch support so
you can see that and the thing to understand about this is that it relies slightly on the structure
of the shoe so if you put these into a shoe that doesn't offer a lot of support i'm not going to
name any names but there are certain shoes out there using like a woven fabric or like a sail
material this footbed probably isn't going to work very well in those it relies slightly upon the
structure of the shoe but it it adds a little it's got a bit of spring to it it's got a very thin
forefoot so it doesn't take up a lot of room inside of the chute and it's got a nice stable
hind foot now one of the issues i found certainly with the custom footbed is a lot of time
when they're not finished properly the back of the footbed which is the back of the foot
which is where a lot of instability tends to stem from is actually don't and what that means is the
back of the footbed essentially is able to rock inside the shoe like this and frankly
that's just gonna you know create a hell of a lot of instability so this is nice and flat
one of my favorite things about this is it also has the ability to fit and retrofit a wedge into
the heel of it which pops straight in in place if someone buys a set of these you get everything in
the box you don't get the heel wedges but to be honest with you i feel this is the sort of
thing that probably should be prescribed by your bike fitter rather than you know being you know
self-prescription but you get five different arch heights you get this funny little bag
that you and i have never been able to understand really why they do it because you know we're going
to carry all your arch pieces with them yeah at all times so if i've just bought a set of these
i don't have access to a bike fitter and i want to try them myself and set them up for the first time
where do where do i put what do i start with i would probably start with a level three
they're sized in uh from one to five one being the lowest five being the highest it's quite uncommon
for anybody to need a five or less than a three so yeah i find myself predominantly using the level
threes and level fours occasionally with a big foot if you've got a really really high arch level
five but start with stop with a lower arch piece and just build it up how should they feel when
you've put them in and they're correct subjective expression but mildly invasive you should know
it's there i mean it's almost it should almost be uncomfortable when you're walking in it going
back to why i prefer over a custom footbed is that it's the same it's repeatable it comes out
mold i encourage people to come back on a fairly regular basis you know treat bite fitting as a
process rather than an event when someone comes back for a follow-up one of the first things i do
is replace your arch support i've got boxes of spares and you just replenish that it's easily
replenished it's significantly cheaper than having a brand new pair of footbeds fitted and away you
go the other thing is that it's a lot easier and quicker to administer one of the issues with the
custom footbed for me is that i mean i've only got three hours with a customer and if i spend
an hour moulding their foot beds that's an hour i can't spend dealing with everything else in in the
in the session and to be honest a lot of people they they need three hours of actual analysis and
engagement i like the fact that this is very very easy to administer you get the right arch piece
you stick it in the shoe you get some feedback from the rider and away you go there's no there's
no faffing around with the thing i'm not being funny i would say 95 of the people that leave here
leave with a pair of these uh most people that i have worked with prefer these to their custom
footbeds and as i say having used this footbed i have been able to prove in certain instances that
we can reduce sign make significant reductions in saddle pressure and optimize saddle that pressure
distribution using just this arch support so it's incredibly important to have arch support uh
just to be awake you can buy these on our online store as well perhaps the best way really though
of of having one of these administered is just coming for a bike fit just you can again you're
booking for a bike fit if you like again well i'm going to put a link below down below to
the but yeah okay so we'll put a link down below to the to where you can book a bike fit as well
uh but we carry a really good stock of these so we tend to we tend to fit them in almost every fit