We're going to look at how to set up clipless pedals and shoes.
First, set the cleat placement in the shoe. The cleat is this little metal
interface that actually clips into the spring retention system on the pedal.
Placement on the bottom of the shoe is really important for pedaling efficiency
but also affects how well you move your weight around on the bike.
In the bottom of your shoe, you have two of these slots so you can move the cleat
up and down and get a feel for where you want to place that cleat .
Something I see a lot of with coaching is a lot of people have their cleat really
far forward in the shoe and that will make you ride slightly toe-down.
It's not always the best place to be, especially if you're riding technical
trails. So actually sliding your cleat further back in the shoe will make you
stand a little bit flatter on the pedal rather than being up and
on your toes like that.
There's a slight argument in that if you stand a little bit more toes-down,
you'll use your calves more for pedaling but there's nothing that really proves
that that is a more powerful pedal stroke, so something I definitely know is if you
bring that cleat a little bit further back it will flatten your foot out and that can
really help with riding technical terrain.
The ball part place start with your cleat, is about on the ball of your foot.
I actually run my cleat as far back in the shoe as it will go and that slides my foot
a little bit further forward on the pedals. Makes me slightly more heels-down
and that really suits my style of riding, but something that's well worth playing
around with, that front-to-back movement on the shoe.
With your cleat you'll get two bolts to mount that cleat to the bottom of the
shoe, but also you'll get this little plastic spacer.
First thing you'll do is mount that cleat at the bottom of my shoe in that fore-
to-aft position I feel is comfortable for me. And then try and actually put the shoe
on, and clip into your pedal.
If you feel any of that rubber touching that pedal and restricting you
from clipping in or clipping out, I would then try fitting the spacer.
That's going to bring your cleat a little bit further away from the shoe and that
might help so you don't touch that shoe on the pedal.
Alternatively, you could just take a bit of a Stanley blade to that rubber and get
rid of some of that rubber so you can get in and out nicely. Crank Brothers have
this nifty little system with their cleats, so one cleat has a dot on it,
the other one doesn't. If you put the cleat with the dot on your right shoe,
you'll release at 15°. If you put it on your left shoe, it will release at 20°.
So you can actually choose when you want your foot to come out of that pedal.
Really nifty little system, I run the dot on my right shoe so I've got
the earlier release.
So once we've got our fore-to-aft position, next we'll look at the side-to-
side placement. You might find that that if you have your cleat too far to the
outside of your shoe, that's going to put your foot really close up to the cranks.
So especially on your back foot you might find that when you try and clip out you
actually push your toe into the crank before you can get out of your pedal.
So in that case I would then slide this cleat to the inside of the foot.
That's going to bring the pedal a bit further away and the crank further away to
give you a bit more space. But you might also have to play around with that so that
your rubber of the shoe doesn't touch the pedal before you clip in or clip out.
Alternatively, you can actually fit spacers to the pedal to bring that pedal a
little bit further away from that crank. So now to set the angle of this cleat
in the shoe. You really want that to match your natural stance on the pedal, so nice
and square, in line with the length of the shoe, is probably the best place to start.
Try that out, see how that feels. You can also play around with that a little bit,
angling that cleat slightly so that it's already closer to the point of release of
the pedal, so you toe it inside like that, even when you're stood normally,
it's really close to popping out. It depends how you like it. Some people don't
like that you might come out of the pedal when you're not expecting to.
Once you found that nice placement of this cleat, make sure you tighten it down nice
and tight. You don't want these coming loose or a bolt falling out.
I have seen that happen . What then can happen is that cleat will start spinning
in the shoe and you'll get stuck to that pedal and then you have one of those
embarrassing tip-overs where you can't get out.
Now for the pedals. You can get different styles of pedals. Here is a Crank Brothers
Mallet DH, you can see there's a big cage on the outside of it, a downhill pedal.
Here is a Crank Brothers Candy. This is more of a cross-country pedal,
as you can see it's much smaller, much lighter.
So let's start with the downhill pedals. Obviously, this big cage is going to give
you some support. So you can actually feel that pedal on the bottom of your shoe.
So you get a little bit of friction. You've also got these little adjustable
grub screws, so you can play around with those. You can feel a little bit of the
pedal on the bottom of the shoe. Obviously, if you bring them out too much,
you'll get too much friction and that's going to make it much harder to get in and
out of that pedal.
I really like this style of pedal, and it seems to work really nicely with
a slightly softer-soled shoe. It feels almost like a flat pedal.
You can actually feel that pedal in the bottom of your shoe. What you'll find is
with these smaller cross-country pedals, they're suited much better to these
cross-country shoes. They'll have a much stiffer sole, so you don't really need the
extra support of a big platform pedal, you just got that sole support on your foot.
As you can see with this big downhill- style pedal, the shoe is really touching
the pedal, so there's a lot of feel there in the bottom of your foot.
Also really good for maybe for not clipped in on a technical section and you still
got a big platform to stand on.
Compare that to the cross-country-style shoe and pedal, obviously
much less platform there. So you're not going to get that same feeling at the
bottom of your foot and it doesn't matter so much when you're clipped in,
but if for any reason you ride clipped out, it's not going to help quite so much.
So this is the style of pedaling shoe I like. Quite a big, slightly heavy,
but soft shoe, with a big downhill pedal, that really does suit my style of riding
where I've got a good feel for the pedal in the bottom of my foot,
so it's worth matching your shoe and your pedal to the type of riding you do.
Okay, so there's how to set up clipless pedals. If you've liked this video you
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