Q factor - MTB & road: pedal question

mhuk
Posts: 327
I've just started to ride a road bike (with SPD pedals) and also have just put SPD pedals on my MTB bike (after 10 months of riding with flat pedals).
The Q factor is at least 10mm smaller on the road bike although when I used flats on my MTB bike my feet are so close to the cranks I've worn off all the decals.
My question is should I use a different pair of shoes for each bike? Or will the different riding positions nullify it? Or is it a suck it and see? I only thought about measuring the Q factor as the road bike is giving my knees some gyp.
If you use SPD on both MTB and road bikes - what do you do?
The Q factor is at least 10mm smaller on the road bike although when I used flats on my MTB bike my feet are so close to the cranks I've worn off all the decals.
My question is should I use a different pair of shoes for each bike? Or will the different riding positions nullify it? Or is it a suck it and see? I only thought about measuring the Q factor as the road bike is giving my knees some gyp.
If you use SPD on both MTB and road bikes - what do you do?
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Comments
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i use SPD's on both my road and mtb and i have been suffering with a bit of knee pain whilst on the road bike however i bought road shoes when i got the road bike a couple of weeks ago so i plan to leave it a while and try different cleat positions because this could be causing the pain.
Sorry i cant be of more help0 -
Mhuk
I'm guesssing your MTB has a triple chainset whilst the road is a double. This would explain the wider spacing across the pedals. You don't need different shoes, just make sure the cleats are installed correctly so your feet adopt a neutral toe in or out posture and the pedal spindle is over the ball of the foot. If you also push the cleat as far inwards as it will go, your foot will be further outboard giving room for your heels etc Have a look here if you need any help http://bikedynamics.com/fit01.htm
Mike at http://BikeDynamics.com0 -
Cheers for the link - I'll have a read now. Yes, MTB is triple and road is compact double.
The shoes that gave me pain on the road bike didn't on my MTB bike so I'm double checking the saddle height as well as it may be a touch low (<20mm) according to http://treadly.net/2007/06/11/seat-heig ... ee-injury/0 -
I use the same shoes on my MTB (triple) and road (double) - since getting the road bike, I've needed to adjust the cleats further inwards, as I felt my feet were too close to the cranks on my road bike. I also read the bikedynamics link above & followed the suggestions there - Thanks Mike.
I think getting the cleat position correct is more important on a road bike, as you're pedalling pretty much constantly, therefore any inaccuracies are more noticeable. Whereas on an MTB the pedalling is less consistant, with short efforts followed by short breaks.
Now, after some large amount of tweaking/fine adjustments, I'm far happier with my cleat position. 8)Cycling weakly0 -
I wear the same shoes (Spesh Tahos) for both road and MTB bikes. Got XT's on the MTB, M520s on the road bike.0