Out of the saddle with float

Weedy23

At the risk of sounding incredibly stupid; when getting used to cleats with float did anyone else find it strange to begin with when getting out of the saddle? :shock:

Cheers

Peddle Up!

Yes, especially after I switched to SpeedPlay with 15 deg float. Talk about dancing on ice! I've locked them down quite a bit now.

Diogenes

Yes, initially it was not unusual for my left foot to clip out. Pretty soon though my pedalling style improved greatly with far less wandering about on the pedal.

D

Weedy23

*Phew* glad it's not just me! I appear to have a lot of float on my SPD-SL's (yellow cleats) so today I ended up staying in the saddle for all the hills I encountered! Not sure if that made it more difficult or whether it actually made me rein in my efforts slightly and in the long run did me some good!

Pokerface

Not 100% sure on this (hopefully someone can confirm/deny), but if you're moving around a lot while out of the saddle, possibly the cleat alignment needs improving?

Some movement is normal (especially with cleats with lots of float) but I suspect if aligned correctly, they should move a little less.

Evil Laugh

Steve Hogg reckons if the cleats are in the right place then float is not a problem and the feet do not "slip all over the place". Having my cleats in the right place I'm inclined to agree.

nferrar

i think you can just develop a lazy style, I noticed how weird it was moving from SPD-SL (yellow) to Speedplay Zeros, they are much more free-floating than the SPD-SLs and my feet moved a fair bit standing up. After a few rides though they don't move about and I don't have to think about it so I guess you just adapt.
I kind of agree if you get a bike and shoe fit sorted you're probably better off on fixed cleats but there's not many people around doing proper shoe/bike fittings and I don't get knee pains after switching to Speedplays so don't see much need at the moment.

Mad Roadie

never had the problem with Look Grey cleats, in or out of the saddle

Diogenes

Evil Laugh wrote:

Steve Hogg reckons if the cleats are in the right place then float is not a problem and the feet do not "slip all over the place". Having my cleats in the right place I'm inclined to agree.

Tend to agree, but people moving from platform pedals to clipless can see a couple of immediate effects:-

1. Forget to clip out and do a silly fall over.
2. The feet seem to be restrained. The extent of this depends on just how much the feet moved around on the platforms. This can be more pronounced when getting out of the saddle the first few times.
3. Misaligned cleats can result in knee pain and or clipping out unexpectedly.
4. Depending on the type of cleat / pedal, may need to adust the saddle height slightly.

Getting the cleats aligned properly is essential and it does not take long for the pedalling style to improve. Once this is achieved the clipless system will seem so natural and most people who have ridden on platforms for a long time don't know why they took so long to change to clipless.

D

Evil Laugh

I suppose poorly supported/collapsing arches could cause the feet to slop around when out of the saddle, as the arch flattens under load the heel twists in which could be more pronounced out of the saddle. Obviously dialling out float would not be the answer here.

I'll maintain shoes and cleats setup properly, no problem with float. If you feel the need to go 0 degrees I'd look at why your feet are moving around first.'

Weedy23

So the generally consensus would be to get the cleats aligned properly and see if that helps? Anyone got any advice on how to do this properly? If not I shall nip down my local bike shop this weekend and see if they can help out!

Cheers all