SPD-SL pedals - toe hits front wheel

neilosdenning

Hi all

after years of mtb style spd's I finally made the move to SPD-SL style pedals and cleats

After over coming the initial terrfying ordeal of almost falling off my bike infront of traffic, I have now got the hand of clipping in and out.

However, one thing that is annoying and worrying, when the front wheel is turned, my toes clip the front wheel.

I have checked the cleats and they are pushed as far forward on the shoe as they will go

Am I missing something elementary? I assume this isn't supposed to happen?

It is mainly when I am going slowly but I'm quite sure it will cause me to crash one day

Any help/ advice much appreciated

Thanks

Neil

Wirral_paul

This simply wont happen in the real world as you wont turn the bars that much and pedal at the same time. Both my bikes have considerable overlap of shoe / front wheel and i have never clipped my front wheel with a shoe.

If cornering hard, you should have the outside pedal down and your weight pressed down on that outer pedal. You're more likely to clip a pedal on the floor when cornering if you keep pedalling than clip your own front wheel. Dont worry about it anyway.

Smokin Joe

All race frames have toe overlap.

neilosdenning

I didn't get it with my old SPDs - I know it's not going to happen at high speed, it's just at lights when trying to go slow so I do not have to unclip - which can cause a bit of a wobble or trying to do a tight turn when going slow

I think I'll just go back to my SPDs for the commute (many sets of lights) and the SPD-SLs for longer rides

cheers for clearing this up for me

neil

btw. I've clipped the wheel twice in just a few days - at lights or doing a tight turn to manoeuvre the bike in a small space - however as this is the standard - I'll get used to it

keef66

You do get used to it. Scared the living daylights out of me the first time it happened, but I haven't clipped the front wheel for several years now.

More of a problem I would imagine if you're riding fixed gear, and freewheeling / back-pedalling aren't options.

John.T

Your feet should be in the same position whatever type of pedals you are using. If you are now getting toe overlap but not before then either the cleats are in the wrong place or the shoes are too long.

robbo2011

Smokin Joe wrote:

All race frames have toe overlap.

Not true. I have no toe overlap on my 57 cm BMC SLR01 team machine, something which I am very pleased about.