Possible cleat problem?

capt_slog

Bear with me...

For over a year now, I've occasionally had one of those annoying squeaks on my bike. This occurred as the left pedal went down, and I always thought it was the saddle because it always went the moment I lifted off it.

Also, for over a year, I occasionally get a pain in the back of the left leg whilst riding, it's the 'inside' tendon at the back of the knee that seems to be close to the site of it. This can come on after 15 miles, or when I'm pushing it, or not at all

It was only a week or so ago that I realised that I only got the pain when I got the squeak, and I now realise that the noise comes from my foot on the pedal.

I've looked carefully at my pedalling, and found I'm sometimes twisting my left leg as it goes around. If I concentrate, I can stop doing it, but I don't want to be doing that all the time; it's not very relaxing.

Now the question.
I'm using yellow cleats, as these give me a bit of twist (float?) in the pedals which I thought might be desirable when I started with clipless, now I'm not so sure. So would I be better with red cleats?
Would these hold me in the 'right place' or are they going to cause more trouble as I'm floating already?

gingaman

If the cleats aren't set up correctly, red cleats might exacerbate any existing problem, or create new ones, as they have no float. Try the blue (mid range between yellow and red). I found yellow to be too floaty and I haven't moved to red yet, blue are fine for me at the moment, but then I don't think they are positioned exactly how I need them.

ollie51

At the bottom of the pedal stroke, there is tibial rotation, this causes the foot to want to rotate. Using a fixed cleat (red) would prevent the rotation at the pedal/cleat interface, which is generally more desirable since the body is designed for this small amount of rotation at the ankle, and reducing float to 0 would cause this happen further up body which is generally less desirable as it can cause chain of compensatory movements by the rest of the body - this isn't great for fluid, stable pedalling, it could even be painful for your knees for instance. If you were incredibly tidy at pedalling you could get away with 3, or may be even 2 degrees of float, but not zero.

The twisting you describe could be any number of things, leg length descrepancy, forefoot collapse, poor cleat alignmet, tight ITBs, inadequate arch support - if you were to reduce your float to 2, or even zero without fixing whatever problem you have could cause damage, the rotation is likely indicative of one of these problems and is your body's attempt at adapting to it.

sungod

assuming your cleats are set correctly, that leaves you looking for the cause

you can try to self-assess and diagnose, maybe you'll figure out the cause of the symptom you describe, maybe not, as above, there are umpteen possibilities, with various options to try, either alone or in combination

look online for how to check for excessive pronation, it's a common cause of feet wanting to rotate (ankle collapses and heel rotates inwards)

do both knees move in a plane parallel to the centreline of the frame? if not, that's another sign there may be something amiss (though some people's knees 'need' to move side to side, we're all different)

if you can't figure it out a physiotherapist who understands shoes/pedals/bikefit may be the best/fastest route to a solution

if you're in london or can get there easily i can recommend the one at cyclefit (morgan)