Bike fit / correct riding position

I’ve just measured a pair of Empire’s against my Sidis to verify the difference. The shoes are different sizes but fit the same. The Empire 45’s carbon sole is 280 long and the Sidi 46’s is 285. I chose to measure two dimensions to compare:

1. top-bolt centre from front-centre of shoe
   
2. top-bolt centre from rear-centre of shoe
   
   

Giro Empire SLX 45:

1. 84
   
2. 200
   
   

Sidi Wire Vernice 46:

1. 77
   
2. 207
   
   

So it appears that the Empire’s cleat position is 7mm further back. There is, of course, margin for error in this but I was pretty consistent in my measurements using a steel rule.

I was hoping for at least 10mm. I might give the Patrocleats a go.

I'm in 48 Empires whereas all my Shimano and SIDIs have been 47. Make of that what you will.

I broke my femur in 2018 and I now have a leg length discrepancy of about 10mm, which has started to cause problems.

I've been given a shim for the Speedplays I use with my road bike, but both my other bikes use MTB pedals, and so can't really be shimmed without loosing the ability to walk around in them.

In order to get rid of the injuries, I need to have consistency across all my bikes (and to sort out my normal shoes, bla).

Is there any reason not to do away with shims completely, and just use different length crank arms instead?

If you use one longer crank you will have that foot come higher, closing the hip angle etc. Sounds like a recipe for different problems. Go and see a bike fitter.

You can get a cobber to split the shoe and build up the sole of the shoe by same amount as the speedplay shim.

My partner uses a 5mm SPD shim and a 5mm orthotic on her SPD shoes. The shim isn’t perfect but it is walkable enough.
https://shop.cyclefit.co.uk/products/leg-length-shim-mtb-walkable

She previously used cranks with 5mm different lengths without issues on 1200km brevets.

I have used them before and I found that the cleat will move over time. Speedplay use to do mountain bike pedal that dealt with leg length discrepancy but they stopped making them. It is a huge gap in the spd market for a solution to this issue

Forgot to come back and say thanks for the comments - "thanks!"

Those shims look like they might do the trick. Apparently Scherrit used to have ones that covered the entire sole. Not sure how true that is.

Speedplay SYZR look like the most logical solution to this. There are still some on ebay etc so will talk to Scherrit and see what he thinks.

Will get it all done properly anyway as knees is serious business.

Speedplay SYZR

I looked into those for Badlands but they're not making them so no way I was going to commut to another pedal system with no parts. What's wrong with flat pedals and an undersole shim?

Unfortunately speedplay use to custom make the syzr depending on how much shimming you need. Max shimming was about 17mm. Since Wahoo took over they stopped making them.

Can anyone tell me where I can get these shims or what they are? @scherrit maybe?
Edit: think they might be Form ones..?

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Has anyone here had a bike fit with James at bicycle in Richmond? I’d like to PM some questions if poss.

Sigma do them, or you can get them on ebay.

Thanks. I was looking for the specific brand as these are better than the replacements I got.
Annoyingly one bolt is seized!

Can you clean them so we can see what colour they are? Yellow maybe?

They (there are two) are grey.
What’s confusing me is I can’t imagine they total 5mm stack which seems to be what Form would be.

Sure, fire away..

Bike Fit do cleat shims
https://kitradar.com/products/bikefit-leg-length-shims-with-screws-3-hole-or-spd-sl-or-look

Steve Hogg also:
https://www.stevehoggbikefitting.com/store/bike-fitting-products/shims-road/

'Form' from Cyclefit:
https://shop.cyclefit.co.uk/collections/form/products/leg-length-shim-2mm-3mm-universal-3-hole-kit

So I’ve been feeling pretty achy and a bit out of form on the road bike. I’ve not been riding loads but enough that I was considering another bike fit. Today whilst changing brake pads I noticed my saddle had moved back about 2cm!!
Not sure when this happened or if it’s been over a period of time. Also not too sure how long it’ll take me to adjust back to my “correct” position??

That kind of thing happens all the time. It's why I like to have little texta, white out marks or tape wraps around stuff so that it's very obvious if it's moved too far. A glance before getting on the bike or at bars if you've just hit a big pothole is reassuring.

Yeah odd usually angle would change somehow it’s gone back but remained at the same angle.

Anyway turns out riding your bike with the saddle in the right place is nicer :-)

Yep. It's amazing how that "unexplained knee pain" just disappears when you put your saddle back to the riight height or swap out a bent saddle etc

Has anyone been to Soigneur for a bike fit? I was planning to book a fit at Bicycle. but Soignuer is cheaper (£250 vs 350) and my side of London.

I have a 51cm flat bar conversion cyclocross bike which is a bit big for me but I'm just using it as a beater/pub bike, is it going to be ok to put an 80mm stem on to shorten the reach, or will it do something horrible to the geometry? Thanks.