You are reading a single comment by @Buffalo_Bill and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
London Fixed Gear and Single-Speed is a community of predominantly fixed gear and single-speed cyclists in and around London, UK.
This site is supported almost exclusively by donations. Please consider donating a small amount regularly.
@Buffalo_Bill
Have a look at the sole of the shoes that you are currently using. They will have indentations from the pedals which will show you roughly at what angle your feet like to be on the pedals. The Time cleats will need to be perpendicular to the identations. To get this right, you will need to spend a bit of time looking at the sole of your new shoes and your new shoes.
There's another method (which I have never used) in which you smear correction fluid on the cleat surface and ride around for a bit in your new shoes, thus printing a template onto the surface where you will place your cleat. I have never used this method.
Yet another method is to sit on a table with your feet dangling. Your natural foot alignment will then become apparent.
In general, the most bio-efficient set-up is to have the axle under the big joint of your big toe, although this varies from person to person slightly.
The above two alignments are, in my experience, really important to get right. After many years, and kilos, of cycling, I can now tell, simply by looking at my feet, whether my cleats are set up right, although changing shoes can make it more difficult, by observing where my big toe joint and my heel are in relation to my cranks. But starting from scratch, it can be fiddly.
To judge Q-factor (the distance of the cleat from the crank, roughly speaking) look down at your shoes, and observe how much axle is showing between the inside edge of your shoes and the crank. Assuming that your new shoes are roughly the same width, and your feet sit in your new shoes at the same angle & alignment as your old shoes, then you want to see roughly the same length of axle.