Fitting Advice Needed

[bobin2]

Sorry this is so long: I’m about 6’7” with a 35.5” inseam and nearing 50. Only been riding hard/training for a couple years.

Lingering ankle pain and knee pain had me seek out an expensive bike fit. I ride gravel/road/commute on one bike. Went with the expensive-ass bike fitter who has a wealth of experience and is thee go-to guy for people with health issues. Yeah so the dude turned out to be a really impatient guy just spewing information at me which I could barely comprehend.

So he told me my right leg was “reaching,” he could see this by eye balling. He had me buy new 172 cranks, road pedals and road shoes. We emailed a lot. Sum up: He demanded that I change from MTB shoes to Road shoes because “I can’t properly shim your right foot with MTB shoes.”

I think the money factor messed with me a lot. I kept researching the shim/mtb thing. I really did not want road shoes, but I just wanted to solve my issues and quit monkeying constantly with my fit so I went ahead with these stupid road shoes. I didn’t mind going down on the cranks. So I had to justify this now 750 investment on a 1400 bike to myself.

Well I got all the stuff and when I went back to him – he was impatient and went way too fast. I walked out with new shoes with a wedge on the left foot and no shim on the right – which was the whole reason I bought the fing shoes.

I wish now I would have just not worried about the why and the cost because looking back that fit wasn’t that bad. I emailed him and asked him why at first he said this and now I had that. I spent $ for this thing he had to have so he could shim and there was no shim.

So that emailing just set us down a bad path. He felt like I was insulating that he was misleading me. There were a couple emails from him that were absolutely unprofessional and angry. But then he agreed to try and “fix” things.

Went back and that fit was bad. So asked if I could have a refund of my 300 (not counting the 450 for parts) and that’s when he lost it and started demanding that I come back in so he could undo all his work. He said “never contact me again” in one email – then kept sending me emails about stuff he wanted back – and then said “never contact me again” a couple more times. To be fair though I was not very trusting – but the dude is straight up not professional.

So I just said forget it cause I just want to move on and not deal with his anger – I also realized he was going to make it as painful as possible to get my money back even though it expressly says on his site that he guarantees a refund if not satisfied.

So now I don’t know what to do. My right side knee and ankle seem fine – but my left leg is definitely not comfortable. Every time I get off the bike my left ankle aches and my heel hurts.

When I drive down with my right leg – it feels like the ball of my foot is engaged and driving. When I drive with my left leg – it feels like I constantly want to move my foot back on the pedal – like it’s too far forward.

Also the road shoes just piss me off. If I have to step off into any kind of snow or dirt – I cannot re-engage the pedal with out trying to find a dry spot to stomp all the crap out. Got the shoes from Competitive Cyclist – so think I can return for store credit.

Just sucks and makes me not want to ride cause I just keep thinking about the bad fit - my stroke feels way off - I did a 40mi yesterday and just did not enjoy it. This bike fit thing is such a rabbit hole if there's something off.

[David Tollefson]

If you were local, I would recommend Eric Moen at Copore Sano (Bike PT). Maybe look him up on Facebook and ask for some local recommendations from him?

[ultraman6970]

W/o seeing you is hard to tell what is going on. My opinion about the fitter is neutral... that job is hard because you get paid and not all the time the things work out and then stuff like your experience happens.

1st thing, that the foot feel weird, thats posible because if you have been forever in a weird position and he moved to the optimum is obvious that something has to feel different, but if u had been like a month (making up stuff here) with the pain, then clearly is not working with you.

THe other factor is that is winter... in winter bike shop owners have to eat military boot soup... so....

This is what I would do I was you... learn as much as possible, read here and there, a lot of experience and comments here and all over the internet, probably you can figure it out, is not rocket science.

As for the shims situation, well... you can put shims in the bottom of the shoe or you can shim under the insole (if you want mtb shoes), dude looks like likes shimm the shoe... you can shim under the insole, just grab some cardboard and make a shim out of it, even specialized has shims for under the insole and some shoes has a "cant " already built so you dont need to shim them too much, of course if the shim u need is at the other side (varus/valgus) the canted shoes wont work but again, you can shim the foot under the insole.

Im not familiar with mtb pedals so cant really tell you that much which are your options but ive seen shims for those things too, even if you need to move the pedal tad outside because you are too close to the crankset you can put a washer spacer or just get pedals that have different axle lenghts. You have options.

Just to start i would advice you just dont fight the fitter anymore, sucks tho.. i get that... second... since we dont know you and you are asking help probably put a picture of you over the bike helps a lot just to know where are you sitting then we can throw some stuff into it and then you can test, again is not rocket science but is very logical sometimes you know.

Hope this helps a little.

btw... where are you located?

[Peter P.]

From your side of the story, your complaints are reasonable and the fitter was definitely unprofessional. He could have used your difficult case as a learning experience for himself but it sounds like he did just the opposite.

You should be able to use your preferred shoes.

Regarding the feeling you have in your left leg; if you feel you want to slide your foot back, then move your cleat all the way FORWARD and see what happens. Listen to what your body is telling you. But give it at least a couple weeks before you recognize any changes.

I think 172.5mm cranks for someone with your inseam is incredibly short.

As far as the ankle pain-I don't know whether the fitter wedged your foot for varus or valgus, and if that was meant to address the ankle pain. You don't say what your current shoes are; they may already have built in varus tilt (Specialized Body Geometry shoes do.)

Honestly, look at the cost of your "fitting" as tuition into getting an education on fit. Now you can do either of two things: Go to another fitter, armed with the experience and knowledge gained from your bad experience. The new fitter will then have data points as to what the problems are, what was changed, and what worked/didn't work, and that can guide them to possibly help you.

Your other option is to get some of the popular books on bike fit and educate yourself, then make changes that hopefully will address your issues.

One thing you might want to consider trying is (I assume you're using Shimano SPD cleats) attaching some of those cheap platform attachments they make for SPDs onto your pedals, and riding sans cleats. If the problem goes away, then at least you know it's a foot alignment issue.

Well known framebuilder Lennard Zinn specializes in fitting tall people like you. While his services may be out of your price range or location, there may be information on his web site of use to you.

Here's a link to one of his posts regarding tall riders.

A while back he published an article about riders and bikes. The two takeaways I got from that article were, a 73 degree seat angle is useful for just about everybody and slacker angles for tall riders is not necessary and in fact can cause problems. Translation for the OP: I haven't seen your setup but sliding your seat forward on the rails may eliminate that reaching feeling you have with your left leg vs. moving the cleat, and may cure your foot and ankle problems. The other takeaway was tall riders definitely need longer cranks rather than slacker seat angles; longer cranks than are typically available on the market. Just so happens Zinn makes cranks for taller riders.

[Ken Robb]

You're not racing so try good flat pedals and some comfortable regular shoes with pretty smooth rubber soles. This will let your feet assume a relatively comfortable position naturally as you pedal. If that eliminates the pain and you still want to try for similar comfort when clipped in at least you know about how your feet were arranged when things felt good. OTOH you may just be happy to stay with the flat pedals. I usually am.

[daker13]

Whatever other issues that were going on during the fitting--personality clash, guy had a bad day, whatever--it sucks that his site says 'satisfaction guaranteed' and then the guy got pissed when you said that you weren't satisfied with the fitting.

[cmg]

your going to invest some time and educate yourself. read https://www.stevehoggbikefitting.com...rt-3-shimming/ https://www.stevehoggbikefitting.com.../cleat-wedges/

on the ankle pain and knee pain, move the cleat back, on the knee pain put a wedge on the left shoe, thicker side of the wedge on the outside. you will have to experiment.

[macaroon]

Unless you're aware of what is wrong with your body, then you'll probably just keep going round in circles.

Forget the bike fitters, you need to see someone who can say "this muscle is tight, this muscle is weak, your body is misaligned in this way" etc. A good physiotherapist should be able to do this.

W/regards to moving your foot back; give it a go. Most peoples feet are different lengths so the cleats often end up in different positions.

Stick with the 172.5 cranks, they're fine for someone with your leg length. IF you can't get comfortable with short cranks, then longer cranks certainly won't fix the issue.