I have a pair of Specialized Sonoma MTB shoes coupled with some SPD pedals. Initially my SPD's were set too sloppy, which meant i could pull my foot out when lifting on the hills. I then tightened them up somewhat. Since then i`ve been getting knee pains.
I presume this is due to badly aligned cleats? what is the best way to get them aligned correctly?
i) do i align them with the cleat locator ii) align them with the front of the shoe iii) stick my shoes in the pedals and check for overall alignment
Here's how a fellow Newb did his... (I use Sidi Domniators)
I put my foot in shoe, pressed on the top of the shoe to find where my third toe met the main foot and then put a piece of tape across the top of the shoe from left to right. Sighting from above, I then lined up that piece of tape up with the spindel on the pedal below. Tightened everything up from there. As far as alignment going from front to back on the shoe, I used the side indicators on the shoe to ensure I was matched on both shoes. I found for myself there was enough float in the SPD that keeping centered on the front to back alignment was fine.
The cleat in the shoe should always be tight. If your pulling out when climbing then you should adjust the tension on the pedal.
After I got my shoes in place I focused on correct seat hieght. Then I sat on the bike with the pedals in a 3/9 oclock position and dropped a homemade plumb line down from my knee. I made a simple plumb line by tieing a nut onto the end of some string I had laying around. Moving the seat fore and aft till the line fell directly over the tape on my shoe.
After successfully doing all 3 things I found I had no more pains except tiered muscles from riding.
Many pedals also have a float adjustment, which can critical to solving knee problems. The float controls the amount of lateral leg movement when the shoe is clipped in. Once you have your alignment right, you may want to increase the amount of float.
look out for your LBS and ask if any of the guys know how to align them correctly, having someone watching you pedal (on rollers) is of great help when aligning the cleats, and if you try to do it yourself, make sure you really don't feel any pain due to bad positionning. that may end up injuring you pretty fast, so that's why i recommend having someone who has good knowledge of this. Then you might learn from him for the next cleats! there are probably more thing s in positionning than you might think!
