rousseau

My saddle was too high. I was pedalling like a ballerina, with my heels too high and my toes pointing to the ground. This was jamming my toes and the balls of my feet into the shoe.

Interestingly enough, it was only my right foot. At about the hour and a quarter mark, like clockwork, the ball of my right foot and my big toe would start to get numb. I'd unclip and let my right leg dangle in the wind for a good three or four minutes, and that would generally do the trick for the rest of the ride, but I knew there had to be an actual solution to this, and I found it.

At first I eased the cleats back by 2 mm, but that didn't help. It was only when I lowered my saddle by 5 mm and tilted the nose of the saddle down a little bit that the issue was resolved. I'm also consciously trying to pedal more with my heel lower.

I got new shoes a while back, and ever since then I've been constantly playing around with my fit, moving the saddle up and down and tilting the nose up and down. I must have really thrown it out of whack, but now I think I've got it dialed in. Lately I've been zinging off two-hour rides in total comfort, where the only bottleneck is essentially how hard I want to push my quads.

Which is really what you want from your fit, right?

As an aside, it occurred to me that getting some sort of discomfort due to repetitive motions on the bike is actually a good sign, because it's an indication that you're riding enough that you need to tweak something in your fit so that you can ride even more. It's a problem to be solved, and the solution means more riding. In business speak, this is "win-win."

rousseau

Huh...I thought this would have been an interesting topic, as you often get people trying to figure out how to deal with numbness. Oh well, it'll be in the archives for future generations of numbness-plagued cyclists scouring search F.com for its received wisdom.

TrojanHorse

Well, you did give it a solid hour and a half.

I have issues with my left foot at about the 50 mile mark and usually have to take my shoe off for a few minutes to get it to go away, but I attribute that to the titanium plate in my foot, not saddle height.

numberSix

So, do you pull up on the up-stroke? IMO that's when your foot gets restored blood flow

stockae92

Interesting topic

I recently adjusted my saddle and noticed my toe complaining as well. I will try to tilt the saddle nose down a little and see if that helps.

rousseau

Check the date and time. It was actually 25 1/2 hours. Not that it matters, or that I'm always so anxious for responses, but sometimes threads do slip down past the first page more quickly than they normally would.

No, I don't consciously pull on the up-stroke. And I don't know much about the physiology of the blood flow. I just feel like I identified a pattern where the front of my foot was angled down enough that I was jamming it into the shoe, which I suspect was causing the numbness after an hour or so.

Since lowering my saddle and having my heel a bit lower I haven't had any numbness at all, so that seemed to have done the trick.

Part of the reason I thought I'd post this thread was this suspicion I have that a lot of people start out with their saddles higher than they should be, because it seems natural and intuitive that you would have more torque when pushing down on the pedal from less of a knee bend, and therefore it would seem like a better position to be in. I've succumbed to this line of thinking in the past, too.

rousseau

The critical aspect of the adjustment is in having my heel a bit lower so that I'm not jamming my toes into my shoes and the pedal. Fore-aft tilt might not really address that as much as lowering your saddle might.

That was my experience, anyway.

RPK79

Edit: In my mind I was thinking cm. I guess 5 mm isn't too much of a move, but how would that move you from toe down to level? Usually if my seat height is off my knees tell me within the first 10 miles.

TrojanHorse

Dammit! You're right, sorry.

Say, did you have any issues with calf cramping or the like when you were pedaling toe-down?

rousseau

Actually, I'd say that 5 mm is a fairly large adjustment when you think you've got yourself dialed in. Obviously, I may have thought I was set up properly on the bike, but I wasn't.

My feet aren't necessarily level on the pedals at any point in the revolution, it's just that my heel is just that tiny bit lower than before, and that difference seems to be the proverbial straw.

For some reason my knees don't complain about saddle height unless it's off by a large margin.

rousseau

Well! Let that be a lesson to you. I'm from the internet, where we don't let little things like that slide. No sirree!




I did get some cramping, but it was in my feet, not my calves. Since the change in saddle height I haven't had any cramping, though.

Somehow it seems like everything's connected. Get one variable wrong and you can throw everything off-kilter.

79pmooney

I ride toes down, in the saddle and out of the saddle. Finding shoes that work is a challenge. When trying on shoes, I stand in them "on pointe" like a ballet dancer to see what they feel like. But one issue I will not see in a store, only after hours on the road, is whether the straps will be comfortable or do they contact mainly the bony high points of my foot. (This was not an issue with laces and I never thought about it until recently. Laces tend to slide off high points. (What a great feature! Some bright whiz/upstart should patent that! Oh yeah, they can't - there's precedence. It's been done before.)

My seat is not too high. Toes down has simply felt right for me for the past 40 years. I ride that way even if my seat is way too low.

Ben

rousseau

So, one year later...

Searching on "numbness" and "foot" (titles only, not entire posts), I came upon this, my own thread. Because it was happening again.

Over the winter and into the spring I found myself playing around with my seatpost, having forgotten what this thread was all about. So I put it up higher than it should have been because it seems intuitive that you would have more power on the down-stroke if your saddle is higher.

So, inevitably (at least in retrospect), I started getting numbness in my right foot again, just like in the first post in this thread from a year ago. I've been ignoring it for the post couple weeks, but last night I decided I should try to find some answers on the intertubes. My first stop was this trusty site, and I found this trusty thread right away. And my immediate impression was, gosh, this guy seems intelligent and smart and such. He's probably all cool and handsome and chicks dig him. Then I looked at the poster's name, and I had to blush.

Because I went ahead and lowered my saddle by about 5 mm as per my suggestion to myself a year ago, dear reader, and I had no numbness on my two-hour ride today. In fact, I felt g-r-r-eat! on the bike today.

Is inadvertently discovering that something you previously said on the interwebs was still right on a uniquely 21st century kind of vindication/affirmation? Or am I just a 21st century schizoid man?

https://vimeo.com/137744245

Carbonfiberboy 

You're getting old, that's all.

The simplest thing for me is to consciously pedal with my heel cups, even on the downstroke. You'll need to drop your saddle some to do that. This video has a good illustration of this:

rousseau

Time for my annual update to this thread. Because a couple months ago I once again raised my saddle by 5 mm or so. Why? I dunno, I just kinda thought I needed to.

Eventually I started to get the odd bit of numbness in my left foot, but this time I got more hip flexor pain when mashing a higher gear. I lowered my saddle the other day, and boom, like magic...the hip flexor pain is gone.

Why do I do this every year? It's like a strange amnesiac compulsion. "Saddle's too low, I think I'll raise it up a bit. Cool." <two months later> "Why am I getting toe numbness and/or hip flexor pain?" <web search, bikeforums.net search, find this thread> "Ah, right. Gotta lower my saddle back down!"

Isn't the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result?

Cyclist0108

Wouldn't you have wanted to move the cleats forward by 2mm. Moving them back is what required you to lower the saddle to compensate.

Cyclist0108

Try moving the cleats forward and keeping the saddle in the higher position. My guess is the "compulsion" is due to the reduced climbing power from having the cleats further back.

rousseau

Thing is, I started getting the numbness with my cleats and saddle in the original position. It was only by lowering the saddle that it resolved.

The lower saddle height is definitely the answer here, but you've got me wondering about cleat position now. I think I might try moving the cleats forward a bit, just to see if it makes a difference in terms of said "compulsion."

Fiery

Why would moving the cleats back reduce climbing power?

WhyFi

Funny time-hopping.

I get the same numbness/discomfort on my right foot during long rides when i become fatigued. I think that most people drop their heels when fatigued, but I drop my toes. Go figure.

Sojodave

Specialized shoe inserts solved my foot numbness. When your foot doesn't push against a firm arch, it could cause numbness.