One Wheel

I've had similar issues now with two very different shoes, surely somebody else has had the same issue and figured out a solution. I'm pretty sure that one way or another, my feet are swelling over the course of long rides, so that shoes that fit when I put them on are entirely the wrong size and shape 2-3 hours later.

I have (apparently) ridiculously wide feet, so I don't have the luxury of just trying on a bunch of shoes. The shoes I've used are New Balance 624 walking shoes, size 11.5 6E, and Bont Vaypor S size 46.5 Double Wide. They're both fine for the first 2-3 hours, and then gradually become extremely painful in the bones of the midfoot (at least that's what it feels like).

Surely people aren't dialing in bike geometry and saddle shape to within fractions of a millimeter and then just gutting out multi-day rides in multi-hundred-dollar shoes that feel like you've zip-tied a cleat to the bottom of your foot after the first 100k? What am I missing?

roadcrankr

I often experience the same pain on long rides. Never considered that maybe might feet swelled.
My feet act up near the three-hour mark. Always worse in warmer weather. Hills can worsen my symptoms.
I posted this topic a year or so ago. Most surmised that my shoes were too small.
I wear good shoes that allow me to adjust tightness while riding.
Sometimes my only remedy mid-ride requires dismounting and soaking my feet with cold water!

ROT_01

By the end of my first year of riding a 200k every month my foot expanded and I had to size up all my footwear. I have wide, but not extremely wide, flat “high volume” feet. After 4-6 years of Specialized shoes that fit okay but not perfectly, I finally dove in the Lake. I followed their website instructions for determining fit and ordered two different sizes of their mid tier mtb cross country shoes to try on. They aren’t cheap but have a good return policy. The size they recommended fit well so I returned both pairs and bought a pair on closeout that could not be returned. They fit perfectly. One issue I’ve had with laceup cycling shoes is they get uncomfortable as my feet expand on a ride. With the boa system you can adjust on the go with a click or two of the dial.

jadmt

Maybe try compression socks

One Wheel

I've tried some Lake shoes on, size 47 Wide was the right width (I think) but too long at the big toe and snug at the little toe. I don't think they're a good option for me.

I've been advised to use compression socks to control a varicose vein, but since I avoid shoes if possible, and don't wear socks without shoes, I generally haven't heeded that advice. This seems like an application where they could be a very practical solution. Thanks for the suggestion!

jadmt

they make compression socks that don't actually have feet that end at the ankle and go to the knee. When I was running marathons I used them and have used them on my last couple 100 milers.

PhilFo 

Back when I was in the Navy, I learned that I my feet could increase a whole size by the end of a long day. After Sept. 11, 2001, I was doing 18 hour static gate guard shifts with 12 hours of standing in basically one spot. After a few hours, our feet would get hot and one of us at the gate would take a couple minute break in the shack during which we'd lay on the floor, feet up against the wall, and after a minute, one could feel their boots loosen up and almost fall onto their legs.

Fast forward 18 years, no longer in the Navy, and a very active cyclist but in spite of my daily cycling, I was diagnosed with a 3 foot blood clot from my ankle to my groin during a visit to my GP. After a few months of blood thinners, a break from the bike with only walking, I was good to go (cycling is fine with thrombosis, but Philly is a dangerous city with regard to traffic, and getting hit while on blood thinners can be rapidly fatal.) That said, I have to wear compression socks full time. If a doc recommends compression socks for varicose veins, it's due to venous insufficiency in pumping the blood back to your heart, so it pools and will eventually thicken. The compression socks relieve the itching and pain from varicose veins, and they support blood flow back up to the trunk.
Be careful with the compression sleeves that don't have a foot to them. The foot/ankle joint is where a lot of clots form and the band around the bottom of the sleeve can actually hasten the formation of a clot. They may be good for folks who don't have venous insufficiency, but if your feet are swelling that much, they may only increase the swelling. Regardless, see your doc. Pay very close attention to pinching feeling behind your knee, and observe asymmetry between the size, color and shape of your calves. When you get home, lay down and raise your legs so your feet are at least 6" above the level of your chest, the higher the better, while remaining comfortable.

Also, the pain in the ball of the foot may be exacerbated by flexible sole shoes, which are making your foot work harder wrapping around the pedals. Try to find some stiffer sole shoes or have a cobbler reinforce the sole with something to make them more like a cycling shoe.

Calsun

The lasts use to make shoes vary widely. When I first started riding in the 1960's the Italian shoes were much narrower than the average American shoe which was great as I have narrow feet. The German shoes tended to have a wider last and were better for most riders.

Width in the toebox is what sounds like your problem. Any foot will become larger as one rides and a shoe that starts out snug is going to be uncomfortable as you ride (or walk) for extended periods.

With my last two pairs of shoes I tried on more than a dozen shoes to get ones that fit me well. Fortunately road bike shoes last me many years so not a big deal. I had to order the shoes and then return them when they did not fit. If you read the customer reviews you can learn which ones were a problem for people with large feet in the size you need. You may gain width where you need it by going up one size which with metric sized shoes is a smaller increment than with the half sizes in the US.

One Wheel

Unfortunately I'm at the extreme upper end for width, and I'm already running a half (metric) size up from what the chart shows. Trying more shoes, short of a completely custom build, would just mean trying shoes that are too narrow, too long, or both. I'm very optimistic about jadmt's suggestion of compression socks. I picked up a pair yesterday, and haven't had the time or weather to try them out yet.

Frenzen

This is common among thru hikers and their feet expand during the hikes, and sometimes even takes many months before their feet go back to "normal". I am not sure if you can avoid it but I know that hikers have to go 2 sizes up. Good luck with compression socks

One Wheel

It's common enough among through hikers that I have heard of it even though I'm not interested in hiking. It's strange that the most common advice I've run across for sizing bike shoes in that regard is to measure your feet in the morning, when they're not swollen. I realize most rides are shorter than a couple of hours, but an awful lot are longer, too. It seems like something that should get more coverage.

Tourist in MSN

If you are running larger (longer) shoes to get the width that you need, that could be putting your cleats much further forward than optimum. But, I like my cleats slightly aft of where most people like them, so I am a poor judge of that. But, in your original post you said you have this problem with walking shoes too, so I suspect that cleat placement is not the magic fix if you are also using non-cleated shoes and have a problem. I use toe clips instead of cleats on my folding bike, I found some extra long toe clips that I prefer instead of the standard ones, I have average sized feet so I clearly am putting my feet further forward than most if I am using extra long toe clips. On my SPD shoes, the cleats are well aft of center within the adjustment range in the shoe sole.

I do backpacking, did 11 continuous days this past August and September. My feet do not swell when backpacking or hiking. Every day, after about one hour of hiking I have to stop and tighten my laces on my hiking boots, otherwise my foot will move around too much and give me blisters. But one tightening usually will last all day. I have heard some people complain about swelling when hiking, so it apparently is common.

Bike shoes, sometimes the foot bed under the insole is not smooth and firm. Take out your insoles in your bike shoes and feel around on the foot bed to see if it is flat and firm, or did they put a softer material above the cleat hardware? Or is there a hole there for the cleat installation hardware? That was a problem on a couple pair of my bike shoes, I had to put a piece of sheet steel on top of the foot bed, under my insoles. The bottom of a large sized coffee can was my source for the sheet steel I used, I just needed a small flat piece.

sadrik

I've experienced that to an extreme. Within a ride, and then over the length of the riding season too. My 44's feel fine in April/May, but then my feet gradually swell to the point where by August, the 44's definitely snug and they're never comfortable. I had my sizing confirmed a couple years ago in April too, and was declared a narrow 44.

This summer, I added a pair of 44.5's to my kit, and that's helped a lot, except now they're too long and I'm often tempted to over-tighten the Boas to stop my feet from moving within them. On my next shoe purchase, I'll probably try a 44 Wide.

I attribute the swelling to sodium intake. I experimented with that this year, and my feet slowly shrank back down to be happy in my 44's again after about three weeks of only water on rides. I can't entirely rule out the lower late-summer outdoor temperatures though.

Tourist in MSN

Thanks for posting, I think in summer I sometimes seem to run low on sodium, thus maybe that is why I do not have the foot swelling problems cited in this thread and have not had that problem when backpacking.

I am not on a sodium restricted diet and get plenty of sodium, but I almost never add salt to my foods, thus probably eat less sodium than the average person. And there have been a few times on long rides or backpacking when I just seemed to have no energy and later concluded I probably had an electrolyte deficiency. Starting a couple years ago I started carrying some salty snack foods in my handlebar bag on long rides for when my energy levels start to dip.

But I do not go out of my way to get electrolytes. I have ridden brevets where people were guzzling Gatorade at every control while I was drinking water or coffee and eating donuts.

unterhausen

I'm only addressing rides over 200k in my comments. My feet swell reliably at about 160km. I'm not too worried about it, I wear bigger shoes than I would otherwise. My feet are normal size again the next day. Compression socks might help, I haven't tried it. Speaking for myself, I doubt salt has anything to do with it. And you need salt in what you eat on a longer ride or bad things will happen. I can get to about 200k avoiding salt, but after that it can lead to stomach upset that's really difficult to recover from.

ThermionicScott 

Another member of the club here. Especially in the summer, I've just formed a habit of leaving my shoes extra-loose at the start of a ride, and my feet will grow into about the right size before too long.

One Wheel

The weather finally allowed for a test ride with the compression socks. Only about 2 1/4 hours, so I can't definitely declare any solutions, but the initial conclusion is that they didn't do much for toe numbness but I didn't experience any whole-foot pain. Toe numbness might be a result of the shoes being a touch too narrow specifically across the ball of the foot. Next time I have the opportunity to ride a century I'm going to take careful measurements of my feet before and after, so I have good figures on how and how much my feet swell.

One Wheel

Unexpected data:

First, the shoes seem to be working better. Not sure if it's the compression socks or one more round of heat molding, but ~6 hours on the bike today resulted in intermittent numb toes and a very little brief foot pain.

I measured my feet before and after today's ride, to see how they swell.

Right foot:
Circumference around ball: 281mm before, 279mm after
Instep: 288mm before, 284mm after

Left foot:
Ball: 288mm before, 280mm after
Instep: 290mm before, 280mm after

Not terribly drastic changes, probably within the margin of error, but it appears my feet actually shrunk slightly. Entirely the opposite of what I was sure was the case.

Tourist in MSN

I mentioned above that I have to tighten my boot laces after about an hour of backpacking, I am not surprised at your foot shrinkage. But I have never tried to measure my foot before and after, I just know that I need to tighten laces or I will get blisters if I do not.

I have never had to tighten or loosen bike shoes, I do not get blisters from foot movement within the shoe.

One Wheel

I actually loosened my shoes several times during the ride, and it helped each time. Maybe just in my head, but it helped.

Alan K

I also use compression socks for long rides that go beyond 3 hours and on international flights that are 8 hours long or longer. Although, I have never tried to measure my feet dimensions, your results may not be as surprising as you think.
I’m not sure how old you are, how much you weigh, what sort of shape your cardiovascular system is in, how your compression socks are rated - they come in various strengths, mine exert a pressure equal to about 20 mm of mercury, and what time of the day you usually go bicycling.
All of the above mentioned factors will play into what you have observed. If you have a tendency to retain fluids in your lower extremities, as the day goes on, your feet and ankles may already be swollen to some degree and you may have not noticed it. If you go bicycling after some fluid retention, putting on compression socks and exercising will gradually force this fluid upwards.

In any event, pick a shoe that covers both extremes and use whatever method it includes to fasten so they fit properly - having them too tight for too long, is not a very good thing.

Good luck and take care!