I’m trying to self- diagnose a sharp pain in the ball of my left foot that has occurred occasionally in the past, noticed most while standing or walking in thin slippers on a tile floor, but recently — this started back in late April, I think, after I’d ridden ~100 miles in clips and straps. It was undoubtedly exacerbated by early May’s 54 mile ride with a great deal of climbing, and in Shimano SPD shoes with narrow toe box that I now realize might have added to the problem.
On a 20-mile sandy ditchbank ride 10 days ago, wearing the narrow Shimanos, where I torqued hard in deepish sand for longish periods, by the end of the ride the pain almost stopped me from pedaling. So I ditched those formerly comfortable favorite shoes and have been riding since in shoes with a much wider toe box. I also moved my cleats rearward by about 1 cm. Both of these help. On yesterday’s 20 mile ride (72” fixed, about 1 mile total of steepish climbing, much slow-cadence torquing against sou’easterly at gusts to 17+) the pain never rose to the sharp ache + burning in the ball of the foot, radiating thence to the tip of the second toe — this last had me thinking for a minute it might be gout -- but the ball of the foot started becoming numb and aching slightly after the first couple of miles, after which it came and went. Someone somewhere sometime said that he’d solved a similar problem by buying top-of-the-line cycling shoes with sufficiently wide toe box and, he emphasized this, a very stiff sole. I forget if he mentioned Sidis; Dominators? I’d like to consider this remedy. My question therefore is: what SPD-compatible cycling shoes do you find to be the most comfortable long-term, and why do you think they are comfortable? Sorry, ain’t gonna use flat pedals. Tried that and disliked it. Thanks. -- Patrick Moore Alburquerque, Nuevo Mexico, Etats Unis d'Amerique, Orbis Terrarum ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Executive resumes, LinkedIn profiles, bios, letters, and other writing services ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *When thou didst not, savage, k**now thine own meaning,* *But wouldst gabble like a** thing most brutish,* *I endowed thy purposes w**ith words that made them known.* -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/CALuTfgsGFRcDw30Ti10K%2B34YO4Q0WiyiOv53-LMUszzrYeU4%3DA%40mail.gmail.com.
