Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Custom Midsole Cleats


Jim Vance, a pro triathlete who uses midsole cleats, just got his new D2 custom-made shoes. I thought you might like to see what they look like. This is a Speedplay pedal system with a 4-bolt cleat. If you have midsole cleats please send me a picture like this one. I'll post some of them here. Here is my email contact.

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11 Comments:

At December 23, 2009 11:54 AM , Blogger linda said...

is there an advantage to the midsole cleat when time trialing?

 
At December 23, 2009 12:45 PM , Blogger Joe Friel said...

Linda--Read this http://www.trainingbible.com/joesblog/2007/01/cleat-position.html

 
At December 26, 2009 6:59 PM , Blogger Eric Johnson said...

have any of your athletes had a negative experience with the midsole cleat, joe?

 
At December 27, 2009 5:57 AM , Blogger Joe Friel said...

Hi Eric--yes. I changed one of my triathletes to midsole at midseason a few years ago. She experienced quad cramps as she was already doing high-intensity intervals. This just illustrates how much more work is done by the quads with a midsole cleat since the calf is no longer a limiter for force application to the pedal. We changed her back to traditional position for the remainder of the season. That experience scared her away from trying it again.

 
At January 2, 2010 12:10 PM , Blogger z4kc said...

It looks like the soles were drilled for 3 holes. Do you have any pictures without the cleats attached?

 
At January 2, 2010 1:27 PM , Blogger Joe Friel said...

z4kc--which shoes are you talking about? The ones in this post were drilled 4 hole. Or are you referring to my Shimano? The only 3 holes in those were the original under the ball of foot.

 
At January 2, 2010 8:10 PM , Blogger z4kc said...

It looks to me like the pair of D2's with Speedplay cleats have the 3 hole adapter plate under the sole?

 
At January 3, 2010 8:23 AM , Blogger Joe Friel said...

z4kc--Could be. I can't speak to that. Not my shoes.

 
At January 5, 2010 10:14 PM , Anonymous Götz Heine said...

z4kc - from what it looks its a three-hole configuration which attaches SPEEDPLAY's BasePlate.
As it requires a royalty for a professional to build and use a bicycle shoe sole where cleats can be mounted in the middle third of the sole this shoe's maybe the result of a private job like Joe's is.
Until some US-based manufacturer takes up the task to produce shoes on behalf of the patentee, this exception had been tolerated so far to promote the idea of bio-mxc²/midsole cleats throughout the U.S..

 
At January 8, 2010 3:41 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Joe,

Are you saying that it is illegal to sell shoe's drilled in the mid foot?

 
At January 8, 2010 8:42 PM , Blogger Joe Friel said...

Anon--No, I didn't say anything about that. You must have read Goetz Heine's comment here. I believe he said he has a patent on that position.

 

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