I’ve been riding mountain bikes for 25 or so years.

I’ve been riding SPuDs for about 12 years and in that time have had on/off issues with hot spots/numbness in the soles of my feet.

A month ago I sat down and adjusted my cleats inline with how they should be placed i.e. ball of the foot.

My rides since have been hot spot/numbness free but my legs feel that they have no go in them at all.

On a group ride at the weekend (Long Mynd)I spent a fair amount of time pushing my bike. The previous two years were considerably easier and I weighed more and was unfit then.

I also spent a fair amount of time playing with my seatpost height.

So how is best to go about reconditioning(?) my legs? More time in the saddle, move cleats forward again and put up with the hot spots/numbness?

Feels silly asking this question but during the ride on Saturday I thought about just giving cycling up*

Help!

* Toys out of the pram moment.

use flats

ebay or gumtree

yeah, what are you selling?

There’s just time for a swift edit to the title to defeat the pedants Mark…..
If what you suspect is correct it won’t take long for the muscles to adjust.
Slide saddle forward a similar degree?

Does it feel better when you’re out of the saddle?

It sounds like you might benefit from a decent bike fit session?

If you think your cleat position is good then stick with it and work at everything else coming together – it might be hard but you’ll see the benefits in the longer term. Essentially you’ll have started using slightly different set of muscles to pedal with, probably less reliant on quads and more evenly spread through your leg (vague non-expert assumptions alert).

I’d have thought more time riding will bring it all together OK – maybe some time on a turbo so you can play with/isolate your pedalling action a bit better. I suspect you’ll need to start spinning more than you used to – ie aiming for a more circular pedalling action.

Saddle height is critical – straight leg when my heel is on the pedal is what works for me, but everyone will be subtly different. Like I said you might find a bike fit a good investment in the long term.

😆 😳

What a title fail.

😆

I shall leave it as is

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I had thought of going down the bike fit route as my LBS does do it – I presume one is not required for each bike but optimum set up measurements are the outcome?

Whilst I am sure the new cleat position is better for me in the long term it just feels so alien.

My peddling technique is a little clunky – not a pedal masher but not a spinner either.

Time to MTFU me thinks

Assuming the bike fit is good I’d say the other thing to concentrate on is keeping your legs moving as much as you can whenever you can, it’s a conditioning thing IMO,
Basically you get your body used to pedalling by doing more of it… for some reason I find coasting along letting the freewheel click away has a noticeable effect on my legs/pedalling, even if your not “Under load” I think it’s best to keep the pedals turning as much as possible, stops you legs cooling down/seizing up, the last thing you want is to arrive at the bottom of a climb in that sort of condition…

I don’t know if you are exclusively an MTBist, or dabble in the dark-side OP, but I honestly believe commuting on the road by fixie has helped me generally with pedalling technique and MTFU-ness, I’m still not what I’d consider “fast” but I can keep the pedals turning now whatever, you just get used to it because you have to… one thing the fixie highlighted for me was just how often I stopped pedalling and let the FW do its thing, so I make an effort to do the opposite now…

You don’t have to take up comedy death bikes, you can just make the conscious decision to spin more whenever riding, it honestly helps, Comfort on the SPDs is a bonus, if your feet are comfortable, and your knees straight, you’ll make better circles…

The other thing too is that I don’t like stopping if I can help it now either, I used to be fine with a bit of trail side chatter but not so much any more.
I’d say it takes me 3-4 miles at the start of a ride just to get warmed up and comfortable, stop for just a few minutes and it’ll take me another couple of miles to get back into the swing of things, I don’t think I was always like this, might be related to age or changes lifestyle/sleep/stress/kids/etc, and I’m not sure others I ride with have the same issue or require a bit of “Restart time” all I know is I prefer not to stop, to avoid being pointlessly bolloxed…

All the other standard things apply too; Diet, Sleep, Rest, etc…

The other thing too is that I don’t like stopping if I can help it now either, I used to be fine with a bit of trail side chatter but not so much any more.
I’d say it takes me 3-4 miles at the start of a ride just to get warmed up and comfortable, stop for just a few minutes and it’ll take me another couple of miles to get back into the swing of things, I don’t think I was always like this, might be related to age or changes lifestyle/sleep/stress/kids/etc, and I’m not sure others I ride with have the same issue or require a bit of “Restart time” all I know is I prefer not to stop, to avoid being pointlessly bolloxed…

I do suffer with the same in that it takes a long time to warm up (at the start) then the same again after a ride side stop. This seem exacerbated over the weekend 🙁

Go and buy some coaching from someone, they “peddle help”.

I’ll get my coat….

😉

Unclip one foot and play around with spd position/saddle position/etc until the pedaling feels most efficient – using one leg emphasizes the efficiency aspect.

TurnerGuy – Member

Unclip one foot and play around with spd position/saddle position/etc until the pedaling feels most efficient – using one leg emphasizes the efficiency aspect.

Srs yes – one leg training, concentrating on spinning circles.