With all the recent riding from home due to the lockdown I’ve noticed that my Shimano AM7’s were squeaking as they rubbed my lovely new carbon crank arms on my Marino. Pedals are Nukeproof Horizon clipless – the bigger square version. I tend to swap between flats and clips and have never noticed this before. Not sure if the crank arms are slightly thicker than previous alloy ones or if when proper mountain biking I’ve just never noticed it before.

Last night I tried some xc style Shimano shoes I had in the cupboard on some Boardman spds and no squeak – although the shoes do quite quite close to the crank on the left foot. It seems the angle of my left foot is a bit more toe in / heel out – but I can’t correct that without consciously thinking about it all the time.

Are there any clipless pedals that have a slightly longer Q on them so overall my foot would sit slightly further from the crank arms? I don’t really want to bodge it with pedal spacers on brand new carbon cranks. Wondering about Time DH4’s or something along those lines?

Hopefully not stating the obvious, but can you move the cleats further inboard?

Bit of Helitape on the crank arm and Robert is your Fathers brother…?

On the road bike I solved this with Ultegra pedals that have a 4 mm longer axle. On the MTB I just moved my cleats.

You can buy pedal axle extenders, but I don’t know if they’re any good.

There is a limited spd cleat pocket on the am7’s but that’s a fair shout – I’ll see if that’ll help / how they’re lined up already. The cranks came new with helitape on them – but not in the spot I’m actually rubbing them. I must have odd feet.

I always rub my cranks with my heels, just make sure I add heli tape to the cranks and the chainstays.

I believe those pedals are some of the longest axle about, 57mm same as a Mallet DH. The only pedals I know of which are longer out the box are ISSI ones but I haven’t tried them. I’d try moving the cleat over, or rotating it a bit but make sure not to mess up your knees by twisting too much!

Yeah I’m beginning to think that – the extra long Shimano road spd-sl’s seem to be about the same length.

Will have a look at clear position – maybe as well as side to side / angle I could change fore / aft position is that helps. I think I’m running them so my foot sits on the pedal where it would if I had flats on the bike. Maybe that’s putting a wider bit of the shoe nearer the crank arm…..

crank brothers do wide q factor axles for their clipless pedals.

i don’t know how wide your flat pedals are, but perhaps a wider pedal would help. kona wha wha (or is it wah wah?) are good and wide. at the other end of the scale, so are chromag dagga. when comparing pedal sizes, remember to consider the amount of axle between the pedal and crank.

and put some tape on the crank.

My flats are fine – run Superstar Nano Evos on both bikes with five ten freeriders and no rubbing.

Just the horizons with AM7’s that do it on my left foot. I think with the flats you out your foot down and it doesn’t move – whereas with spds there’s some float. I tried making the release tension higher to try to keep my foot straighter but it hasn’t really helped. Need to play with cleat position on the shoes I think.