Has anyone successfully used Specialized insoles plus wedges to sort knee pain?
Did you DIY or did the LBS or Spesh shop do it?

Cheers

Spamf

Yes, I went to see Mike Veal at bikedynamic. Normal shimano shoes and a combination of in the shoes wedges and cleat shims has helped a lot.

I have custom orthotics in my everyday shoes, which I wear for knee pain associated with hypermobility. I bought the closest match Spesh insoles which I wear in Spesh shoes (which all have a built in 1.5mm varus wedge). have experimented with the wedges that also go in under the insole but settled on not using them as they were over-correcting.

so in summary, my reccomendation would be to get a proper biomechanical assessment and then try and replicate the solution in your cycling shoe set up

I tried allsorts but swapping from SPDs to Time pedals with "float" did it for me.

I use the BG insoles on my road shoes and some wedges on the cleats. I used to suffer badly with pains on the outside of my feet but it seems to have cured the problem.

Not used them on the mtn bike as I've never found a problem with my knees and feet.

+1 for time pedals

Be careful of biomechanical assesments and trying to swap that over to cycling shoes. Walking and running are rear foot activities and are corrected differently from the forefoot nature of cycling. That's why my podiatrist suggested finding someone different from the cycling shoes.

Onzadog – fair point. The podiatrist i see was happy with my ideas re the Spesh insoles and I did take them in for him to have look over. His suggestion was to experiment with the spesh wedges until i got the most comfortable, which seemed to work for me.

iainc, yeah, mine said similar. Take the qualative analysis from him but do the quantative bit by trail and error or see someone with a camera that could track the knee movement in the pedal stroke.

Don't have a problem with spd's but when my mileage went up big time on the road bike this year I started to get a right knee problem (LOOK Keo). I noticed that on spd that as well as my R ankle being turned in a lot, which I had set my Look cleats to mimic, that my foot also pronates a LOT. By this I mean that the outside of my foot is lower than the inside. The small platform of spd allows this foot rotation but the bigger and more fixed platform of the Keo's holds the foot much flatter. So I added both wedges in to my Spesh road shoes (which I think gives +3 degrees). Since then no pain. I can still "feel" something in the knee, a little stretch maybe, so maybe more adjustment is needed but I can't afford custom footbeds. As the pain as gone I feel that the majority of adjustment has been made.

I recommend that you have a go. Be prepared to adjust/add/subtract as you go. Also remember that a change may not feel right straight off. Stick with it but not if you definately feel that there is something wrong.

If you are in London try Cyclefit – they will do you insoles but also look at your saddle set up etc mine was a combo problem, it insoles alone wouldnt have solved it.