Part 1- We've Been Measuring the Wrong Thing: Rethinking Fore-Aft Cleat Position

There are certain ideas in bike fitting that become so deeply ingrained we stop asking why they exist. Fore-aft cleat position is one of them.

Nearly every fitting system begins by locating the first and fifth metatarsophalangeal (MPJ) joints—the "ball of the foot." The fitter identifies those landmarks, transfers them to the shoe, draws a reference line, and establishes the cleat position relative to those points. Variations exist between fitting schools, but the underlying philosophy is remarkably consistent: the metatarsal heads determine where the cleat belongs.

I've done it myself. I even taught it - not necessarily by choice, admittedly. But I have and I take ownership of that. Obviously if you’ve read any of my other work or caught wind of my Master’s Thesis, you know that the relative cleat location I recommend is much different than most. I digress…

Then one day I found myself asking a question that seemed almost embarrassingly simple.

Why are we referencing a joint that no longer moves in a cycling shoe?

The more I thought about it, the less the conventional explanation made sense.

Walking Isn't Cycling

To understand why, we first need to appreciate just how remarkable the human foot really is.

During walking and running, the foot is anything but rigid. As the body moves over the midline of the planted foot, the metatarsophalangeal joints extend, the plantar fascia tensions through what is known as the windlass mechanism, and the arch stiffens into a stable and efficient lever for propulsion. The toes articulate, the intrinsic muscles of the foot contribute to stability, and elastic energy is stored and released with every step. It's an elegant system.

The foot is simultaneously adapting to uneven terrain, providing shock absorption, creating stability, and becoming rigid enough to propel the body forward. Every part of that sequence depends on movement through the forefoot.

Cycling removes almost all of that movement - a reduction in “degrees of freedom”, if you will.

A modern cycling shoe is designed to be exceptionally stiff. We spend hundreds of dollars chasing carbon soles because we don't want the shoe to flex. Once the foot is enclosed inside that rigid structure, motion through the metatarsophalangeal joints becomes nearly zero. The foot no longer behaves like the dynamic structure we use for walking. It behaves much more like a rigid lever attached to the pedal.

That idea isn't particularly controversial. In fact, I think most experienced fitters would agree with it.

What surprises me is what comes next. If we all accept that the foot has become a rigid lever, why do we continue using the metatarsophalangeal joints as the primary reference for cleat placement?

The Thought Experiment

Imagine five riders, all five wear exactly the same size cycling shoe. The outside dimensions of the shoe are identical. The carbon sole is identical. The pedal interface is identical. Inside those shoes, however, each rider has slightly different anatomy.

One has relatively long metatarsals. Another has shorter metatarsals but longer toes. A third has a proportionally longer first ray. The fourth has a longer 2nd ray. The remaining one has their own unique combination of forefoot proportions. Or the MTJ are nearly perfectly straight across, or they have an extreme fore/aft spread from 1 to 5. There are actual names for these things in podiatry, believe it or not. Point is, they’re different, period.

Using conventional fitting methods, those five riders would almost certainly end up with five different fore-aft cleat positions because their metatarsophalangeal joints occupy different locations within the shoe.

Mechanically, though, they're all standing inside the same rigid lever. The pedal has no awareness of where the metatarsal heads are. It doesn't know where the toes end or how long the first ray happens to be. All it "sees" is a rigid structure connecting the pedal to the ankle.

That's where I believe the conversation becomes interesting.

What Is the Lever Actually Doing?

In engineering, the effectiveness of a lever isn't determined by decorative features attached to its end. It's determined by the relationship between the distance of where the point of force is applied and the pivot around which it rotates, and the angle of application.

In cycling, once the shoe becomes rigid, the metatarsophalangeal joints contribute very little to that equation. Their ability to articulate has been intentionally minimized by the very equipment we've chosen to wear.

The lever still exists. The question is whether we've been measuring the correct end of it.

The Ankle Is the Pivot

Once the shoe becomes rigid, as in a cycling shoe, the ankle becomes the primary (only) articulation influencing how force is transmitted through the pedal stroke.

From a mechanical perspective, what matters isn't simply the distance from the pedal spindle to the metatarsal heads. It may be the relationship between the pedal spindle and the ankle joint itself. (There are other variables at play, like pedal/cleat stack height, muscle physiology, gearing, etc., but I’ll stay out of the weeds for now.) That distinction becomes even more interesting when we consider the role of the soleus.

The soleus is one of the body's great endurance muscles - it’s so magnificent there’s even mythology involved (the story of Achilles). During walking and running, it functions within a beautifully coordinated closed-chain system. As the metatarsophalangeal joints extend and the windlass mechanism stiffens the foot, the soleus helps stabilize the ankle while contributing to forward propulsion. It is remarkably fatigue resistant, making it ideally suited for locomotion over long distances.

Cycling asks it to solve a completely different problem.

The rigid cycling shoe largely removes the windlass mechanism from the equation (ignoring built-in “toe-spring” for now). Motion through the forefoot is dramatically reduced, and the pedal is no longer a stable surface like the ground. Cycling is an open-chain movement. Rather than generating force against a stable platform, the neuromuscular system must continuously manage force through a moving interface. That changes the role of the soleus.

Instead of acting primarily as the powerful propulsive muscle we see during gait, much of its contribution during cycling appears to become stabilizing. Depending on where the rider is in the pedal stroke, it may spend considerable time functioning isometrically—or even eccentrically—as it controls ankle position while larger proximal muscles generate force.

If that's true, then perhaps the mechanical relationship we've been emphasizing deserves another look. Perhaps the meaningful variable isn't the location of a joint that no longer moves. Perhaps it's the effective length of the rigid lever between the pedal and the ankle.

A Different Question

I'm not suggesting that every fitter has been positioning cleats incorrectly.

Thousands of excellent fits have been performed using conventional methods, and experienced practitioners often arrive at very good outcomes regardless of how they establish their starting point. I would also delicately suggest the outcomes could have perhaps been even better…

What I'm questioning is the mechanical rationale.

If we accept that the foot behaves as a rigid lever inside a cycling shoe, then it seems reasonable to ask whether total foot length—not the location of the metatarsophalangeal joints—should become our primary reference when establishing fore-aft cleat position.

That single shift in thinking has profound implications, for fitters and shoe designers.

It changes how we think about ankle moments. It changes how we think about the balance between the anterior and posterior chains. It changes how we think about muscle recruitment, effectiveness and efficiency, and the relationship between the rider and the bicycle. Most importantly, it gives us a repeatable mechanical reference that isn't influenced by individual variations in metatarsal or toe length. It changes where shoe manufacturers could/would/should be placing cleat holes.

In Part Two, we'll explore what happens when fore-aft cleat position is viewed through the lens of lever mechanics rather than anatomical landmarks, and why that perspective may help explain the success many riders experience when moving their cleats rearward.

Sometimes progress in bike fitting doesn't come from inventing a new tool. Sometimes it comes from asking whether we've been measuring the right thing all along.