trihugger wrote:
Hi All, I started to have lower back issues and was diagnosed with scoliosis and leg discrepancy (~15mm). What are the popular pedal/shoe options people use for gravel/MTB? I use speedplay on my Tri bike and and my fitter suggested we could temporarily address the issue with shims on the cleat, which I will do but I don't think this would work long-term and looking for other options.
Any suggestions are appreciated
Many thanks!
two things i would say.
1. the problem i would be more reticent to solve is the leg length discrepancy. these are notoriously hard to ACCURATELY diagnose. furthermore, you do everything else with a leg length discrepancy, and your body adjusts. do you make any accommodation in your run shoes? and, no, even an orthotic doesn't account for this, because if you put a 15mm lift in your orthotic you couldn't even lace up that run shoe. so, i would be careful about solving this in your cycling. you would need to, first, make sure you really, truly, have that discrepancy, and you would need to know that you're not already normalizing for it. how would you normalize for it? sit a little off-kilter on the saddle. so, first, do no harm. first, make sure you want to solve for this.
2. if you do want to solve for it, you shim between the pedal and the shoe. you use wedges, that cant the shoe (varus or valgus). you use X number of wedges, stacked on top of each other, and half the wedges are varus canted and half are valgus, so that net sum is simply to raise your shoe off the cleat.
in most cases, if you do go that route, fitters will recommend a partial sum of the total discrepancy. maybe a third, or half. so, maybe you go 7.5mm of lift on the short leg side.
this is the method regardless of pedal. speedplay's sizr pedal has different factory-built lift options.
Dan Empfield
aka Slowman