Changing Your Cleats

The easy way of making sure your new cleats match up with the position of your old ones, and this is very important, is to use masking tape on the outside edge of the cleat in different places, or better yet scribe with an awl, or pen around the whole outside edge. I use both tape and an awl. But before you loosen things up, get on your bike and clip in both shoes while leaning up against something. Now, rotate backwards and when the inside of your shoe gets next to the chain stay, and with the heel itself in towards the stay as far as it will go, remember the distance between the two. For me it is 1/4 inch, and both should be close to equal. Now, one shoe at a time remove the cleats, and install the new one, and snug down the mounting bolts. Get back on the bike and repeat that measurement of the old one. If it is the same and your fore, aft, (front and back) was marked correctly, you should be good to go. Loosen up one bolt at a time, and apply a drop or two of blue thread locker made by Permatex to each bolt. Thread locker can be purchased at any hardware store, but make sure it is the blue one, because the red one is not meant to be loosened again. After you do this to all the bolts, do the exact same thing to the other cleat. Hope all this makes sense to you! The toe in and toe out are more important than the fore, aft position which should be the ball of your foot directly over the pedal spindle, or close. Don't panic if this position gives you just a little discomfort for a ride or two. But if this discomfort lasts for more than a couple of rides you'll have to recheck the cleat position.