Hi! We're here today to talk about Speedplay
pedals and why you would use them. Speedplay
have a bit of a reputation as being difficult
to set up or for people with medical needs.
But all that's changed over the last ten years,
if you ask me. When I first came into the
cycling game, 12, 13 years ago, they had that
kind of reputation but they are such a good
pedal for people who have slightly different
biomechanics, a certain way of walking, if
you have knee pain on the bike. And the reason
for that is they were invented by a guy who
had knee pain. In fact, Richard Bryne out
in California decided that his career had
been ruined the pedal system that he was riding,
not him, and decided to make his own pedal
- a great little story. But they actually
do - they've got loads of adjustability in
the right places and what I want to talk you
through today is why you would use them.
Okay so what we're going to do first of all
is have a look at Katie who's a bit of a model
here for me today, and we're going to look
at her off the bike - as per the Phil Burt
Process first of all, and what things about
her might maybe suggest that she should go
on Speedplay and maybe even extrapolate that
a bit further. Things that you might recognise
in yourself which she hasn't got. And then
we're going to go into actually how you set
them up - sort of de-mystify that, and make
less painful and a lot more understandable,
and give you a bit of confidence in getting
it probably more right than wrong! And then,
last of all, we'll put her on the bike and
see how that works.
[Turn around and come back]
So this is just to check whether my feet,
is it rotate out?
Yep, so whether you have external rotation
-this one way of assessing it doing walking
which is the dynamic way, and then we do it
here which is the static way, where you'll
see someone ... it's hard not to correct stuff...
yes it is. Just relax.
You can see there just that your right foot
is pointing straight at us and if you look,
the toes are slightly out on the right hand
side, and the heel in. Everybody's different
- that's just you, okay. If you exaggerate,
Kate, a minute, maybe we can show, if you
rotate your... some people are like that and
they'll recognise themselves, just like, completely
out, and they just fall into external rotation.
What we've established there Kate - if you
let your legs go down straight a minute - some
people who are real 'duck walkers' have massive
external rotation and they do that in walking.
They are often the people who come in and
they have lateral knee pain because they can't
get that accommodated, that position accommodated
on the bike. The pedal system forces them
to pedal straight and it the iliotibial band
tightens up. If we look at you in a more dynamic
demonstration of that - this is pedalling
lying on the bed - now if I lock you in, this
is going to exaggerate, but we're going to
put you toes in, heel out. That just doesn't
feel right, does it. Now, this is your good
leg, if you I put you there, that just feels
natural doesn't it? [Yeah] And that's straight
on. So somebody who really wants to externally
rotate, you can imagine, if you get a fixed
cleat system this is what it feels like. And
that, can you feel it tighten up in here?
So this will tighten up your iliotibial band.
The reason being, all the forces are passed
up to the knee, the knee has to deal with
it, and the iliotibial band gets tighter and
tighter, and that drags the kneecap across.and
what most people get confused with is they
have inside of the knee pain and concentrate
on here, and might have loads of physio here,
and in actual fact the problem is the lateral
thing and quite often if it's biomechanics
you'll need an equipment solution - ie the
right pedal to help you. Because you can foam
roller for ever and a day, but if the reason
why you're feeling this is because you're
being forced to pedal straight when you want
to pedal with heel in and your toes out, this
will always tighten up.
So what are the barriers to people maybe using
Speedplay pedals? Because they have a lot
more adjustability in them, they basically
can take a little more of a process to set
up. But think about it, if you get that right
you're saving your knee. Many people often
used to say to me - before the walkable cleat
came along - that basically Speedplay pedals,
cleats, would wear out fairly quickly, or
the pedal system would wear out quickly. And
I ask you this - do you want the pedal to
wear out, or your knee to wear out? Because
those forces are going somewhere. And what
Speedplay pedals, if you ask me, do, is, especially
for people with certain biomechanics - I'm
not slating other pedal systems - if you get
on fine with your Shimano SPD, as many people
do, you can stay on them, it's absolutely
fine and they might be the perfect pedal system
for you. But for some of us, basically Speedplay
offer opportunity to get back to pain-free
cycling because they accommodate our unique
biomechanics. Remember always, you're adaptable,
this is adjustable, this is very adjustable!
