Thank you to the brilliant Danny Bird and Cyclist Magazine for main image
Fix The Damn Foot
The context for this piece is an extended interview that we gave recently to road.cc dedicated to finding the optimal wide-fitting shoe. The interview was extended, in simple terms, because anything that involves the words feet and Cyclefit, within the same sentence, presents a theoretical containment problem. Twenty-eight bones, thirty-three joints and a hundred or so tendons, ligaments and muscles later, and we might be zeroing in an answer.
Bipedalism is rare and human-style bipedalism is unique (well, since we did for the Neanderthals twenty-something thousand years ago). Humans are obligated to walk on our feet - we simply have no other choice. Apes can opt to be quadrupedal when the moment demands, and kangaroo feet are essentially giant springs.
"humans didn't evolve to ski or cycle. But both are fun and achievable with thought and care"
The loads on the cycling foot are unique...
... And need to be carefully calibrated
"The multifactorial problems of how humans interact dynamically within a highly constrained environment."
Skiing and cycling are both fixed-foot sports, which itself is unnatural for human bipeds. To make matters worse, to deliver linear power (and control for skiing) the forefoot should be laterally fixed (entirely separate to float).If the forefoot is not laterally stabilised the joints above are exposed to stress and the foot is unevenly loaded. Most of our working days are spent, one way or another, trying to finely balance these forces.Ergo - humans didn't evolve to ski or cycle. But both are fun and achievable with thought and care.In a world where manufacturers want/need to sell online, industrial levels of cognitive dissonance are required around the thought and care components of the equation.It is a microcosm of bike-fitting's daily struggle for relevance. Consumers and manufacturers want ever increasingly instant, easy and cheap solutions to complex and multifactorial problems of how humans interact dynamically within a highly constrained environment.Happy to expand into a reasoned and thoughtful essay.Phil
