D2 $hoes and Midsole Cleat Placement

DANIEL MOLINA

Has anyone had any experience with custom D2 shoes made by Don Lamson.  These shoes are quite $$$, which is why I wanted to throw this out to the team.  I've been researching them for nearly two years, and still haven't pulled the trigger.  Although not standard, several customers picking up a pair of these pricey cycling shoes opt to midsole cleat placment.  Midsole cleat placement is not a new concept and quick search of the EN archives provides a great thread from 2013.  Joe Friel and Goetz Heine from Biomac are probably the most well known legit proponents of midsole cleat place, referencing increase sustained (i.e. not sprint) power output and decreased gastrocnemius fatigue in set up for the marathon post bike leg.  A major theme from the 2013 thread focused on cleat placement (mid-sole or otherwise) as being an important part of the overall fit.  Agreed!  Another recurrent theme was that the same or similar effect can be had by pushing your current cleat placement as far back as possible.  After looking at some of the examples of true mid-sole cleat placement, there is no way pushing most cleats to the aft-most position recreates the intended effect.  Speedplay pedals may come the closest with their extension plate.  I'm interested in hearing you take.       

Mark Maurer

I use the Speedplay with the extension plate, but I have heard of fitters that drill holes in the soles to allow for mid-sole positioning. If you could find someone to do that it would certainly be cheaper.

DANIEL MOLINA

Great point. How hard could it be to drill through carbon fiber? It would probably best to try it with some old shoes because I'm pretty sure you'd be voiding any warranty by trying to hack them up. There is actually some guidance on how to due this on some of Friel's old blog posts, although I don't think the guidance is coming from him. I noticed many of these mid-sole do it yourself'ers are using a two hole/screw pedal setup, like you would see for mountain bike pedals. The rationale given is that the mid-sole is actually pretty narrow. Hmmm...a P5 with mountain bike pedals, this is starting to seem way outside the box to me. This also begs the question, if there is an advantage to this set up, why aren't more shoe companies and pro's utilizing this strategy. Ryf is the only one that comes to mind, but she's a superfreak that could dominate the bike with any type of pedal and cleat placement.