Numb toes

Soarer

Morning all.

I did a bit of a search but couldn't find anything relating to my question.
My toes go numb when I'm on the bike for anything more than 20 minutes at a time. I have to shake my legs for a few seconds to kick them back into gear, and they're ok again then for another 20 minutes or so.
I thought it was my pedals/shoes combination (was wearing runners and flat pedals) but I bought new shoes, cleats and pedals the other day, tried them out, and I still get the same sensation.

Could the bike setup be wrong, or any other suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

Jawgap

It might be to do with the position of the ball of your foot relative to the pedal spindle - it might be worth making some adjustments to see if that alleviates the problem.

If the position isn't quite right you can pinch or put excessive pressure on the nerves - so you need to change the points where pressure is currenly being applied.

Dipsomaniac

That happened to me when I used cyclying shoes for the first time.

For me, the solution was to loosen my shoe straps. As I was cyclying my feet would expand and there wasn't enough space in the shoe. Now I leave them a bit loose and my feet feel fine.

Soarer

Thanks for the replies guys.

@ Dipsomaniac: Read a few things about that alright, but since this was happening before I used straps at all, I discounted it.

@ Jawgap: There actually might be something in that. When it happened when using my runners, I found that my heel used to sometimes clip the back of the frame of the bike. I'm assuming that's not what's supposed to happen, so maybe I was too far back on the pedal. I currently have the cleats positions midway using the screws, so I'll move them all the way back which should move the ball of my foot forward.

Jawgap

Read up a bit on bikefitting and the parts of that relating to pedals.

Generally - the spindle is supposed to be under the ball of the foot, but comfort may dictate it needs to be otherwise positioned.

Clip in to the pedal and use a pen / pencil to figure out where the spindle is.

Cheese Princess

I used to get numb toes and realised it was because they were cold. I got warmer socks and they were fine - might not be the reason for you but worth a try.