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Hello friendos, I have a problem. The problem? I hate my cycling shoes. Not just the ones I have now but basically all of the ones I have tried. A lot of the reason is I have narrow heels, wide & low volume forefoot, and flat/collapsed arches, especially on my left foot. How this feels when riding is subtle soreness in the arch, forefoot pain/numbness, a general feeling of the heel being completely unsupported, mild medial knee pain (can feel my knee collapsing in somewhat), and a lot of movement around in the shoe. Even with orthotics my left foot still collapses somewhat and "spills over" the side of the arch supports. There are orthotics that have a side support/wing that supports the inside side of the foot, but my works insurance removed non-diabetes related orthotics this year death to america and I'm not shelling out $1100 for them. On top of this, most inserts take up a lot of shoe volume, making shoes tight, and often making my heels sit high in the heel cup, leading to them slipping a lot. The solution? Make my own shoes! This isn't a novel idea. There is current World Tour pro and fellow Australian Adam Hansen who makes his own carbon fibre/kevlar shoes https://cyclingtips.com/2014/07/le-tour-tech-adam-hansens-shoes-cycling-computers-mattresses-and-more/  I'm not a poditrist, nor a cobbler, nor have I any composites experience except some basic fibreglass repair. I'm also a cheapskate so I'll probably try to do a lot of stuff with items I have lying around, salvaged parts, etc. Especially for the first prototype. My plan is to basically ape this approach, though not go to the same extremes in terms of ultralight weight and minimalism. Based on a bit of reading, looking at the current shoes I own, how Adam Hansen makes his, I'm going to build the shoes out of 4-5 main "components": 1. The sole & heel cup. I plan to mould this in one piece from 1-2 layers of carbon fiber using a wet layup and a (probably very ghetto) vacuum bag setup. I'm also not sure yet if I will make the rigid heel cup up and around the lower Achilles, or leave that to the upper sole. 2. The cleat attachement area, which I will bond/attach to the sole with epoxy and layed over with another 1-2 layers of carbon fiber where required 3. The upper sole. Currently undecided if I should do this from a fabric/leather and bond the sole (similar to how my Bont's are made below), or mould from carbon fibre/kevlar and a more flexible resin? 4. The closure system. Also undecided if I will do something like conventional eyelets & laces, or a BOA type dial system with salvaged parts from old shoes. Currently leaning towards a composite upper and dial closure with salvaged parts. Will have to see if bond on or sew on such a system 5. Extra touches, like a rubber heel to walk on, bias tape/edging on the exposed edges. These are my least hated old shoes. The heel cup is deep, you can pinch it in with the doodads. They are also way too narrow and have no arch support. You can get extra wide versions, but they are a cool $400.  These Bont's are technically "heat mould-able" but the amount you can mold them is not much. They are however made of a sole cup that comes up the sides like I've expertly indicated, with the top bonded on the outside which I like. Super stiff. They're also kinda shallow and with my orthotics in my heels pop out and I hate them.  Bottom view of the same shoes  I'll get to into different parts I've worked on so far in the next posts 
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Jun 11, 2018 01:59
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Cleat base attachement Where the cleats attach, you need M5 threads in a certain 3-bolt pattern. My first thought was to 3D print something to coutersink some tab weld nuts or regular hex nuts into.  After pulling apart some old shoes, I salvaged the moulded 3-bolt insert and will print a part to capture this instead for at least the 1st proto. I trimmed off a lot of the extra bits I don't need.    The interface to the cleat also has a certain curvature that the cleats are designed for, so I have printed that curvature into the holding part also. The real trick is going to be setting the position and cant of this correctly on the carbon fibre sole that I mould.    I assume I will need to add some shape to the currently flat face that will meet up with the sole, and maybe some filler/shims at fit-up. At the moment this is my biggest unknown because the shoes won't function well if this is not done properly.
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Jun 11, 2018 02:05
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Sole & heel cup Obvisously to make a custom sole I need a mould. Mostly for cost reasons, my first attempt is going to be to mould my foot in alginate moulding mix ($8/lb), cast a copy of my foot in plaster, and work from there. I debated moulding my foot with socks on and a wrap of some sort to add the thickness to replicate how they will be used. Cling film was messy, putting a condom over a pair of socks  compressed my feet too much and removed some foot shape detail around the heel I wasn't OK with. So I moulded by bare foot and cast the plaster. This pic if the first one I did. I made a mold box of USPS supplies and gorilla tape (lol). I tried setting up the mold box on a bit of an angle to replicate the heel-toe drop present in almost all shoes. I have a feeling this is mostly pointless.   Wasn't super happy with the alginate mold (lumpy, not deep enough, foot flat on bottom of molding box) or the casting (voids, lots of large bubbles).  A new mold is setting as I type this and I have the carbon fibre fabric, epoxy, release film, etc on order and am waiting to arrive for the next steps
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Jun 11, 2018 02:11
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I don’t know anything about cycling and have no idea how any of this works, but this fuckin rules good luck! keep postin
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Jun 11, 2018 02:53
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Bookmarked. Am interested in estimates of total cost/time.
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Jun 11, 2018 03:57
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deep web creep posted:I don’t know anything about cycling and have no idea how any of this works, but this fuckin rules One general thing I'll point out about cycling is that you don't really need or want to deform the foot over the pedal stroke. A very rigid sole that is closely formed to your foot in neutral posture reduces energy loss and gives you better response to applying power. simmy, how much weight were you putting on your sole during the molding process? When I was doing my molds with Riivo, I'd guess it was just the mass of my lower legs that was pushing onto my feet into the foam.
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Jun 11, 2018 05:09
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Looking to see how this turns out since I have very similar looking feet to you, my little toe always gets squashed and goes numb.
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Jun 11, 2018 07:36
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Thanks goons I'll definitely do a cost up at the end, its probably already at $150, but about $50 of that is material for failed moulds, which continues...kimbo305 posted:One general thing I'll point out about cycling is that you don't really need or want to deform the foot over the pedal stroke. I remember that someone from the Bike Megathread got Riivo's, I just couldn't remember who On the topic of neutral foot and pressure, I re-moulded my foot two more time yesterday.The alginate is very goopy and not supportive until it sets. I scrapped the idea of heel lift this time. So on the 2nd mould I tried to just suspend my foot neutral without much pressure.The downside of this is holding my the foot in the air, I inadvertently tense my shins and small toes, and it turned out bad.  On the 3rd, I made sure I was sitting high enough there was a moderate amount of pressure, put 1cm of alginate in to make sure the sole was shaped well, then poured over the rest. This one had a bit of a parting line, but looks much more relaxed and neutral. I'm going to need to putty in the voids around the toes etc anyway, so going to use this one for now. Will obviously sand and touch up some.   After these 3 efforts, I'm starting to think taking a plaster cloth mould might work better, and maybe be more re-usable. I have a few days before the composites arrive, so I'll probably give that a go on Wednesday. Will be trickier cast - plaster on plaster so will need a mould release of some kind too... simmyb fucked around with this message at 00:18 on Jun 12, 2018 |
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Jun 11, 2018 23:59
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Kimbo, I also meant to ask: how did you find your shoes fit as soon as you got them? Did they take much getting used to or "breaking in"?
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Jun 12, 2018 00:17
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simmyb posted:Kimbo, I also meant to ask: how did you find your shoes fit as soon as you got them? Did they take much getting used to or "breaking in"? As usual, I've not done anything more than cycle around the block in them. They fit well right away. The only pair of shoes I have that are a bit loose side to side before you cinch them up. I didn't notice any areas of discomfort, though they do feel a bit flatter than I'm used to. What I'm used to, of course, is Specialized Body Geometry footbeds, which have insanely shaped arches. I'm going to a track beginners day this weekend, and that'll be the real test.
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Jun 12, 2018 03:25
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Ok, after riding these hard for the track day, here's my notes: - no change in shape or break-in - they're so wide that my usual cleat position causes the inboardest extent of each shoe to slightly rub at some angles against the crank. This means that my other shoes are narrow enough that my foot wasn't fully flabbed out. So I readjusted the cleats and sacrificed a couple mm of Q-factor for clearance. - other than the rubbing, I really didn't notice any points of discomfort in the shoes. And keep in mind that this is without any footbeds or other bandaids - when I went to take them off, I noticed the strangest thing -- even though the shoe felt loose all around, I couldn't pull it off. The cupping around the heel was pronounced enough that my heel would hit the back of the cuff of the shoe and wedge. I had to really loosen the Boas to take them off. On tour, I would normally step on the heel of the shoe to slip out after a long day's ride, but will probably avoid that to keep the shoes lasting longer. On the whole, I think this extra shaping must be really good for security. - I still hate how one of the toes sticks out as a separate bump. There should have been a field on the form that asked how much aesthetics matter, so the maker could call me to ok that bump. 
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Jun 19, 2018 19:31
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Fit is way more important than looking cool. I wonder if they'd be able to modify that a little if you sent the shoes to them?
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Jun 19, 2018 21:09
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Kimbo, thanks for all the notes The thing about the heel cup grip is exactly what I really want. So things going a littttle slow. I've tried molding my foot with plaster cloth. This works well for the bottom half of the foot and was much easier and cheaper. Doesn't include the shape of the upper foot so not sure how I will do that, or just use the alginate molding technique for the upper... From one of those molds I made a really rough lower mold of fiberglass while half drunk. It's actually been good just for measurements and sketching on.  I've been thinking I might need to add a reinforcement to the sole, so I might try to integrate that with the cleat attachment. Also been trying to suss out how I'm going to place the cleat properly. I've scanned one of my molds and some shoes, learned a few thing about how they place and angle the cleats relative to the foot width/length/position. Plan at this stage is to 3D print up both the cleat interface and a reinforcing honeycomb to sandwhich between the sole layers and a reinforcing layer on the bottom.  High tech poo poo:  All of my carbon, release film, epoxy turned up... except I forgot I need to seal and max my molds so they don't stick. Bit of bondo to remove all the toe crevaces, and I'll coat the whole lot with epoxy before waxing + release agent. This part is definitely proving the be the worst/most time consuming part of the process...  E: one other thing I've really struggling with is where to buy the little hooks/anchors/lacing points for the BOA-type dials 
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Jun 20, 2018 02:01
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I'm not dead, just a lot of what I have been doing lately is just very boring - sanding, smoothing, sealing the plaster molds. I also test molded a couple of small pieces in my vacuum bag just to make sure it all worked. Today I got into it properly. Didn't get too many photos of the first attempt because I was  pretty bad, epoxy everywhere, etc.I set up all of my vacuum bag, peel ply, breather material, and tried to lay out how I would trim and relief the fabric.     Once I vacuumed it up, I realised I needed something like a board beneath the mold to stop the underside coming up and folding over the edges, and ended up demolding it partially cured.   At least I got to try it on for size, and found at this point that the big toe is too cramped. So I'm adding some volume to that now Meanwhile, I thought I'd try the right foot molded on a board to keep it flat. This worked a lot better in some ways, but the vacuum bag material doesn't really get into the corners at the board like I hoped, so I don't know if this will turn out bad too...   I think for the next attempt, I'm going to wrap the fabric around the whole mold, dremel off the bits i dont need on top half, and repair the mold later. Hopefully that will work much better.
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Jul 1, 2018 02:18
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simmyb posted:At least I got to try it on for size, and found at this point that the big toe is too cramped. So I'm adding some volume to that now Are you just hand applying material on there?
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Jul 1, 2018 03:06
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kimbo305 posted:Are you just hand applying material on there? Yep, just auto body filler, doing it relatively slowly in layers so I don't lose too much of the original shape
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Jul 1, 2018 03:29
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sweeties post feeties
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Jul 23, 2018 05:57
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This is on hold until my wife is back from overseas in a couple weeks, so I have an assistant to help take better castings of my feet
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Jul 23, 2018 14:34
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simmyb posted:This is on hold until my wife is back from overseas in a couple weeks, so I have an assistant to help take better castings of my feet  
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Jul 27, 2018 10:11
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