Could This Simple Hack Change Your Cycling: Q Factors Explained!

Many of us forget about this detail in our bike fit but could making a small change to our pedal stance width make a big difference to our riding? What is Q Factor and are we overlooking it? We’re here to explain all.

Welcome 0:00
What is Q Factor? 0:11
Scientific studies 1:28
Pro peloton 2:35
Using a narrow Q Factor 2:50
Speaking to the professionals 3:31
Should we worry about our fit? 5:04
Main reasons we get it wrong 5:49
How do I know if I need to change? 8:21
Making changes to my bike fit 10:28

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Many of us forget about this detail in our bike fit but could making a small change here make a big difference to our riding we’re talking Q factor Q factor is the lateral distance from the outside of one crank to the other typically this is somewhere

Between 150 to 170 mm depending on the group set you’re using stance width is another term related to Q factor this is instead the distance between your feet when actually on the pedals the Q factor on your bike will of course impact your stance with but the latter is much

Easier to change you can switch out your pedals to ones with different length spindles you can use spacers to change your stance with or you can adapt your cleat position on your shoes all of which can easily change your stance with on the bike recently I switched to these

Longer spindle pedals from Woo which are considerably longer than what I was using in the past and actually a tad longer than what I used back when I was racing as soon as I switched to them I noticed an instant difference in both my comfort and my power transfer and it led

Me to think that maybe I’ve been totally underestimating Q Factor’s ability to change my feeling when I was riding and my ability to ride harder than I thought possible and it made me think maybe we’re all underestimating Q factor in our riding so I’ve decided to dig a

Little Deeper on the topic starting off with any scientific research that’s out there and actually I found very little scientific research out there on the topic of Q factors but I did find one study of note from 2014 out of the University of Birmingham now in this study researchers looked at different Q

Factors and how that impacted mechanical efficiency and the results were quite interesting actually because they found that narrow Q facts actually improved the mechanical efficiency of riders in the study now they did take Q factor as properly defined for this purpose so they swapped out the bottom bracket to

Make it narrower as the study progressed stance width will of course have changed as a result of narrowing that Q factor but it’s interesting because this study it just looked at one single steady state effort it didn’t look at the fact that your power is going to change at

Different intensity levels or your ability to put down the power at those intensity levels nor did it look at Comfort over longer durations of time or how fatigue at that Q factor may impact your ability to put down the power so whilst the conclusions were interesting

It isn’t the whole story and when you look to the pro pelaton there’s actually some really good examples of riders using much wider pedals to their advantage likes of Bradley Wiggins Mark cenes have both been known to go for a longer spindle on their pedals and

Didn’t do them any harm in the power Department another reason given for using a Nar Q factor and stance with is aerodynamics the reason here is the fact that if you do bring your feet close cler to the bottom bracket you bring your legs in out of the wind creating a

Much narrower profile to cut through the air hopefully ride faster as a result now gram OB is a good example of someone who’s done this in the past riding a really narrow Q factor in his Pursuits of the hour record and I get the reasoning here bring your legs in making

Yourself much narrower much lower profile potentially you’re going to cut through the wind better ride faster but at the same time it doesn’t make though if you bring your feet in and you hope to bring your legs in but at the same time you can’t ride in that position

Your knees spray out and you negate any aerodynamic benefit as a result plus it might not be that comfortable over longer periods and whilst we all love to be aerodynamic I think my main priority is being comfortable on the bike and how that transfers to the power in the leg

Department my own personal view is that for all the different Siz bike riders out there there just isn’t the same Choice when it comes to your Q factor when when you compare it to say differen sized Road frames stem length handlebar width even it’s just not the same choice

So I got in touch with bike fitter Phil Bert who has once been previous physio to team sky and British cycling to get his take on the topic and I started by asking him where this kind of standard length for stance width originated from stance width or Q factor the distance

Between our pedals um is fairly standardized you can obviously get longer and shorter on on certain types of pedals but the yeah it’s just standard it’s just a universal thing and I I imagine it’s come from when bikes were first made and commercially made they probably somebody

Arrived on a distance that seemed to work for most people and they probably didn’t want to offer lots of different ones for commercial production reasons and that was decided upon and generally accepted well generally find that and then as we all know we’ in cycling quite often though we have these cultural

Things that we accept as norms and then they stay and they’re very hard to shift um so the honest answer is I don’t know where he come from but he obviously came from somewhere so then stance width and pedal size is pretty generic across the board but should we be concerned with

This according to Phil should we worry about this aspect of our bike fit I think Stanford is massively overlooked as a factor in so many people’s suboptimal setup um it’s not as powerful as some things for example crank satle heik they’re really really important and so on so but you’re right you think

About the the my the variant of handbar positions we have in whips available which takes a fact that you know I’m bigger and wider than someone than maybe a small lady you know um but the stance width is exactly the same it’s just it’s just mental you know and it can cause it

Can be cause problems and it can be the solution for lots of issues for some people you know my hunch is right then and stance withd can have a big effect on your riding but what are the main perils according to the experts expert of getting this part of your bike fit

Wrong with the St the biggest group of people who suffer that are people who have wide hips which are predominantly women the reason for that is people they have wide hips they basically if they’re forced to have a narrow stance withd that’s the thing that affects Q angle Q

Angle is different to Q factor I tend to talk about Q angle and stance with so people don’t get confused um so Q angle is the angle that your quadriceps meets your patella and Patell tender that so you know what the angle the knee comes

Into to and out so you can imagine it’s basically a kin if we if you imagine doing a single leg squat you set up for that with your foot underneath your hip and your knee in line don’t you yeah otherwise you’d fall over yeah if you

Think about it in cycling if you’ve got wide hip you and your foot’s inside that imagine how sub optimal that is biomechanically now you can do it because you’re not going to fall over because you’re sitting on the Pike yeah but it can cause lots and lots of issues

The prime one would be um sort of the knee irritation you know so contribut a medial side knee pain that’s the inside of your KNE or ilot tual band friction with some people it’s really big um more more importantly it you know we if we

Put if we took you now Conor and put you on a leg press machine I said like put your foot all the way in here nearly across your left foot across where your right B would be you wouldn’t be as powerful if you put that foot directly

In line with your hip so yeah I think there’s performance issues there and then there’s pain and suffering issues but stand withd also is important to how you sit on the saddle because if you’re forced to have this very narrow saddling p stance compared to where your hips

Want to be that can be a real common cause for chafing so when people get chafing saddle injuries are bilateral um I regularly change stli and get rid of all someone’s saddle pain which is a bit blows your mind doesn’t it you know um but I think a lot of people end up

Manipulating crank length because they start to have these problems such as and I don’t I know you’ve changed recently but some of us like to walk differently so for example some of us are pitching toad an narrow St withp isn’t going to really but worry those people because

The heels are out but if you’re a duck and you use speed play pedals because you want to drop your feet in remember we walk on bikes we don’t really pedal so your walking mechanism comes onto the bike you can’t drop your healing because the stance would quite now that’s when

You get crank C so people end up adapting to wider pedal systems to not get crank rod but that’s probably what they should have been in the first place how can you tell then if St with is something you need to change and what are the telltale signs in this area you

Need to switch things up I think if you get excessive crank rub um that’s either because you’re on the wrong pedal system got your clean setup wrong but it it quite often will be you’re trying to drop your heal in because and you can’t because the stance whe is too now so

Crank one with one of them I think uh the other thing I mentioned there is if you if you suffer with chafing on the saddle no matter what type of Saddle youd use or that’s a probably a sign that you’re trying to get your legs in here you You’ be internally rotating

Your hip and that’ll be making you sit in a sit in a very sort of narrow um perching point so those sort of things I think also just um the feeling that um I think some people to div into a bit of physio therapy and people either stand

Up straight up and down or have what we call knock knees you know your knees come together or have what we call Bow knees you bit like more like a cowboy or a horse rider yeah but by mechanically you can’t choose that but if you’re bony quite often you’ll benefit from um a

Wider s because it just accommodates the movement of the leg and allows you to get that foot more in line with the hip um so recognizing your biomechanical differences I know that might be hard for someone but if someone recognizes that they’ve been they they have very

Wide apart n is the way they stand it might be that stance withth in in playing around with st and the other thing is it doesn’t take masses you I know speed pay still do one 65s and that but um I often start with a three mil

Increase and the thing is I have had lots of clients in when we start with most pedals will guarantee the thread on the pedal up to um four mil washers and so four mil you can put two two M washes on and move the pedal slightly wider of course you got

Some movement with most of the CLE systems as well um but um you can make big differences with small ones and then you have the horrible pedal extenders which are you know up to 20 mil they look pretty agricultural but they they can if you want to understand what why

They crank with they’re not that expensive you put them on and if you you saw you know you’re much more comfortable more powerful then maybe that’s for you starts with the Q factor then play a vital role in your feeling on the bike and if you are looking to

Change it up yourself what’s the best way to go about it well here are a few helpful tips which should get you on the road changing your cleat position on your shoes is perhaps the easiest starting place if you do want to change your stance with now this is achieved by

Simply moving your cleats either in or out on your shoes you can also add spaces to your existing pedals but remember to just use two Max per pedal for safety reason seasons and this is of course the easiest place to start the cheapest way as well with the least faf

But if you do want a bigger change that is when it’s time to start thinking about swapping your pedals measured from the shoulder of the pedal axle to the center of the pedal pedal Brands come in at around 52 53 mil for their standard length offering Shimano and Wahoo offer

Longer options at 56 mil whilst woo also has two further offerings 59 and 65 mil terms of gravel riding if you’re looking for more of an off-road mountain bike style clipless pedal then Crank Brothers have two different offerings from 52 to 57 mil Shimano spd go from 52 to around

55 mil and I actually came across SQ Labs pedals which have four different pedal lengths from a very short to quite a very long pedal all the way to 69 mm down from around 50 mm so good options on either end of the spectrum if you’re looking to adapt your position both on

The road and Offroad too it’s an interesting one because I think mountain bikes they naturally have a larger Q factor so your STS with is already going to be quite wide so perhaps there isn’t the need to have a longer spindle on your pedal but that is a good point as

Well because if you are switching between bikes going from a mountain bike to a road bike then it is worth knowing the Q factor of both bikes if you can try and keep them relatively similar by adapting your pedal length it’s going to help your riding as you switch between

The two bikes personally though I found that going to wider pedals has really helped my riding I found it really useful and beneficial so it’s definitely something I’m going to keep an eye on as I switch between bikes and try and get that similar position on my road and my

Gravel setups but if you are looking to make some changes do remember the old adage of making small changes over time not making one big lump of a thing that you’re going to have to struggle to adapt to just do those gradual changes see how they feel before you then go and

Make any further adjustments starts with Q factor then something that can make a really big difference to your riding I’ve been guilty of overlooking it in the past and perhaps we all have from time to time but it is something that you should pay attention to and I hope

This video has helped you get a bit more information on the topic and perhaps make a decision about whether you need to make any changes yourself let us know in the comments section below if you’ve experimented with it in the past and what difference it’s made to your own

Writing and if you did find this video useful please give it a big thumbs up thanks for watching as always we see you on the next one