Quote Originally Posted by Bike Goddess
I can't address wide feet but if the balls of your feet are bothering you, you check how you are pedaling. Most women pedal with the downward force on the balls of their feet (i.e.metarsal arch) which causes much pain. When you pedal downward be sure to push down with your heels not your toes. This will strengthen your stroke (it takes a bit of time to get used to this as you'll be using different muscles) and take the pressusre off your metarsals.
soooooo - I had the whole "scrap whatever off the bottom of my shoe" and "push knees into handlebars" thing but I was pushing with the ball of my foot to the bottom of the stroke and Then flattening the foot - until the Goddess showed me the way. can you say Holy Incense?? What a difference it makes. Funny thing is, I kept thinking of horseback riding (where you need to keep the heels down) the whole time I was working on this. Thanks Nancy, that seemed to be the piece I was missing.

Tri: let us know what ends up working for you!