Quote Originally Posted by Owlie View Post
Getting those little stress fractures when running makes sense because your feet end up supporting several times your body weight with each step. This just doesn't happen with riding.

Tangent, it could be any number of things, depending on what type of pain it is. How old are your shoes? If they're fairly old, they may have just broken down with use. (Though I imagine it would take far longer with bike shoes than with regular ones since you're not walking so much with them.) Your cleat placement may need to be tweaked. Or you may just need to switch to a stiffer shoe and/or road pedals. I've been contemplating making the switch to road pedals because I've been getting hot spots.
I don't know, I wouldn't be so quick to rule out stress fractures. My stress fractures weren't necessarily from my feet pounding the ground, they were from my toes hitting the front edge of my shoe repetitively.

Especially since I have a morton's toe (when your second toe next to your big toe is longer than the rest of your toes), that toe would especially hit harder than the rest and my toe nail would actually turn dark blue as if someone hit it with a hammer. I asked the doctor about this and even read an article in 'Runner's World' about 'black toe syndrome'. You don't have to hit any part of your body very hard if you hit it in the same place over and over ... it will eventually bruise and you can get very tiny fractures in your bone.

I think riding for long distances with cycling shoes, especially since cycling shoes tend to be sturdy with not much padding. Cycling shoes are stiff and hard against your foot for support and I think this could definitely cause a stress fracture. Heck, even when I rode for the short time I did this summer before my accident my toes and bottom of my feet were already starting to bother me (I was riding up to 3 hours on some days). Also, if you have osteoporosis your bones will stress fracture very easily as well.