Indoor Q-Factor

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Your bike's Q-Factor is the width of your crankset or the distance from the outer edge of one crank arm to the other.  





More important is the measurement of stance. That's the distance between the centre of each pedal.

Getting your stance the same across bikes can make riding more comfortable while potentially avoiding knee, hip and back problems associated with less than optimal bike fit.






Most of us can agree: Overall bike fit is critical. I described my method in a previous post: Better Bike Fit. 

Getting the stance the same between bikes is a probably less critical but still worth doing.

Measuring Stance

Road bike stance is easy to determine since the bottom bracket centre aligns with the rear wheel.




Just measure from the spoke nipple centreline to the middle of each pedal.






Indoor bikes, like my Stages SB20, don't have a definitive centre line so you need to measure the distance between the centre of each pedal.






No big deal. 

A ruler and set square does the job.



My road bike has a stance of 25 cm (10 in).  My indoor bike is wider at 28 cm (11 in).

Adjusting Q-Factor/Stance

Most bikes don't have an adjustable stance but shoes do.  My solution three years ago:  Buy a comfortable and walkable set of indoor-only shoes. I then adjusted the cleats outward to normalize the stance between  bikes.  FWIW: I like MTB SPD cleats.  



I use inexpensive Shimano CT-500 as indoor-only shoes. 

The cleats are pushed outward by 1.5 cm to effectively match my outdoor bike stance.

Laces work better than expected too 😀.






IMHO: I wouldn't spend much money to address Q-Factor and stance differences.

If you are buying new shoes for indoors, why not?

====== Bonus ======

A trick I started using this year to keep the cleats quiet and well lubricated for dozens of rides:




Silca Super Secret drip chain wax.


Add a few drops to both sides of the cleats, let dry for 4 hours - and go! 

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