Bicycle Toeclips

Toeclips are great and all, but they do inevitably wear out when cycling on roads. Here's a design for some made from nylon webbing and a off the shelf straps. All you need is the webbing, a sewing machine and the knowhow to use it, and a couple of cable ties.

For a pair of toeclips you will need:

1m of 50mm nylon webbing.
1.5m of 40mm nylon webbing.
(quite easy to adapt to different widths of webbing, but that's what I happened to have around)
Thick black thread, synthetic if possible.
2 x toe clip straps, such as these from Zefal
2 x 4.5mm x 200mm cable ties.
The attached layout file, printed out if possible:

Cut the webbing as shown in the attached layout. I used dress pins inserted into the webbing end on to help mark the points to cut to.

Seal all ends by melting with a flame to prevent fraying.

Sew the two pieces of webbing together as shown in the layout and photos. Use a zigzag stitch near the edge and do two passes for toughness. Tie off well. There are two joins to sew for each toeclip.

Both ends of the webbing assembly need to be doubled over to form loops for the strap to pass through. These should be done squint as shown in the layout to allow the toeclips to sit in the correct fashion.

Pin as shown in the picture first and again, do two passes for toughness. Tie off well.

Take your clips to the bike. Orient the pedal as shown, with the slot for receiving the strap at the bottom of the pedal. Take one cable tie and tie as loosely as possible (on the first few clicks) through the front of the pedal such that the opening is oriented upwards or forwards, as shown.

Insert the non-buckled end of the strap through the outside slot of the pedal, with the buckle facing down (pic 1). Insert the toe clip webbing through the front of the cable tie, with thedomed side of the webbing facing down (pic 2). Flip the pedal (pic 3) through 180degrees and thread the strap through the loop of the webbing adnd on through the inside slot of the pedal (pic 4). Thread through the loop in the other end of the webbing and clip into the buckle to form a loop in the strap.

  

Gently tighten up the cable tie just so that it slightly grips the webbing and doesn't slip around. Clip the excess off the cable tie.

That's you! Take care to set the straps to a suitable diameter such that you can slide your feet in and out easily but can also transfer power from your foot to the pedal.

These toeclips aren't as stiff as others so are much easier to clip into at low speed than when up to a high cadence. Am working on some kind of stiffening improvement for this..