When you buy a Peloton bike, you’re making a big investment in your health.
Indoor cycling workouts are associated with numerous physical and mental health benefits such as reducing blood pressure, strengthening your heart and lungs, burning calories and helping support weight loss, and decreasing stress.
However, buying a Peloton bike is also a sizable financial investment. You have the rather steep upfront cost of the bike, and then the ongoing membership fee for access to the extensive Peloton classes and workouts.
You’ll also need a good pair of cycling shoes. Peloton shoes are typically the best option for most people because there are no issues with compatibility between the Peloton cycling shoe cleat and the bike, though there are other options as well.
But, how do you buy the right Peloton shoes? What sizes do Peloton shoes come in? And do Peloton shoes run true to size?
If you live in the United States, buying Peloton cycling shoes can be confusing because of the Peloton shoe sizing system. In this article, we will discuss how Peloton shoes should fit, Peloton shoe sizing, and we have a comprehensive Peloton Shoe Size Chart to convert Peloton shoe sizes to US shoe sizes.
We’ll be covering:
- Do I Need Peloton Shoes to Ride My Peloton?
- Can You Use Peloton Shoes On Other Bikes?
- The Peloton Shoe Size Chart
- Do Peloton Bike Shoes Fit True to Size?
- Should You Size Up Or Down With Peloton Shoes?
Ready to get to grips with the Peloton Shoe Size Chart?
Let’s dive in!
Do I Need Peloton Shoes to Ride My Peloton?
Having proper footwear for any type of exercise is important, and because Peloton indoor cycling workouts are designed to be high-intensity, vigorous workouts and/or longer endurance rides, it’s really best to wear proper cycling shoes on the Peloton rather than regular sneakers.
Cycling shoes have cleats on the bottom that enable you to clip into the pedal. This allows your foot and pedal to essentially become one unit, increasing the efficiency and power transfer of your pedal stroke to the bike.
Although it’s possible to ride a Peloton bike with regular sneakers, if this is your plan, it’s best to add toe cages to the pedals so that you can secure your foot at least partially to the pedal to improve your upstroke.
The Peloton bike pedals are compatible with any cycling shoes that have Delta cleats. Delta cleats are a specific configuration of the pins and cleats mechanism that allows you to clip into the pedal.
Although Peloton has its own branded bike shoes that are specifically designed to optimize the pedal stroke on the Peloton bike, any cycling shoes with Delta cleats should work with the Peloton bike – even if they’re not Peloton-branded bike shoes.
Can You Use Peloton Shoes On Other Bikes?
Just as you can wear any cycling shoes with Delta cleats on a Peloton bike, so too can you wear Peloton shoes on any indoor cycle that has pedals that are compatible with Delta cleats.
The platform on the sole of Peloton shoes has three holes at the bottom for cleats, which are used to attach the Delta blocks. The Delta blocks are then clipped into the bike pedals.
Additionally, you can buy Delta-compatible pedals if you want to wear your Peloton shoes on a different type of bike that you already have.
The Peloton Shoe Size Chart
Peloton shoes cost $125 and come in a range of sizes, but rather than following the US shoe sizing system, Peloton shoes use EU shoe sizes.
The available Peloton shoe sizes range from 36-43 EU for women and 40-48 EU for men. There are no Peloton children’s shoes, but if your child can fit into a US Women’s size 5, he or she can wear the size 36 Peloton Shoe.
For those who are unfamiliar with EU shoe sizing, this Peloton Shoe Size Chart will show you the proper conversion from the Peloton shoe size to US shoe size:
Peloton Shoe Size | Women’s Shoe Size (US) | Men’s Shoe Size (US) |
---|---|---|
36 | 5 | |
37 | 6 | |
38 | 7 | |
39 | 8 | |
40 | 9 | 7 |
41 | 10 | 8 |
42 | 11 | 9 |
43 | 12 | 10 |
44 | 10.5 | |
45 | 11 | |
46 | 12 | |
47 | 13 | |
48 | 13.5 |
Do Peloton Bike Shoes Fit True to Size?
Once you have a general idea of how to convert your US shoe size to Peloton shoe size, it’s helpful to understand how Peloton shoes fit.
Peloton shoes run true to size, but there are a few important things to point out about how Peloton shoes fit.
If you have never worn cycling shoes before, you might be surprised at how the shoe feels on your foot. Cycling shoes have a very hard plastic platform on the sole of the shoe that is used for the cleats.
The reason the sole of the shoe is so rigid is because it helps reduce power or energy loss, by more efficiently transferring the power from your leg muscles into the pedal as you move.
However, this greatly stiffens the shoe and essentially immobilizes the foot.
Whereas with a running shoe or a regular sneaker, there is a flexible rubber sole that enables you to smoothly transition from the heel to toe of the shoe during your running or walking gait, a cycling shoe is a stiff, plastic, rigid lever that will not flex at the ball of your foot.
This inflexibility can make it feel like there is less room in the shoe to move your foot; plus, you actually do not need as much room, so the shoes do fit more snuggly.
With a running shoe, for example, the general sizing advice is to have at least a half inch or a thumb nail’s width between the tip of your longest toe and the end of the shoe. This enables your foot to pronate, supinate, and splay a bit and shift forward as you transition from weight bearing on the heel to the toe when the shoe flexes for push-off.
However, this extra room is not needed when you are wearing a cycling shoe because the shoe is not bending and you are not weight bearing down on your foot (so there’s no foot splay).
Therefore, when a cycling shoe fits properly, it will feel snugger all around compared to a running shoe.
You only need a few millimeters of clearance between the tip of your longest toe and the end of the cycling shoe. From a width perspective, the cycling shoe should hug your foot rather than allowing for lots of freedom to wiggle your toes.
For this reason, even though Peloton shoes fit true to size, many people initially feel like they run small because the shoes will feel tighter than you might be accustomed to with your sneakers.
Should You Size Up Or Down With Peloton Shoes?
Except for a few men’s sizes, Peloton shoes only come in whole sizes. Therefore, if you normally fall in between two sizes and wear a half size, you’ll have to decide if you want to size up or size down your Peloton shoes.
Is it better to size up or size down Peloton shoes?
As mentioned, due to the differences in the way that cycling shoes fit compared to running shoes, Peloton shoes fit true to size but tend to feel a little snug when you’re first adjusting to wearing a cycling shoe.
Moreover, the Peloton shoes fit true to size if your foot is a standard width.
However, they will probably feel too narrow if you have a wide foot and normally wear a wide-width shoe, so it’s best to size up one size, and if you have a particularly narrow foot, it is often best to size down one size.
If your foot is of regular width but between two sizes, it’s a matter of personal preference whether you’d prefer to size up or size down.
Many people are more comfortable sizing up, but if you’ve worn cycling shoes before and are familiar with how they normally feel, you might prefer sizing down. The more intimate the cycling shoe fits, the better your control and power transfer to the pedals.