Firstly, big ups to Escape Collective for creating a forum. First cycling forum post for me in over a decade!
Ok, I have a pair of Shimano S-PHYRE SH-XC903 shoes, which I’ve had for approximately 6 months. Not long but long enough to break them in. On rides over 4-5 hours my feet are killing me from hot spots. I can feel the location where the cleat is located is flat and does not match the same curve of the rest of the toe box. My suspicion is the cleat bolts are causing this change in the toe box curve and creating a flat spot.
Have others experienced this issue?
Would shorter cleat bolts help?
Does anyone make shorter cleat bolts?
For what it’s worth I have replaced the stock insole with a high arch insole from Super Feet and recently tried adding those little inserts from Specialized that rotate the feet outwards. Neither has fixed the issue. Also worth noting, my previous shoes were from Giro and after several years of use never caused this issue.
Brian Sims
Chaparral Cycles - Co-founder
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Shorter bolts would only help if they are protruding into the insole.
Did you use Superfeet insoles in your old shoes, or some other brand, or the stock ones? I’d try to mimic what you had for now until you get to the bottom of it.
Did your old shoes use Boa dials? It’s very easy to over tighten the Boas, putting extra pressure on your feet and compressing your arch.
Lastly, did you mimic the cleat position exactly, and if so, how? Number one for foot pain, hot spots, etc is to ensure the cleats are not too far forward. To eliminate the possibility, you can move them ALL the way back for a test. You may need to lower your saddle slightly. If all checks out but pedaling feels weird , you can move your cleat forward incrementally.
Having a cleat too far back generally does not cause pain, it just might not be ideal for pedaling feel, toe overlap, high rpm pedaling, etc. Having the cleat too far forward often does result in pain.
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I have had this issue of hot foot on shoes (including shimano) which protruding bolts partly contributed.
A couple of things got rid of hotfoot:
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cut up a small plastic strip, like an old bank card and put it over the cleat hole underneath the insole. I taped mine down. This stops you feeling the individual bolt.
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ensure you have a suitable insole for your foot. Turns out my arches are very high and I need sidas three feet slim high to get adequate support
Hot spots are often due to arc collapse and can often be solved with insoles.
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Thank you everyone for your input. I have replaced the stock insoles with a high arch SuperFeet because I do have a well pronounced arch. I used SuperFeet insoles in my previous Giro shoes. Both shoes had/have dual Boa dials and I tend to keep the dials on the looser side and they get loser as the hours increase. My cleat position is towards the back but not all the way. I was not super scientific with the cleat positioning compared to the Giro shoes but I would guess the cleat is very close, but not precise. To Geraldo’s point, my last ride I did add the Specialized Body Geometry plastic toe box inset that rotates the foot outward. The hope was this would help protect the foot from the cleat bolts if that was the source of the problem. Unfortunately no luck. I will use the shoes for another few months to see if they just need longer to break in. Maybe it’s a width issue and pinching nerves from the feet swelling inside the shoe after 5-6 plus hours. Seems a clear pattern here no one things shorter cleat bolts is the answer 
, so I’ll look for other solutions.
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I think SPD bolts are M5 x 10mm with countersunk heads. It certainly should be possible to find shorter such bolts (e.g., try betterbolts or McMaster-Carr)
It is dead easy to shorten bolts. Trick is to put two nuts on the bolt so you can file or cut it back to the first sacrificial nut. Then as you remove the nuts any thread damage is fixed. You can use a hand file, dremel or angle grinder as available.
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