How tall should cycling socks be: Optimum Sock Height

How tall should cycling socks be: an investigation into optimum sock height and its effect on peak cycling performance.

Isn't cycling a funny old sport?

The whims and whimsies of each individual are divergent, many-varied and ever on display, often in an overt display much like a male peacock's routine.

And it's funny how quickly fashions and brands take hold and spread amongst the peloton.

By way of comparison, I remember when I was a young whipper snapper on the fairways, sporting a fairly sharp pair of Payne Stewart (Craig Staedler, take your pick—throwback!) checked pants. No one else had the temerity to rock those pants on the golf club. I don't know what that says about me, but I'll let you draw your own conclusions. (I will choose to assume it means I was too cool. You know, “you can't touch this”).

About the only wildfire-like things you see spread through the pro ranks on the golf course now is flat brimmed hats (lame) or everyone using the latest tech. Fashion seems a matter of personal choice (hi, John Daly and your checked pants).

Anyway, not so in cycling.

An example: socks (and those ridiculous 1980s helmets with no vents. What. The. Hell.). Yes, that seemingly-boring, much-maligned pedial accroutement now carries as much social cachet as any other number of velo accessories (like deep dish tubs on training rides. Seriously. I couldn’t make this up).

I mean, have you seen the Attaquer socks? The Ride or Die ones? Man, they’re long. Really, really long.

(Some will howl at my audacity in mentioning these socks in seemingly negative terms.)

And I'm not blameless: I have some Aqto super long crit socks that also give my grandpa’s bowls club socks a shake. (I will confess I didn't try these on before buying.)

But moving beyond the aesthetics of socks, I got to wondering about possible performance enhancing effects of Giant Tall Socks.

Because it seems to me we should be optimising our sock length for performance, not for extreme length or aesthetics.

Who'd have thought we'd be sitting here discussing sock length, with some socks almost as tall as a big game hunter's old school safari socks. But it seems to me a necessary conversation cycling needs to have, given the potential damage one could inflict upon one’s cycling performance.

This was reinforced to me recently when I took my friend Chris, who was visiting from Melbourne, for a longish ride in the humid Byron weather, with lots of climbing. Poor old Chris’ feet broke down with about 40km to go of our 140km, and my hypothesis was that his Giant Tall Socks of an impressive yellow hue, were adversely affecting his performance.

As you can see below, Chris has an excellent leg profile, however, I feel he has been overly generous in choosing his Optimal Sock Height. He is definitely entering into crit racer territory here, without the crit racing palamares to back it up.

Andrew below provides another great example. Whilst he has a great colour sock ( I stand by any man willing to wear hot pink with such flagrant disdain for the potential mockery cast his way) and is obviously comfortable. My only concern is the form and height. Andrew’s calves don’t particularly match his sock height, lending credence to the possibility that inappropriate sock height might be affecting his riding through a fundamental mismatch of his Q factor. Q factor is the cankle factor of your legs, so finding Q factor (or Cankle Quotient) is incredibly important.

Chris and I, upon returning and considering this issue over a cold beverage of the Heineken variety, decided we ought to investigate Optimal Sock Height in the hope we could construct a mathematical equation governing Minimum Sock Height (SHmin) and Maximum Sock Height (SHmax) and a related Minimum and Maximum sock cuff size that allows one to easily shop for optimally-sized socks.

How tall should cycling socks be

Here’s the video that breaks down our investigation method.

Here’s the equation we settled upon. I’ve yet to have time to graphically model this in software like MatLab so if any readers are mathematically inclined (I left maths behind after Fourier and Laplace mathematics at university), I’d love to see if we can construct a graphical representation of this.

But first, some acronyms:

• OSH: Optimal Sock height. The height at which we posit that one's peak cycling performance is attained.
• SH_min: Sock Height Minimum. The height on the calf, for your minimum sock height. Measured from the midpoint on your ankle bone.
• SH_max: Sock Height Minimum. The height on the calf, for your minimum sock height. Measured from the midpoint on your ankle bone.
• CL_min and CL_max: the minimum and maximum cuff lengths for the actual sock. These are normally the length the socks are sold at, for example, Swiftwick's 4″ cuff would be a 10cm cuff.
• H, or h, is your height, measured in centimetres, and expressed in decimal number. This means a height of 187cm would give h=1.87.

First we can posit that OSH can be described as a relationship between SHmin and SHmax, with the OSH initially being described thus:

OSH= ½(SH_max-SH_min)

We therefore can see we need to solve for SH_max and SH_min.

After performing some sock height optimising investigations (in the video), I came up with a formula.

These equations are normalised to my height, however they do include adjustments for your height, and also, importantly Q factor, or Cankle Quotient.

I am still trying to find an objective ratio to describe Q factor, but it currently can be described as lying between 0.5 and 1.

If you have almost zero cankle factor, your Q will be 1. If you are very cankly you will want to use Q=0.5. I welcome any improvements on this methodology.

Minimum and maximum sock heights are solved in a similar fashion as shown below.

Minimum Sock Height

SH_min = 9Q(^h⁄_1.67)^2+(h-1.67)

An example: for a person of 1.67m and Q=1, we will have a SH_min of 9cm.

Solving for CL_min is easy. The int refers to the mathematical integer. If your result is 10.77, round up to 11cm.

CL_min=int(SH_min*(⁵⁄₉))

Using our SH_min of 9cm, we get a CL_min of 5cm, or, 2 inches.

If you don't want to know the SH_min, you can calculate CL_min thusly:

CL_min=5Q(^h⁄_1.67)^2+(h-1.67)

For a height of 1.67m, and Q=1, we get 5cm.

Maximum Sock Height

SH_max = 13Q(^h⁄_1.67)^2+(h-1.67)

Using our hypothetical person of 1.67m and Q=1, we get 13.5cm.

Maximum sock cuff is solved for thus:

CL_max=int(SH_max*(²⁰⁄₂₇)).

This gives us 10cm for CL_max, using h=1.67, Q=1 and SH_max=13.5.

If you don't want to know the SH_max, you can calculate CL_max thusly:

CL_max=10Q(^h⁄_1.67)^2+(h-1.67)

Now, these calculations are fairly accurate, but your mileage may vary. What they do give you is a starting point to optimise your sock height to address any performance issues.

Ignoring these guidelines can lead to broken feet (referred to as sock-sickness), a general disposition to being a slower rider, and ridicule from non crit-riders (though any ridicule foisted upon you by a short-sock-wearing triathlete is to be denigrated appropriately).

Crit Racing and general Melbourne Sock Height

If you are a crit racer or live in Melbourne, ignore these sturdy, reliable rules and just wear socks that go up to the widest point of your calf muscle, as illustrated below.