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resolvedMy trainers are beginning to look a bit bashed and was thinking it may be the time for some minor upgrades.
Is winter a good time to embark on the wonderful world of attached cycling, or should I wait for things to take a turn for the better next year.
I just started a couple weeks ago and id say DO IT!!!! Cleats are really not all that hard, they give you great feel for the traction of the back wheel and a good extra 10% power.. Ive even had a few very hairy moments on them and still remembered to twist my foot to get off. If you crash because of cleats its prolly something stupid and low speed because you forget you have them. Coming off on ice at speed is gonna hurt no matter what and I'm reasonably confident that the cleats will disengage in such extreme circumstances.
's tempting. I'm in just strapless clips at the moment (and have been for ages so think it could make quite a difference.
Has anyone got any suggestions of non-bank breaking options or good sources. Aside from LIDL/ALDI as I think I've missed their sales :P
Despite recently replacing my worn pedals and refreshing my leaky trainers I have been vaguely looking at cleats and related items of late, particular regarding the wet-weather-attachment aspects.
The second most major thing stopping me from trying them is that whilst there's plenty of mention of float in the systems' descriptions there's nothing about the lateral position of the foot. Some shoes appear to offer fore-and-aft cleat-fixing leeway but nothing side-to-side. I tend to shuffle on the pedals depending on what sort of pedalling I'm doing (or just when my feet feel claustrophobic or I find I'm catching my medial malleolus on the crank) and it's reasonable to wonder whether a manufacturer's idea of where my foot should be would concur with my own.
The major thing stopping me trying them is finding a reasonably water-resistant cleatable shoe in a design able to be walked in (in case of mechanical failures, if wandering round a shop etc.) which are wide enough for my feet.
I managed to get a few matching pairs of spd's at the bike station for £3 each. Ebay is another place where folk sell good condition used spuds and cleats.Got a pair for £6 plus £2.50 postage and they were practicaly new. I got some shimano shoes from velo ecosse for £25. I love the spuds and say go for it!!
thanks for all the info so far. Will have to have a look into it.
there is a LOT of leeway for adjustment to find you favorite foot placement, i think ive got mine nailed down now, tho depending on the day one foot or the other is a micro-fraction out, so i tell them o shut up and keep pedaling ;)
yah you cant shuffle about but you can pedal without being clipped in if you fancy a break from the proscribed position for a while.
ask me again in 5 months :)
Been using them on my mtb for years, and my commuter for about 6 months, I now have "half and half" spd pedals on both bikes and wouldn't go back, best of both worlds :-)
You can get half spd half conventional pedals from ebay and indeed from some bike shops about the £20 mark, shoes- well both my pairs were Shimano mountain bike ones in a lbs sale so I don't actually know what they cost(!)
They're not waterproof, but they're not bad either... and easy to walk around in, I have been known to just leave them on all day because I can't be bothered changing. (Though the cleats click on hard surfaces on mine)
Oh and I can confirm that if you fall off in them they do magically pop free no problems (blushes)
The major thing stopping me trying them is finding a reasonably water-resistant cleatable shoe in a design able to be walked in (in case of mechanical failures, if wandering round a shop etc.) which are wide enough for my feet.
There's a couple of goretex lined shoes aimed at also being walking / light trekking shoes. MT60 and MT91 are two of them, they're not hugely cheap though.
Good general purpose shoes that are fairly discrete in terms of wearing to the pub or wherever and have a recessed cleat housing (2-bolt) so you don't sound like a panto horse also are Specialised Sonoma. Not waterproof by any stretch of the imagination but comfortable and a great compromise between cycling and walking.
I actually prefer my old Look shoes for cycling in, as ir really does feel like your feet are bolted directly to the crank, however they are ridiculously impracticle for anything beyong hobbling into a shop for a coffee or some more jelly babies. I located my second pair of look pedals on ebay from the bikestation, bargain at a tenner and hardly used. And in blue too!
EBC do their own SPD-compatible pedal and a half-and-half also that won't break the bank. I used the half-and-half for a year or so, it does the job. However as I never ended up not riding in a cleated shoe, it got a bit annoying having to spin the pedal around to find the side with the binding mechanism (it's a lot less intuitive than doing the same on a single sided pedal, as both sides "feel" the same underfoot). If you don't intend to use regular shoes at all then I'd recommend going for a 2-sided pedal. A lot less to think about when starting off from the lights.
I was looking at the less disruptive double-sided also-normal-serrated-platform MTB/SPD pedals (545?) for their ability to be used with normal footwear when required and for not requiring you to look down and flip before starting off. I tried an MT60 on but I'd need to cut off my little toe for it to be comfy, and though a recessed cleat wouldn't click and clop the big lump under the ball of my foot was quite uncomfortable to stand in, never mind walk. An EBC staff recommended Specialized for coping with the width but they didn't have any at the time. What about side-side wiggle-room? I've never tried cleats but clips (which permit at least as much rotation as cleats claim) have always given me immediate knee-ache by forcing my feet too close together...
I tried them for a while but ditched them when I had the kiddie seat on the back, had a few stupid falls when I forgot I had them in. Now one of the screws has fallen out of the cleat and I need to replace it before I can go back. I would probably wait for the drier weather to be honest
With an SPD cleat you have a wide range of fore-aft adjustment (at least 20mm) to get it under the ball of your foot. You also have about 5mm side-side wiggle room each way to move your knees inwards or outwards and then of course you can rotate the cleat to either toe-in or toe-out the foot position. And on top of that you get the float built into the cleats.
I would second that the Sonoma atleast offers plenty of room for a wider foot. (perhaps even a bit too much for me as the shoe aged and the fabric stretched with time and wear).
I found that on double sided spd platform pedals the spd part sticking up was too uncomfortable to use in normal shoes which limited its use for me, ymmv of course(!)
Do it!
I've got clipless pedals on my road bike (SPD-SL) and flat pedals on my singlespeed. [I'd have clipless on my singlespeed if I could find some SPD/similar shoes that I'd be prepared to wear around town, but I've been too lazy to do the research and the shoes that I happen to see in most shops just look like pretty clunky trainers.]
I find that I'm always shuffling my feet around on the flat pedals to find a comfy position. I don't even think about doing that on the SPD-SLs (not that I could, obviously) because my feet click in to the correct position and stay there.
I also feel much more secure clipped in. Yes, I've had three traditional slow motion sideways falls when I've been distracted at a junction, but unclipping has become second nature now. I've had far more incidents on the flats where my foot has slipped off the pedal when pushing down hard, or my shoe has caught the wrong bit of pedal and twisted off. I tend to be moving when these happen, which makes them somewhat events hairier than those involving the clipless pedals.
What gear ratio do you run on your spinglespeed? I couldn't get started without being clipped in!
I think it's 46/17 - around about 70 inches IIRC... Must admit that I'm not a fan of hill starts on it!
I run 46 16 on my fixed and that's 77 gear inches.
I used to have 46/17, it's 74.5. I have 53/17 now which is 81 and a bit unreasonable (understatement!) for hill starts, but I'm new to it, and it's no different than when I first tried the same on the original gear.
PS, I hope you don't have a red and white Giant singlespeed because if you do I've publicly criticised it elsewhere on this forum :(
Do not fear - it's not a Giant. :)
It's also nowhere near as impressive a gearing now I've checked - 44/17 - c 68 inches. It does mean I spin out a bit on the flats, but my kneecaps don't pop off on the hills. It's fine for getting round town, which is what I bought it for...
81 seems a bit bullish, but if you've got it flaunt it!
it's all about having a bigger ring than the man next to you at the lights, right? :)
It's why I can never make eye contact with anyone at the lights. Ring envy... :)
we are still talking about bikes right?
Wull go some shoes, next step pedals. Any tips on pedals. Wouldn't mind some flip flop ones so I can ride to the garage at lunchtime in my office shooz.
I've got Wellgo pd-m17c half and halfs on my commuter and they seem good so far, nice and slim anyway and the non-slip pads on the uncleated side work well for preventing my feet slipping off(!)
Got some Crank Brothers Smarty pedals with my CRC discount for £16! Since my route is pretty mucky thought they would clog a bit less than the other more complicated options, and they were a fairly chirpy cheep option.
Just wait for the next 'rider down' post :)
I have cleats on my road bike but on my commute I have clips - just the way I am, I find it never gets to second nature finding the cleat after the trafffic light. I notice that I am away at lights faster than many commuters searching for the cleat. (the 50/50 pedal I tried was worst of both worlds for me - ie harder to hit the cleat and 50% of time with normal shoes on you hit the cleat side] I tend to forget too that I am locked in. It is just me - I am not making a wider point except that if you are like me at all - winter would be the worst time to go for cleats. Also for work I would probably need to carry another pair of shoes.
I use Crank Bros Candy pedals for commuting. It's always easy to clip in and out and all I've done to them is one re-greasing in the past year.
Being double-sided, they are always ready to clip in to - not like "roadie" style single-sided clip-ins.
The 50:50 pedals seem like a good idea, but in practice you seem to end up trying to get the clip side up while setting off.
druidh - I did consider them with you in The Bike Chain I recollect and was almost convinced - they have a much bigger target area for the cleat on the way in is my recollection
I have to say if I'm leaving the lights and the pedal isn't cleat side up I just ride the uncleated side until a suitable moment to flip it over (easy peasy once you're used to them) and clip in. I'm sure we've all ridden a lot of miles without clip ins/toe clips, four or five pedal turns away from the lights doesn't seem that much of a big deal to me?
In practice I find I clip in first time about 80 or 90% of the time away from lights, the rest of the time, what the heck, I'm not racing...
gembo - if you want to try a set, let me know.
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