"mountain" and "road" pedals

John Forrest Tomlinson wrote:

Yeah, with SPDs it gets harder to get out of the pedals as the cleats
wear. What is it with Look cleats?

Looks usually wear at the front edge on the foot you put down at
traffic lights. When worn, they will just release when you pull up
really hard. In other words they release at the worst possible times.
You need to monitor wear on your look cleats to play it safe. If the
front edge looks thin, it's time to replace them.
-------------------
Alex

wrote:
Artoi wrote:
---snip---
One salesman told me that SPD system
sometimes can crack the sole and they had a number of customers coming
back with that problem. Is that also BS?


Pure, highly refined, sales weapon grade LBS BS.

I disagree. I've cracked the soles of Shimano MTB shoes (210 or
something...about 10 years ago), Nike MTB shoes (Cairns, or some
such...the red and silver ones), and Specialized road shoes (no clue
what model, but I'd guess about 2 or 3 from the top-o-the-line) - all
with SPD or SPD type (onza, in the case of the Shimanos) pedals. All
of the sole cracks happened in line with the back of the cleat. This
is not to say that it will always happen, and it bears mentioning that
all of these shoes had significant (or in the case of the SHimano, very
very very significant) mileage. But it is not total BS.

SYJ

SYJ wrote:
wrote:
Artoi wrote:
---snip---
One salesman told me that SPD system
sometimes can crack the sole and they had a number of customers coming
back with that problem. Is that also BS?


Pure, highly refined, sales weapon grade LBS BS.

I disagree. I've cracked the soles of Shimano MTB shoes (210 or
something...about 10 years ago), Nike MTB shoes (Cairns, or some
such...the red and silver ones), and Specialized road shoes (no clue
what model, but I'd guess about 2 or 3 from the top-o-the-line) - all
with SPD or SPD type (onza, in the case of the Shimanos) pedals. All
of the sole cracks happened in line with the back of the cleat. This
is not to say that it will always happen, and it bears mentioning that
all of these shoes had significant (or in the case of the SHimano, very
very very significant) mileage. But it is not total BS.



I find this rather odd. I have never heard of this before, and I
personally have used a pair of Specialized shoes since 1991 (and, to
answer the anticipated questions, lots of mile, lots of clip in/clip
out and a fair bit of walking around). I also used a pair of Nikes in
that same period; they were junk in other ways, but no problems with
the sole. The fact that you have had this problem with three different
brands of shoes makes me wonder if something unusual is going on.

wrote:

--snip--

I find this rather odd.
--/snip--

I agree. The only common thread is that all of the broken shoes had
very stiff soles (not CFRP). I replaced the specialized road shoes
with some sidis (with the millenium soles) and have logged a lot of
miles w/no problems, but sidi likes to say that cycling shoes should
have *some* flex in them (which IMHO makes for an uncomfortable hot
spot behind the cleat, but I digress). Likewise, my crappy nikes were
replaced with some low end diadoras with *lots* of sole flex, and no
cracking thus far (only about 4 years of sporadic MTB riding on these).

The Shimanos, in all liklihood, just wore out. I got them in 94, and
used them nonstop (both road and MTB) for 6+ years - to the point that
the tread on the soles was largely worn out.

Based on the above anecdotes (I know, a small sample size to say the
least), I think that the relatively small area of the SPD cleats, when
combined with narrow, hard&stiff soles with the two longitudinal
cutouts for the cleat mounting mechanism concentrated the stresses in
an extremely small area (the "teeth" in the cleats magnifying this),
eventually resulting in some surface cracking. Those cracks, combined
with walking off the bike, (which would normally result in sole flex
right around the cleat mounting point) = a recipie for total sole
failure. More modern stiff shoes with better reinforcements (CFRP or
different glass/epoxy formulations), or more flexible shoes of any era,
appear less likely to crack in such a manner.

SYJ

PS, all of the above shoes died in my 'skinny' days - about 150-160 lbs.

On Mon, 16 Oct 2006 18:19:09 -0700, Mark Hickey wrote:

This situation is an artifact of the history of Ritchey pedals. When
they were first released (no pun intended) they had a very, very similar
- but NOT identical - to the SPD cleat. The Ritchey cleat would work
reasonably well in Shimano SPD pedals, but the other way around (which
is where most folks got their first impression of Ritchey pedals) didn't
work so well.

However, all the Ritchey SPD pedals have been "fully SPD compatible" for
years now - you should be able to swap back and forth with impunity.

Well, the Ritchey cleats I have "work" in my Shimano pedals, but not
nearly as smoothly as Shimano cleats. I have no idea how old the Ritchey
cleats are though. I bought them because they were the only cleats any
bike shop in town had in stock. For all I know they could have been lying
around for years.

Matt O.

On Tue, 17 Oct 2006 18:17:40 +0000, jobst.brandt wrote:

Artoi who? writes:

seconded. That sounds like a big ole smear of brown roadie
BS.Tighten them down nicely and most SPD will grip as well as any
mere mortal will ever need. Unless you have special needs knees,
don't **** away your money on special needs pedals. The basic
Shimanos, or even Wellgo 800s ($40), or the house branded Wellgos
like Nashbar are great. Cleats are ubiquitous and inexpensive as
well.

The associated question now is what are the pros and cons of using
road shoes with SPD cleats/pedals? One salesman told me that SPD
system sometimes can crack the sole and they had a number of
customers coming back with that problem. Is that also BS?

That is BS. Of course you can probably find some junk shoes that
won't support a cleat but with many miles of riding Shimano shoes I
have had no problem and never changed the cleats during the life of
the shoes. Shoes wear out! The Nylon mesh disintegrates with weather
and wear as does the toe from scuffing.

There are a lot of junk shoes out there. I've broken three or four pair.
The soles crack across the ball of the foot, right where the SPD cleat
is.

OTOH I have a pair of 10 year old Sidis that are still going strong,
despite the sole lugs being completely worn away and the straps having
been glued back together several times.

Matt O.

On Tue, 17 Oct 2006 12:03:58 -0700, SYJ wrote:


wrote:
Artoi wrote:
---snip---
One salesman told me that SPD system
sometimes can crack the sole and they had a number of customers coming
back with that problem. Is that also BS?


Pure, highly refined, sales weapon grade LBS BS.

I disagree. I've cracked the soles of Shimano MTB shoes (210 or
something...about 10 years ago), Nike MTB shoes (Cairns, or some
such...the red and silver ones), and Specialized road shoes (no clue
what model, but I'd guess about 2 or 3 from the top-o-the-line) - all
with SPD or SPD type (onza, in the case of the Shimanos) pedals. All
of the sole cracks happened in line with the back of the cleat. This
is not to say that it will always happen, and it bears mentioning that
all of these shoes had significant (or in the case of the SHimano, very
very very significant) mileage. But it is not total BS.

I've broken Specialized, Nike Pedali, and Answer shoes.

This isn't the fault of SPD though, it's the crappy shoes with cheap
plastic sole inserts. One could argue that three-bolt cleats spread the
load more evenly, but any of these junky shoes would have fallen apart
anyway, while my 10 year old Sidis are still going strong.

Buy the more expensive shoes. It's cheaper.

Matt O.

In article .com,
"SYJ" wrote:

I disagree. I've cracked the soles of Shimano MTB shoes (210 or
something...about 10 years ago), Nike MTB shoes (Cairns, or some
such...the red and silver ones), and Specialized road shoes (no clue
what model, but I'd guess about 2 or 3 from the top-o-the-line) - all
with SPD or SPD type (onza, in the case of the Shimanos) pedals. All
of the sole cracks happened in line with the back of the cleat. This
is not to say that it will always happen, and it bears mentioning that
all of these shoes had significant (or in the case of the SHimano, very
very very significant) mileage. But it is not total BS.

Do you have a number on that? Maybe the idea of getting a competition
MTB shoe makes sense for the road... A compromise b/n walkability,
weight, SPD compatibility and looks.
--

In article ,
Matt O'Toole wrote:

I've broken Specialized, Nike Pedali, and Answer shoes.

This isn't the fault of SPD though, it's the crappy shoes with cheap
plastic sole inserts. One could argue that three-bolt cleats spread the
load more evenly, but any of these junky shoes would have fallen apart
anyway, while my 10 year old Sidis are still going strong.

To balance the views and get some objectivity in, has anyone cracked
their soles with road cleats?
--

Matt O'Toole wrote:

On Mon, 16 Oct 2006 18:19:09 -0700, Mark Hickey wrote:

This situation is an artifact of the history of Ritchey pedals. When
they were first released (no pun intended) they had a very, very similar
- but NOT identical - to the SPD cleat. The Ritchey cleat would work
reasonably well in Shimano SPD pedals, but the other way around (which
is where most folks got their first impression of Ritchey pedals) didn't
work so well.

However, all the Ritchey SPD pedals have been "fully SPD compatible" for
years now - you should be able to swap back and forth with impunity.

Well, the Ritchey cleats I have "work" in my Shimano pedals, but not
nearly as smoothly as Shimano cleats. I have no idea how old the Ritchey
cleats are though. I bought them because they were the only cleats any
bike shop in town had in stock. For all I know they could have been lying
around for years.

As I recall, the Ritchey "original" cleat is about 10% shorter than
the Shimano cleat (which would account for why it works in the Shimano
pedal reasonably well, but not vice versa). Of course, if you don't
have a bona fide Shimano cleat to measure against, this is kinda
pointless, huh?

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $795 ti frame