How to choose the best road bike SPD pedals: beginner’s guide | Road Bike Clipless Pedals

Ultimately, there really are only four main players when it comes to road-oriented, three-hole pedal systems: Shimano, Look, Speedplay, and Time. There are others to consider, such as Keywin and Coombe, but you’ll be hard pressed to find any of these alternatives in your local bunches. Given this, it shouldn’t be too surprising to see that our team’s preferences are split amongst the mainstream brands. Many of us have used many others, but we retain our go-to choices. Read on to learn more about our personal choices, and why we all went that way.

Whether you are looking to buy clip-in or flat shoes will depend on whether you choose to ride clipless pedals or flat ones. Clip-in shoes have a recess in the sole at the ball of the foot which provides room for cleats to be bolted to in order to clip into the clipless pedals.

As the first clip-in pedal to wear the coveted Saint name, the Saint uses a fixed mechanism that allows it to take a thinner 20.5mm profile, with a robust construction that’s designed to see off plenty of whacks and scrapes. The classic dual-sided SPD mechanism remains, and so do the twin-bolt cleats with their 4° of float. Tension is adjusted via a 3mm hex key, and each side gets removable traction pins.

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Aside from the bent pins, the XT pedals have largely been trouble-free. The bearings have spun nice and smooth throughout testing, though more recently I did notice a small amount of play between the body and the axle, so I got my hands on Shimano’s plastic TL40 tool to pull the pedals apart and take a gander at the insides.

The open architecture allows the system to still be fully functional when caked with mud, snow, and debris, which definitely isn’t the case with traditional road pedal systems.

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Except that is not the case at all. Multirelease alows you to release in multiple lateral directions, not if pulling upwards. I only ever use multirelease cleats and pull up on pedals all the time. Without coming out.

Now I couldn’t use anything else. They are just pheneomenal compared to the various Looks I usually use. They need broken in first of all as the spring is super stiff, but once done then it only takes a little force to clip in. Actually finding the insert point is a few weeks of muscle memory (I stuck them on the indoor trainer first which sped this process up).

In the world of cycling, it’s common knowledge that in order to engage in "serious" riding you need foot retention, which today means using some type of clipless pedal system.

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Here’s a look at some of the options on the market that we recommend. With each product is a ‘Buy Now’ or ‘Best Deal’ link. If you click on this then we may receive a small amount of money from the retailer when you purchase the item. This doesn’t affect the amount you pay.