Love Mud Distortion pedals – a mid-price pedal that’s not too budget, not too bling | Spd Pedals

Inside the shoe you’ll find an insole that cushions your foot and spreads the loads around. These vary in sophistication from a simple layer of foam to liners with multiple densities and adjustable support to heat-mouldable insoles that can be shaped to fit your foot. You can also buy new insoles to improve the fit and comfort of your shoes.

At 45, I recently started using cleats (having used old-style clips as a teenager) and have ended up with exactly the solution suggested here – double-sided pedals and multi-release cleats.  Fabulous combo – works really well for me.

First off, these are not the super-lightweight option core racers seek. But at about 4.5 ounces (127.5 grams) per pedal, they’re not overwhelmingly heavy either. For comparison, these are nearly 100 grams heavier than the lightest AeroLite option. But they’re still about 100 grams lighter than the Shimano Ultegra carbon-steel pedal.

The majority of first time buyers will end up with Look style pedals – these are widely stocked and can be purchased for a reasonable fee. However, there’s a variety of different styles of clipless pedals – each version comes with pros and cons.

But it’s probably not time to chuck your clipless pedals just yet. Most mountain bike pros are still using clipless pedals for stability and power transfer. And for everyday riders, clipless pedals still have a host of advantages, the least of which is power transfer on climbs. (Your local trails don’t have lift service, do they?) They also keep your feet from slipping off your pedals on bumpy terrain.

There isn’t a triple option for EPS. In fact I don’t think there’s a triple option for any e-shifting system.

Flat shoes are, as you would expect – flat. They don’t have the cleat recess on the sole are designed to have sticky soles to help keep your feet planted on flat pedals. Flat shoes are generally more flexible in the sole and the upper than clip-in shoes, although there are some exceptions and have a more casual look to them. You can’t use flat shoes on clipless pedals or vice versa, the sole of a clip-in shoes isn’t designed to offer much grip on a flat pedal and similarly using a flat shoe on the smaller platform of a clip-in pedal with protruding cleat mechanism won’t be great for comfort or grip levels.  You’ll find a style of shoe to fit you and your budget though whether you choose to clip-in or ride flats.  

You also win on battery life. In 3 years with EPS, I charged only every  2000 miles, & it wasn’t screaming to be charged even then. I’m currently running Di2 & you need to be much more vigilant as to the charge level. I get about 800 miles before I lose the front mech, which is my reminder!

Took to them right out of the box mate: had a decent LBS on standby back then, but never needed them – set cleats’ tension and position on the sole to ‘middling’ and was happy straight off.

On road: Speedplay just shit. [Queue outrage from the zealots who use them. But they are.] Having started out on mountain bikes and Atac pedals, used Time for years but never got on them after they switched from RXS to iClic (or vive versa, I don’t recall). Have now been on Look Keos for better part of a decade. They work and you can get a range of different price points.

Look created the clipless road pedal market in 1984, and remain a strong competitor to Shimano, especially by users of other groupsets. The Keo platform – essentially a downsized version of the original Delta format – launched in 2004, and the current Keo Blade faithfully uses the same cleat design that Look debuted 14 years ago, but with a carbon fibre leaf spring in place of a wound steel spring to hold that cleat in place. Replacing that chunk of steel with a thin sliver of carbon fibre leads to an impressively low weight, as low as 248g (including cleats). There’s no traditional tension adjustment as a result, but Look at least offer three different Blade stiffnesses that can be swapped to provide the same functionality.

When researching this article I was surprised (horrified?) to discover that there are a number of SPD-compatible sandals on the market. Further research revealed that someone has even converted Birkenstocks into SPD-compatible kicks!