Review: Shimano Saint PD-MX80 Flat Pedals | Bike Self Locking Pedals

Place the cleat so that it engages with the pedal right where your foot naturally wants to sit. Usually this is just behind the ball of your foot, though some prefer it further back. From there, adjust the rotation and left-to-right placement of the cleat—the goal is for the final clipped-in position to feel natural and comfortable.

One divide showed up really clearly among the people riding these pedals, and we’ve tried to reflect it in our category picks: Some riders vastly prefer thinner, flatter platforms such as the Hope F20 and say these feel like they have more grip. Others have a massive preference for the kind of bowl shape and feel you get from something like a DMR Vault. These are quite polarised and well cemented preferences, likely coming from differences in riding style, terrain, anatomy, technique and shoe construction – in other words, a lot of variables that mean you’ll only get so far without some real world experimentation to find which flats are right for you.

Sealing is a crucial aspect of flat pedals for UK riders and, like a lot of bike components, this aspect tends to vary, perhaps according to where they were designed. Poor seals might not matter so much in sunny locales, but in UK filth you’ll only get so long before you hear a grinding noise pulverising your pedals from the inside out.

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.

Some pedals such as newer Shimano Dura-Ace, Ultegra and 105 only have allen key sockets so if you use these it’s worth getting a chunky 8mm allen key so that you have enough leverage to loosen the pedal in the crank.

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.

Shimano GR5 Shimano’s most affordable flat pedal offering. Claimed weight 386g in size 40. $103 USD.

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Time Xpresso pedals are popular because they’re easy to click into, offer just the right amount of float adjustment for many riders and they’re light. At about 220g per pair the entry level Xpresso 2s only weigh 25g more than the carbon Xpresso 8s at £124.99.

I’ve ridden clipless for so long, I can unclip fairly naturally now, so unexpected dismounts are a non-issue. I seem to be able to bail just as fast as with flats while DH riding.

Now in my 3rd year of Di2 ownership and it is running as sweet as the day it left the bike shop. Never missed a gear, absolutely hassle free, once ran out of power because I failed to check. Only irritating aspect is remembering where I put the charging cable for safe keeping.

HT currently offers three different models of clip-in pedals, all with unimaginative names: the M1 (XC), the T1 (Trail) and the X2 (DH Race).