Review: The FiveTen Hellcat is a Clipless, Flat Mountain Bike Shoe | Spd Pedals

All positive so far, but about a week into testing, and thereafter, I started experiencing an odd squeaking noise. It doesn’t appear to affect the performance whatsoever but is just a tad irritating, and I was curious to see if I was the only one. After a month of use I handed them to road.cc editor (and regular Time pedal user) Tony to use for a couple of weeks and… there was no sound from them, just plenty of positive comments. Here’s exactly what Time’s distributor told me when I put it to them:

We’re big fans of electronic shifting here at road.cc and we don’t know of many people who’ve used it regularly wanting to switch back to mechanical shifting, but it’s not without its downsides. Here are some of the little annoyances that we’ve experienced and heard about over the past few years.

The Shimano ME7 and Specialized 2FO shoes are a good examples of enduro or all mountain shoes, they’ve got chunky soles for walking in, a flatter sole profile for gripping pedals and are comfortable and rugged enough to be worn on big days out in the hills whilst still being stiff enough for an enduro race.

I opted for the larger of the two sizes, which gave me 114x111mm of surface area to slap my feet onto. I really appreciated this when scrabbling to get a foot back on in tricky terrain. 

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The twin sided pedals mean clipping in is easy, and the cleat is recessed into the shoe which allows for easy walking off the bike. Being made of metal and away from contact with the ground, the cleats can last for years.

Time’s new Xpro 10 pedals have some notable improvements over the previous Xpresso range, with a wider pedal body, a redesigned cleat that is really hardwearing, and very easy engagement. I really like them and prefer the engagement system to that of Look or Shimano, my only issue being a peculiar squeaking noise that I was getting (but a road.cc colleague didn’t), which Time says it is trying to get to the bottom of…

You notice their lack of weight when pedalling, but what really grabs your attention is the impressive power transfer. Stamp hard on the pedals and there’s no hint of flex. The shoes are super stable too when you’re pushing on the pedals. It’s very positive and rewards those cyclists that like to push hard on the pedals all the time. 

Albeit, many of us don’t commute in every day because we’re out and about doing journalism and need our cars in case of breaking news.

"I do think this new rule will encourage better fundamentals for younger riders, which in turn should make them better riders and racers. Hopefully this keeps them racing for much longer and if anything it should give them better skills for any other type of riding they end up doing later on in life," he said.

Underfoot, the broad platform provides a decent amount of lateral support, though it’s not so wide that it’s overly susceptible to rock strikes. The large body also gives you a big target to aim for when you’re scrabbling to get clipped back in.

“Crank Brothers is most notable for its line of clipless pedals that utilise the Eggbeater mechanism. The brand also makes flat pedals too, having previously offered the 5050 for those who prefer not to be clipped into their pedals. The 5050 is long gone however, and in its place is the Stamp pedal that we have here. One of Crank Brothers objectives in developing the Stamp was increased…” Read the full review here.