Video: Six of the best cycling shoes | Bike Flat Pedals

Guinness World Records have a very detailed definition, minimum of 18,000 miles, 2 antipodal points, and no significant East/West backtracking …

Not so with the 3-bolt designs, where the cleat is specific to the pedal brand, if not the specific pedal.

Personally, I’m in a similar boat. I used to swear by Look pedals, but the stability of earlier Keo versions would quickly degrade due to pedal body wear. This issue is now fixed, but Look’s bearing durability and serviceability doesn’t hold a candle to Shimano’s. Despite being a weight weenie at heart, I made the decision to have the weight penalty of Shimano and haven’t felt compelled to change since.

One of the other advantages of clipless pedals is that you can get more power out of your legs by being able to pull up on the pedal stroke in addition to pushing down however, this highlights the disadvantage of multi-release cleats since if you pulled up on these your foot would come out of the pedal. 

The BC-born, Chromag Surface Ti hardtail is a unique beast. The Surface sits solidly in the all-mountain hardtail category, designed for a 150mm fork and 29×2.4” or 27.5×2.8” tires. Leaning into a 66° head tube and 75° seat tube angle, the bike is clearly capable of dropping your friends downhill and keeping pace on the climbs. With external cable routing and an external BSA bottom-bracket, this is a frame to keep most home mechanics riding more than tinkering. The frame is constructed from custom-drawn Ti tubes, resulting in a dialed ride quality on rocky BC singletrack.

Still, there’s a small learning curve — especially for those used to orienting road pedals before snapping in. But once you’ve mastered pushing forward into the pedal, it’s easy. And because the pedals are round, riders can virtually always engage the pedals without looking down.

Also into my third year but with EPS. Haven’t regretted it for a second. Effortless and trouble free gear changing especially when braking. I’m thinking of replacing my touring bike and I hope I can get it fitted with triple electronic shifting.

And that’s happening, she said, with bike infrastructure more commonly incorporated into project developments — just not as fast as bike advocates might prefer.

Guinness World Records have a very detailed definition, minimum of 18,000 miles, 2 antipodal points, and no significant East/West backtracking …

Shimano’s cheapest carbon-bodied pedals have an old-school steel spring for the retention plate, but are nevertheless reasonably light. The SPD-SL design provides tension adjustment so you can make it harder or easier to release, and like the Look Keo it has a large, broad contact patch with the cleat for stability.

On both pedals however, I’ve also managed to fatally bend the most forward and central pin that hangs underneath the pedal while you’re riding. In each case, I’ve managed to not only bend the pin, but actually ovalise the bore in the pedal body as well, rendering that particular thread useless for fitting a replacement pin.

Finally, FiveTen has done a good job with the cleat recess on the Hellcats. Walking across concrete in a pair of clipless mountain bike pedals tends to sound like a tap-dance routine, but I find the Hellcats to be quite stealthy. That’s because the cleats — at least the Crankbrothers ones I run — are at precisely the same level as the sole (or maybe just a hair lower).