What to wear when cycling: the essential guide to bike clothing | Road Bike Clipless Pedals

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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.

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).

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On paper, Shimano pedals aren’t the best at any one thing. However, they’ve proven their place in the real world.

So they take a long time before you can use them with confidence, they are mechnically delicate (even before you factor in mechanism wear from putting your foot down at lights/walking in them, vs replacing a plastic cleat) and the real advantage – is this a real advantage* – comes when you are pulling away from the lights. [If I am riding my road bike the number of times I stop is pretty small, so marginal benefit of marginally faster engagement - I think I'm pretty good with my Keos - probably not so important for me. YMMV.] This is before you get to the fact that they are quite expensive (because they aren’t very popular so unit volumes not high) and (again because unit volumes not high) finding spares is a pain in the arse. I tried them and wouldn’t recommend them to anyone.

Anyone contemplating electronic shifting would probably do the basics in terms of reading about the options available (if they didn’t at the price points of electronic shifting they are either rich or gormless).

The winter glove issue has been addressed by Shimano by increasing the paddle/ shifter button sizes, plus of course having the fully customisable options through e-Tube. So again, not really an issue eh? 

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Well TimothyD you’re right and for road riding where you basically hold a position for most of the time I can see how that works. For mtb where you’re changing position all the time I just have concluded that flats are better for riding and better for your knees.

So what do we have here in total with the humble Shimano PD-A600 pedals? Good performance, sleek looks, outstanding durability and toughness, and a low price to boot. Sign me up.

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.