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Treated myself to a set of proper road shoes after recently switching to the dark side as i'm finding SPD's aren't great on my knees on rides over about 40-50 miles. Yellow tab cleats and Ultegra pedals.
Have plenty of clipped in experience as always used SPD's and been biking for years but really finding clipping in a struggle with these. Are there any techniques which help with converting to single sides? The pedals hang vertically so I guess the idea is to bring the leg up and roll it over the pedal but it's tricky in practice. That being said they've only seen a couple of rides so perseverance hopefully will help...
This is when already in one side and moving off and clipping in the other (left) side. Rides from home start and stop in the middle of Birmingham so there's been a couple of tight sphincter moments missing the clip in traffic & crossing roundbouts!
Just like flip it right way up with your toe and stick it in, it's pretty simple, not really much to it. Practice in a carpark/back garden/quiet road?
There is a screw on them that adjusts the tightness too.
or sell em on and get Speedplay... action very similar to SPD
are spd-sl's easier on the knees then? im currently using my mtb spds on my road bike and get knee issues after 30 miles.
I made the swap recently, and had the same issues as you. I found the cleat position made a big difference, and getting them set up so they're similar to my MTB ones made it a bit easier.
I avoided any heavy traffic situations until I was better at clipping.
Would have thought knee pain is a positioning issue rather than the type of cleats you're/were using.
Having said that clipping in is just practice. Locate the cleat's front lip in the pedal first, then push down and voila.
I struggled to clip in with SPD-SLs and discovered that I ride a bit toe-out. When I was clipped in, the cleat was near the limit of float, that didn't give me knee pain but meant that the cleat wasn't aligned with the pedal when I tried to clip in. I rearranged the cleat for a bit of toe-out and can clip in much more easily.