[Closed] Walking in road cleats.

[quote=lotto ]Are you meant to walk in road cleats?

In short, no.

The good news is that the Shimano cleats will continue to work fine when he rubber "non-slip" parts are goosed.

You can get covers that clip over them, should be some on ebay or your favourite online retailer. They make walking safer as well, as cleats can get very slippy on the wrong floor.

speedplay frogs and mtb shoes here - great for walking steep sections 😳

Have a little walk across some laminate flooring 😆
mine on the left leg last about 2 mins

SPD's

Why are they not standard on road bikes?

Because MTB cleats and pedals don't work as well as road ones on a road bike?

Road shoes / pedals are for road racing. You wouldn't put slick tyres on your car, don't use road pedals unless you are racing.
Riding your road bike on a sunday isn't racing. Even with Strava running.

Shimano cleats normally wear well. How far are you walking?!

I would think no more than 30m off the bike per ride.

This is why road jerseys have [i]three[/i] pockets at the back - the left and right ones are for a pair of Crocs.

If you were a true roadie, you'd be floating with and air of superiority and your feet would never touch the ground.

Because MTB cleats and pedals don't work as well as road ones on a road bike?

Mine do.

Riding your road bike on a sunday isn't racing.

Which given that the majority of buyers of shimano road pedals won't be racing, makes them a pretty dumb design for the majority of buyers.
The A520 and A600 are much better choices imo. Hell the A520 costs half the price of Ultegras and still weighs less too.

When I went clipless I was concerned about all this talk of SPDs vs proper roadie pedals. Turns out my worries were unfounded. The SPDs are far superior to anything else I've ever worn on my feet whilst riding a bike. OK, I've worn some crap ... but the fact is, they work. And they work very well. I'm sure road pedals have their benefits, but for general riding with the occasional plod in between, they're great.

Walking in them is ok, mine have held up ok. Driving in them is just scary though. And probably very stupid.

Road shoes / pedals are for road racing. You wouldn't put slick tyres on your car, don't use road pedals unless you are racing

cynic-al - Member
Because MTB cleats and pedals don't work as well as road ones on a road bike?
Mine do.

😆

Cleat covers. In the back pocket. Look KEO cleats are made of cheese. I wear the left one down in three months. The only problem I've had is when I left my work shoes at home one day and had to wear the road shoes all day at work!

yorlin - Member

This is why road jerseys have three pockets at the back - the left and right ones are for a pair of Crocs.

I always wondered why the LBS owner wore Crocs! 😆

Walk on your heels.
Don't put weight through your toes/cleats when walking about.
Never twist in the toe/cleat area, they'll last ages if you do these three things.

Or buy speed play zeros. The part of the cleat that touches the floor is metal, and not functional with regards pedal function at all.

Oh, and road pedals support your foot soooooo much better then MTB spd pedals. Way more comfortable on a long ride, and when riding hard, way more powerful feeling. Spds make your knees track poorly and feet tingle in comparison.

I use the look cafe cleats, the rubbers get chewed off eventually especially the outside left foot ( foot down at the lights) but there's enough left for the life of the cleat to make walking to cafe or piss stop a lot easier.

Don't walk in road shoes
Do wear road shoes and cleats on a road bike - they support your foot so much better than SPDs
Wear SPDs on off road or for when you need to walk a bit
Not so hArd is it

Do wear road shoes and cleats on a road bike - they support your foot so much better than SPDs

Respectfully I disagree. My shoes have an inflexible sole - on a large contact area they don't flex, on a small contact area they don't flex. Both systems ultimately go through an axle, so any force applied either side of the axle line will cause the pedal to rotate rather than providing extra force irrespective of the size of the pedal platform.

Subjectively my foot's never felt more supported on a road pedal.

IMO it's far more about group tradition (much like baggies on mountain bikes) rather than any performance improvement.

I think one advantage road shoes have is that at any given price point they are slightly lighter. I've no idea idea if that means that acceleration of your legs is easier as a result because rotating mass on the end of the crank arm is reduced or not though.

I used Crank Bros Quattro pedals for a while on a road bike - meant I could use my mtb winter boots or road shoes. Their road cleat is very well protected and there's a plastic 'walking bit' around it.

I didn;t notice a huge difference between road and mtb shoes to be honest.

Walk on your heels.

My "best" shoes (Giro Factor) don't have a replaceable heel bumper so walking on the heels would wear out my shoes quickly rather than walking on the cleats. Cleats are cheaper than shoes.

I walk on my heels with my road cleats but i'm questioning more and more why I have a different set up for my road bike (Look Keo) and my MTB (Time) as my MTB time cleats are every bit as good and secure as my road cleats. I've also noticed that the pro's are more and more using small pedals without the large and thick cleats.

Shops flogging road shoes to people (especially commuters) is the one thing that truly boils my piss - 95% are best off on spuds or similar. I only started using road shoes a proper in the last year for time-trialling, simply because a pair of carbon soled road shoes were cheaper and lighter than equivalent mtb shoes.

But,but,but grahamq ,it's all part of the must have the gear that the Pros use ( even if it's just for pootling down to get the Sunday papers).

For most average Joes* ,SPDs will be perfect,but if they want to walk like a penquin and do an impression of Bambi on ice while trying to get across a wet cafe floor,go for it. 😆

[i]posted by an average Joe[/i] 😉

I've not had a problem with my Shimano cleats, outlasting LOOK by about a factor of 2. Walk barefoot to the garrage, gets the blood fowing to your feet walking accross cold gravel!

IMO it's far more about group tradition (much like baggies on mountain bikes) rather than any performance improvement.

That's not tradition, that's just a recent influx of fatties and poor MX'ers hiding their shame.

As I said above, even tho Mr Smith apparently knows better, with a stiff enough soled shoe*, you won't feel a difference between spd and road pedals.

*I don't think many are made with spd fittings any more though..

*I don't think many are made with spd fittings any more though..

Al

Just bought a set of these to replace my old carbon soled XC shoes,
Very stiff sole and they almost look like roadie shoes. 😉

[img] [/img]

I think one advantage road shoes have is that at any given price point they are slightly lighter.

This was what I thought but yesterday I weighed my ultegra pd-6700 pedals (~80 quid) and my A520 pedals (~30 quid) and the A520 weighed 1g less.
Didn't go as far as comparing cleat and bolt weights though, which may then swing back to the Ultegra, but even so..

you won't feel a difference between spd and road pedals.

I do, that's because however stiff the shoe is be it road or MTB the difference is in the width of the cleat, and the amount of movement allowed once the cleat has worn slightly with MTB cleats there is a lot more movement.
With carbon/composite soles on a MTB shoe you are less likely to get hotspots and they can often be too stiff but the difference is still there due to the smaller cleat interface.

Must say I notice a (small) difference using S-Works MTB shoes and Egg Beaters on the road vs S-Works road shoes and Keos. Only small, and actually found the 'Beaters harder to get into weirdly, but they didn't feel quite as supported.

SPD-SL cleats generally wear well though, surprised you're wearing them out that fast. They're far better than Looks!

I notice a (small) difference

Probably an important factor, small things really piss me off on the Road, my MTB can be hanging together by a thread with a saddle made of proqupine quills, and it not matter. I'm on my 4th saddle, 2nd bar tape*, and just ordered a different front mech as the current one doesn't quite shift how I'd like (despite the fact I probably only shift once or twice in a ride!).

The slop (and numb toes) of MTB cleats peeves me off on the road bike. and for road biking to be fun the bike needs to be almost unnoticable IMO so you can get on with the serious business of pain/admiring the view/pain/thinking about cake.

*soon to be third, DSP seems to have lost it's cushioning and started to peel off.

yes but the thing about commuting with road shoes is ........

Swapping pedals between commuting / going for a ride is a pita.

Stiff road shoes don't cost much. Stiff MTB shoes do.

Sometimes the commute turns into a 3 hour road ride.

i definitely notice, for me anyway, a huge difference between the atacs on the mtb and the iclic's on the road bike. The big difference is foot rotation. All mtb pedals in my experence let the shoe wobble around the cleat. To be clear i am not talking float, rather the shoe can rotate in a vertical plane as the cleat is not supported very well and any support from the shoe soon goes as the sole wears.

It might be my knees, but they object strongly to this motion on the road bike.

I use SPD-SL pedals/shoes on my road bike and CB Candy's on the MTB.

Have been considering moving back to MTB-style SPDs for the road bike though, mainly because I find the SPD-SLs too dangerous. At traffic lights and roundabouts, if I don't get the pedal the right way round when setting off, I find my non-clipped foot has a tendency to slide off the pedal quite violently. I've nearly come off more than once now because of it!

I also don't think I'd notice much difference between the two in terms of stiffness - carbon-soled shoes should give all the stiffness that's needed.

Numb toes? Stiffer shoes needed.

the difference is still there due to the smaller cleat interface.

Not with my shoes!

Aye. I road ride/CX ride far more than I do than mountain biking. I'm a long distance rider too, plenty of centuries+. Never, ever had a problem with standard MTB cleats and shoes.

I'm happy accepting that in an open marketplace there will be multiple types of cleats with differing marketing angles but having used all cleats available extensively, I can't see any application I would want to use anything other than standard shimano SPD cleats.

Had the pair of cleats on my shoes for 18 months now and just starting to think about replacing them. These are Shimano yellows, road shoes are so comfy, just fit and forget esp when moulded.

I think proper road shoes are a bit comfier but I haven't really noticed much if any difference in terms of performance. The only thing that annoys me is that my shoes don't offer much in the way of cleat adjustment and I feel that the right one needs to be a bit further back, but it's already at the end of adjustment. The only real reason I changed to SPD-SL is that I couldn't think of anything else to ask for as a birthday present, and my mtb cleats/pedals are a bit creaky.

shimano sandals for me-- overshoes on top in the winter--stiff enough soles for cycling, no problem walking, no issues with wet socks/feet--not fashionable however, so many refuse to consider...

not fashionable however, so many refuse to consider.

I never wear sandals full stop. Not a fashion thing, I just find them really uncomfortable.

Not with my shoes!

it's not about the shoes, they can be as stiff as you like, it's about the cleat/pedal.
now i don't pedal BSO's to punters and i'm not an engineer but i'm fairly confident in picking out which of these 3 cleat/pedal systems are going to allow side to side movement (not float) when the forces of pedalling act on them.

[img] [/img]

I have SPD's on my commuter bike and winter bike but KEOS on my good bike. I concur that they are made of cheese, annoyingly although I have a spare set at home they've died on my last 2 cycling holidays meaning I've learned the Spanish and Italian words for cleat... The covers help a little but I have a tendency to lose them so seriously considering changing to spd-sl or something else. I do find I get hotspots when doing long rides on the winter bike with SPD's so would rather have something roadie, but preferably less cheese like.

I have recently given up on road pedals and have started using the spd 530s on the road bike which give a bit more support although still have the small cleat. I bought an adaptor to use my road shoes with the 530s all of which work fine. I always clip in when setting off with no comedy chin on stem, nads on cross bar moments as I used to get with various road pedals. I'm sure that more power could be exerted using proper road cleats + pedals but this set up will do me fine.
Ironically the only downside is that spd cleats on road shoes make it just as difficult to walk!

I use non-road pedals for road.
used to use Spec Comp shoes and SPDs but got bad knees (probably bad set-up) and hotspots (flexy soles).
I changed to Giro MTB shoes with carbon soles (very similar to their road shoes) and Crank Bros Candies and have never looked back.
I keep toying with the idea of proper road shoes and cleats but I'd rather spend the c.£200 required on something else for my bike as I don't think the benefits would be significant.
And whilst I don't do loads and loads of road riding I still do 70-120 mile rides every 2-3 weeks.

I have good quality MTB shoes and pedals and good quality road shoes and pedals. I woudn't want to road ride in MTB shoes, having tried the alternative. Road shoes are more secure, give better support, are stiffer (I wouldn't want MTB shoes that stiff as need to walk) which makes them nicer to ride in.

I don't commute in them though, and on the occasions I've ridden to work on my road bike I've taken my shoes off to walk 20-30 yards into the building.

I have always used MTb shoes (very stiff carbon ones) and SPDs on the road bike, partly because as they get crappy they become my best MTb shoes and each pair moves down a notch.
I still wear them when I am out in the winter when we tend to do back roads and rougher lanes.
Having bought a pair of carbon soled road shoes I wonder why I waited. They are so much more effective with road pedals. Look Keos.

Road shoes/pedals are like they are for a reason. They do that job best. You may not need that "best" but its there.
Using them to wander around the shops is daft though.
To those who say that you don't need them....you don't need SPds either or suspension or more than one gear.

I used clown shoes but I found toe overlap issues so after one failed slow speed cornering comedy accident I tried proper road shoes, What a revelation!
I had dismissed disco-slippers as some kind of effeminate roadie affectation that owed more to history than effectiveness. I couldn't have been more wrong.

Just walk on your heels, I somehow managed to lose a bit of the front tow grip on my R132 shoes