You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
Hi All,
My current mountain bike is knocking on eleven years old and it came with Shimano SPD pedals that you could spin and then have a flat surface, so depending on what shoes you were wearing you could use either side.
Are these sort of pedals still in use much? I do prefer having the choice, but do trail riders generally use SPDs these days or flats?
Thinking of renewing my bike in the next year, would prefer something similar, and I'm not interested in changing pedals over each time. Anything half decent along these lines still available?
Cheers.
I'm pretty new to MTB but I use and am happy with my Shimano PD-EH500 pedals which have a flat side and an SPD side.
There are various pedals of that type available from Shimano, Decathlon, Alpkit, Halfords etc at different price points.
We have combo pedals on our gravel/everything bikes as we use them for everything from multi day tours to nipping to Tesco/pub. On the tandem, it’s nice to not risk failing to clip in when starting, but to have them for rest of the time.
They’re handy if you change shoes mid ride, otherwise I just swap pedals based on the shoes I intend to wear. Less of a compromise.
Those flip-flop pedals might be fine for commuting or touring, but they're not really fine for actual MTB.
In total disagreement with the above post, I just tried out some DMR Versas earlier this week and they are great. I only tried the flat side, but with 6 replaceable pins on that side, they are perfectly grippy with 5:10s. I wasn't "rad to the max" as it was on my gravel bike, but there were no slipped pedals. and foot felt almost as secure as with my vaults. I am assuming that the spd will clip in and hold me so will be as adequate as any other
They hang vertically so it is either slide back for the flat side or forward for the spd so they are pretty intuitive after a couple of minutes.
I spent ages looking for a decent pair of dual sided so that I could clip in for longer rides, but still go the long way to the pub in more normal shoes. I tried the clip in plates which transform an spd pedal to a dual sided, but the inherent play in the cleat meant although there was plenty of grip, it felt awful.
https://www.dmrbikes.com/Catalogue/Pedals/VERSA/VERSA
They are expensive, but you can shop around and get them for under £100
Just buy decent flat pedals
Just buy decent flat pedals
If you can use SPD why would you not just use SPD?
Useful pedals for an all round/general purpose bike.
For trail riding (which can mean differnet things to different people) it depends. If you are putting your foot down regularly - whether that is tech tarils, or stopping to catch your breath/wiat for friends - then they are terrible.
I once smashed one side of my SPDs, had to do a full days ride around the peak district looking down every time to get the correct side. Frustrating as hell but I think that was my first ever clean run down cavedale as I knew I couldn't dab a foot because I wouldnt be able to start again.
Non-competitive MTB riding I'd hazard a guess to be about 50-50 these days, so ther isn't really a right answer.
Couple of extra thoughts:
Shoes are just as important with flats, don't try it once in some old running shoes and dismiss it as being crap.
If on your current pedals you have ever thought "this is a difficult bit, I'll flip the pedals and ride with my spd shoes on the flat plastic side" then you need to get yourself some flats (and proper shoes) before you hurt yourself badly.
If you can ride them properly, SPDs are better; but a lot of people cannot, myself included I have come to realise. I havent clipped in for 2 years now.
Yes @chevychase. I don't ride anything over 32mm dia stones as I follow the Udden 1914 grain scale at which point they become defined as very fine boulders, and I immediately swap to my "boulder bike"...