Shoes and pedals
Jellybaby
Posts: 180
in General Chat
Righto girls and boys, I've decided to bite the bullet and retire my splendidly excellent toe clips for some shiny new clipless pedals and triathlon shoes. The pedals need to be easy to get out of as I'm missing a ligament in my right ankle that helps it go sideways and I don't want to fall over to get out - although i guess if i practice i can just leave them clipped in and take my feet out. Can anyone recommend any shoe-pedal combos in particular.
Cheers
JB
Cheers
JB
0
Comments
Do you get the same amount of play (side to side) in a shimano road pedal (compared to the shimano mtb's) - got slightly dodgy knees and don't want them being made any worse!!
MTB systems - easy to clip in and out of, but lack the stability and nice big platform essential for effective road cycling.
I recently upgraded from the above to Look Keo pedals and use Scott Comp shoes for riding and training and Vittoria retro tri shoes for racing.
As regards play - the Look pedals come with a standard set of cleats that provide an average amount of float. If you want to change this, Look also sell cleats that provide a lot of float, or almost none at all - depending on what you prefer. For dodgy knees - the cleats that come with the pedals are probably right as this allows for natural movement.
But any combo of either Look or Shimano 3 bolt systems with whichever shoe is comfortable/takes your fancy will probably do the job. The magic lies in getting the cleat position right, and ultimately, your position on the bike, not so much in individual products.
Hope this helps....
blurredgirl
blurredgirl
Also as above dont get mountain bike ones!
SPD are the way foward as you get a bigger area of contact with the pedal1
I have no idea what i'm looking at so any recommendations/advice would be great!
Shimano 105 SPD-SL Pedals
http://www.evanscycles.com/products/shi ... s-ec008665
Pedals:
http://www.wiggle.co.uk/p/cycle/7/Shima ... 360011753/
Shoes:
http://www.jejamescycles.co.uk/shimano- ... 45134.html
Apart from a fall on my first ride , I haven't had any problems with them and did my first sprint tri in them a few weeks back.
£54.99 on evans and £38.66 on ribble....
Does anyone know if these shoes will fit a road cleat.... i'm guessing not
http://www.cyclesurgery.com/1027632/Spe ... -Shoe.html
The shoes in the link wouldn't fit 3 bolt cleats like the shimano 105 or Look ones mentioned.
Damn mtb background!!
May well have a problem with the WAT she is starting to become very suspicious of the ever increasing pile of kit!!
Go for Road/Tri shoes as these are more rigid. Get whichever fit you best and best suit your needs ie do you prefer the ease of putting on/taking off of a Tri shoe, or the secure fit of a road shoe? I have he NorthWave Tri shoes which seem well though out and do a great job.
Then choose pedals/cleats that fit the holes on the bottom of the shoes. I can't fault my Shimano 105 pedals with the yellow cleats. The yellow cleats offer some 'float' if you are worried about sore knees (Red cleats hae no float) and you can adjust how tight the pedals are.
Depending on how seriously you want to take things, you might be fine with MTB shoes and clips. Whilst there's probably a difference between MTB and road shoes in terms of stiffness, the difference is (much?) less than the difference between e.g. trainers and MTB shoes.
At spin class, I used to get bad cramping in my calves until i started using my MTB shoes (the spin bikes had the combined flat/SPD cleats)... using the MTB shoes, no calve worries.
The other (potentially big) advantage of MTB shoes is that you can actually walk a sensible distance in them, unlike tri shoes which are frankly impractical, being very slippery on a smooth office floor, and subject to significant wear if used outside on pavements.
you can also readily get combined flat/MTB cleats... allows you to use normal or MTB shoes - I'm not sure whether you can get an equivalent for road cleats.
good luck either way!
Secondly, you can get non-slip cleats for your road / Tri shoes, that have little rubber bits and give a lot better grip. However, I'm sure that one of the more experienced Forumers will soon wade in and say that you don't need to walk in Tri shoes, they should be left clipped onto your pedals at T1 and T2.
I'd like to ride my road bike to/from work.... and I'd rather not have to lump my work shoes as well as my suit in my backpack... so I have to get from the gym in the basement, to my desk on the 10th floor, across an ocean of polished marble, and up some escalators.
ok, so I _could_ change jobs... point I was trying to make was that SPD shoes are semi-practical, in a way that tri shoes aren't.
I'll look into cleat covers though...
and as for remaining clipped in... actually no, it does rather depend on the nature of the transition (the further you have to run, the better it is to leave the shoes clipped in.... but for short distances, the difference is marginal)
The shoes are reasonable, but I got some cheap second hand Wellgo road pedals on ebay, which I'm intending to upgrade eventually.
One problem I've noticed is that when I unclip from the pedals, they flip upside down. Do all one sided pedals do this or will better ones stay they right way up?