I've taken the plunge and bought a road bike which actually fits me - it's been a long and painful process 
Question is, do road pedals/cleats actually make that much difference? I have a pair of very stiff soled mtb 'race' shoes and old Shimano road pedals which take the same cleats as mtb's. I won't be doing centuries any time in the forseeable, just keeping the legs turning over for the winter when I don't fancy getting muddy, so should I just save my money?
I ran normal specialized mtb shoes (carbon soles, ratchet, spds) on my road bike for ages. It works fine. I now run specialized s works road shoes and ultegra road pedals, and it's proper lovely. But I still run spds and winter mountain bike boots on the winter road bike, still does the job. Might as well save your money.
EDIT: If you are interested in giving it a go anyway I've got a pair of these that I'm not currently using, yours for £18 posted.
The main difference is that road pedals don't have the same float to allow the foot to roll sideways like MTB pedals do. The body of the pedal, and the cleat interface is much larger, so the foot is more supported.
Difference? I guess road pedals allow more power transfer, and probably better for giving it the beans as it seems to take more effort to twist a foot out of them (at least with mine).
From what I can tell road ones are just more expensive and more difficult to get in and out of. And added bonus the cleats make you walk like a duck.
Just swapped my look keo's back to spds for winter and won't be going back. Dual sided pedals with loads of float can't be beaten IMO. So as realman says save your mullah for other kit,
Massive improvement IMHO. Got looks on the roadie and mtb spds on the commuter, looks are easier to get in and out of, have less float and a bigger area to support. I have stiffer shoes too. Only downside is the duck walk
Thanks - that's pretty much what I thought. I can see that 'proper' road pedals would spread the load and have less float but at my level I'm pretty sure it won't make the slightest difference.
Will say that road shoes are more comfortable too, and also they aren't covered in mud from the night ride the night before.. 
You could say that for each component of a bike, they all add up
Yep, as above I use road shoes for road bike dirty shoes for dirty bike 
much more support on roadie pedals.
but,just tried the new shimano pedals with a bit of a platform on the sides,much better than the m540s I had before.this is on a touring bike.
road bike has road pedals.mtb shoes are much heavier though.
I've got some Shimano road pedals you can have for free (well, postage) if you want.
Road pedals without doubt, loads better imo.
Not really that difficult to walk in, not that you'll do much walking anyway. Maybe it gets a little tricky trying to carry 3 pints from the bar but nothing you won't get used to after a couple of rounds.
That's very decent of you Grum, thanks and I might well take you up on that.
I have a vague recollection of picking up a set of old Shimano 'road' spd's for a project a while ago and they were not that much different to mtb ones except they were narrower an longer. Can't for the life of me remember where I put them but I'll have a rummage tomorrow and post up a pic, as they didn't look to me as if they would offer any benefit over the mtb version.
were they spd-r?the newer road stuff is different-look 3 bolt pattern.
Possibly - certainly nothing like the new stuff as they used the same cleats as mtb.
Actually, thinking about it they might go quite well with the retro'ish build I'm planning 
if you're going really retro,you can get cleats for pedals with toeclips and straps.look 3 bolt pattern though.
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