Hi everyone,

After years of MTB I have decided to swing my leg over a road bike for when at our holiday home in Spain, I managed to get a near new second hand Cube road bike (covid bike!!), the problem is I am a complete noob with road bikes.

The bike came with clip in LOOK pedals on it, my questions is will any road style shoes work with LOOK? I have seen some Northwave force 2 shoes reduced online but before purchasing want to make sure they are compatible or if I need to buy anything else.

I still use flats on my MTB so clip in is a new world to me!!

Thanks everyone, have a good sunday.

You need look cleats, they fit the same shoes as Shimano but needs to be the SL fittings I think they call it basically larger more spaced out the original Shimano type.

Just use flats. Unless racing it’s just a faff.
You can ride, get off, walk properly etc.

weeksy is right, unless you’re in a really mountainous area and wanting to ride full-on or you’re planning multi-hour rides. If you normally ride MTB in SPDs, use them.

If you want to use the Look pedals you need 3-bolt soles (and of cousrse a set of look cleats – I think there’s a small difference between at least 2 types of Look cleats/pedals so check what you’ve got before buying to match)

Road cleats are a standard three point fitting, clears vary by brand but all fit the same way. Don’t use flats on a road bike, you can’t spin properly and they make it feel a bit ponderous, on MTBs they make sense as you can take a foot out and rearrange your positioning.

I just use flats on my road bike.

I use flats on my road bikes as well.

Mutual can clearly use flats on a road bike, but clips are better, MTB are fine but proper road pedals and cleats are the right solution.
You need a shoe with 3 bolt fitting, there loads around.

If you want to look ‘daft’ on a roadie, by all means wear flats. Flats work best on the instep of the foot, whereas to properly engage the big power muscles like quads and glutes you’re better with the foot on the pedal spindle – a floppy shoe will give you sore feet and less efficiency. Otherwise get some roadie style gravel shoes and MTB SPD pedals if you don’t want road shoes and 3-hole cleats like Look or SPD-SL

I only use roadie type SPD SL on my posher ‘summer’ road bike.

I just use cheap MTB type SPDs (M520) on my winter road, SSCX and gravel type bikes (and my MTB), easier shoes to walk in, easier to use double sided pedals, more robust cleats. Lots of people (most IME) use MTB type SPDs rather than road specific pedal systems…

Toe clips and straps with some stiffer soled trainers are an option too if you don’t fancy investing in another cycling specific pair of shoes, or if you really want to make sure everyone knows you’re an off duty gnarly, rufty-tufty MTBist use flats and 5:10s I suppose…

Edit:

PD-M520 pedal nerdery…

Shop about and you can find a pair (with cleats) for about the same price as some flats. (But you’ll need some new shoes of course)

Any 3-bolt road shoe will be fine, and you obviously need to buy the cleats as well.

If you think you might end up using cleats on an MTB or a gravel bike at some point, or if you are concerned about walking in road cleats, then an MTB cleat (Shimano, Time, whatever) works just fine.

Be aware that while Look are good cleats for pedalling and clipping in, they’re very sketchy to walk on, so if you see any Spanish cafes with tiled floors in your future, either be prepared to spill a few espressos, or go for Shimano cleats which are (a little) less slippery, or take the MTB cleat route.

You can always change from one road cleat to another fairly easily, especially if you move to Shimano, where pedals are cheap as chips.

You could use flats, but (certainly without toe clips) it’s a very tiresome way to ride a road bike.

Don’t use flats. It’s a really bad idea over longer distances.
As Bez says, a halfway house might be to move to SPDs on your MTB and the road bike – one (or two) set of pedals, one pair of shoes. Sell the new LOOKs.

I am an MTBer and always will be. But:

Just use flats.

Don’t use flats. They work, obviously, but it’s not as good. If you want to get the moest out of road, do it like a roadie. Set your bike up for comfortable efficient mile munching, and this means clips so you can spin efficiently. It’s a different style of riding, so for me that means doing each style the way it’s meant to be done, not bodging it to be what you’re familiar with.

You will fall over a few times when you stop with clips, everyone does this MTB or road. Don’t worry about it.

MTB SPDs do work on road but they annoy me a bit because the cleats quite quickly wear at the front and the back, which means they develop a little bit of front/back play. Not an issue off road for some reason but when spinning nicely on a road bike the play is annoying. Road (Look or Shimano road) don’t do this.

I don’t think that there’s any real difference in technique between road and MTB clips – the unclip mechanic is the same, the clip in requires more of a forward motion but it’s transferrable really. Road are more secure though and less rolling.

The downside is the walking – it’s not particularly difficult to do, but it does wear the plastic cleats out. So for commuting they aren’t great since you end up walking from the bike shed to your office etc and that wears them away in no time. Avoid walking as much as possible even if this means re-mounting your bike to avoid a few metres of walking.

I have separate road shoes and Look pedals for my proper road bike. If I were doing it again I’d just stick with MTB cleats. I have MTB cleats on my road commuter. However road bike shoes are better for road bikes than MTB shoes so would still go for separate road shoes – they’re lighter, a bit more slender and easier to use things like overshoes and other road bike specific stuff, but MTB cleats are better than flats for any distance cycling especially if you’re looking to progress and get faster and hit the hills. Cleats just offer so much benefit for higher cadences. In my experience proper road cleats offer very little additional benefit apart from making walking alot more difficult, but again all depends on what your goals are.

I use Look pedals on my road bikes. They are good pedals. What you want is Look grip cleats. The standard look cleats are slippy on tiled floors. I usually buy mine from Decathlon for a tenner. The grey cleats are the standard float variety which give you a bit of wiggle room for your knees.

Shoes as previously stated any 3 bolt road shoes are fine as long as it fits. A lot of road shoes are narrow especially at the front. If you have wide feet look for the max/wide foot versions.

proper road pedals and cleats are the right solution.

+1

If you’re looking at covering much distance or just enjoy going fast, proper road cleats are just better.

Look are fine but are having quality issues imo.
After 30 yrs I have binned them and am using SPD SL

Any shoe with a 3 point bolt system will work.
Flats are awful on rod bikes. Use clipless.

Thanks for the advice everyone, got the kit on order so should soon be out on it!

I just use normal spds on my road bikes. My shoes are pretty stiff – seems to work.

I’m a die hard flattist and I thought they were shit on a road bike. Couldn’t soon nicely without my feet being jiggled around on the pedals by potholes etc. Was a pain in the arse.
I did use plain old MTB SPDs though as I prefer the float and positioning of the cleat. I know it’s not optimal but I don’t race or ride very fast!

I have a mountain bike, a roadie commuter/gravel bike and a full on race road bike.
All use Shimano MTB pedals & cleats and all my shoes can be interchangeable for any bike, if needed.

My mates, on the other hand, use proper road cleats on their road bikes and therefore waddle like ducks when we stop at the pub…whereas I can maintain some dignity 😉

Are roadie cleats harder to clip into than SPDs too? I’ve always worn mtb SPDs on the road bike and usually you’re clipped in straight away at first attempt. But I’m amazed how often I see (experienced looking) roadies struggle to clip in when starting off at traffic lights.

Yes, roadie clips are harder to get into. Most of the time I clip in first time, sometimes it takes forever and I end up clipping my ankle once every few months.

Roadie shoes and pedals are excellent for pedaling, walking and clipping in is crap compared to mountain bike clipless pedals and shoes. My carbon soled road shoes are incredibly comfortable, lightweight and very stiff but not sure in hindsight if I’d have bothered buying into the whole road shoe thing if I’d known just how much of a faff they can be.

It all depends where you ride and how you ride. I ride straight from door and if I stuck to the road I would probably have to unclip twice a year if I was unlucky enough to get a flow of cars at the very few junctions that exist. I also don’t walk anyway in cycling shoes.

If I went through towns (i.e. traffic lights) and went to shops/cafe’s then I would probably use SPDs and a gravel shoe (rather than MTB shoe that has heavier tread)

for ease of thought/minimising prep time I have the same pedals on my mtb, road bike, wife-from-fife’s road bike, and the old thing permanently in the turbo trainer. (FWIW they’re speedplay frogs)

As above, you’re probably not unclipping too often on a road bike – most you see with riders struggling is because they’re one-sided entry. Pedals are usually weighted to tip in your favour and it doesn’t take long to get used to nudging them over with your toe and clipping in.

To be honest I find the mechanisms much easier to clip into than my old SPD.

Or you could just use Speedplay which are easier all round !

Be aware that while Look are good cleats for pedalling and clipping in, they’re very sketchy to walk on, so if you see any Spanish cafes with tiled floors in your future, either be prepared to spill a few espressos, or go for Shimano cleats which are (a little) less slippery, or take the MTB cleat route.

Can’t say I’ve ever slipped over in a Spanish cafe wearing Look cleats on my road shoes, and I live here so quite often head into them… They’re uncomfortable to walk in (and you’ll wear the cleat out) but not a huge issue like some make it out to be!

If you’ve not used automatic pedals before find a nice quiet road to practise on (or even stick them on your mtb and find a bit of flat grass…), you almost certainly will fall over at some point when you don’t manage to release on time. If you can adjust the tension back it off to the minimum at first, then when you’ve got the hang of it tighten it up to avoid accidental releases. And take an allen key along with you for the first couple of rides so you can adjust the cleat if needed.

Proper 3 bolt road shoes with proper SPD-SL or Look style pedals and cleats are just better on a road bike IMHO, they’re designed for that purpose and just work, especially as mentioned above when doing decent length rides.

I’ve got no problem using SPD style pedals on my crap road / CX bike and theyre fine on long rides, I just find them noisy and slightly irritating

I believe any 3 bolt cleat type shoe should work for Look cleats. In Shimano shoe terms spd-l. I’ve had north wave road shoes before and whilst they looked pretty they never fitted brilliantly. Had the same with north wave spd mtb shoes too. Shimano broadly seem to be the best for me and you can often get something decent in a sale / at a reasonable price.

I’m not convinced there’s a huge difference in efficiency between an spd-l setup and a normal mtb spd with a carbon soles xc type shoe.

I’ve ridden my road bike with both. Commuting in the winter with lots of stop / start I prefer mtb style spds. When I’m doing a longer commute with less stopping I use road spd-l as the shoes I’ve got are stiffer.

If you go mtb style spd then boardman spds in the ‘pro’ flavour work pretty well and are lighter than the majority of Shimano options and are pretty cheap.

I use flats on my road bikes as well.

I tried it briefly on my commute bike last year (which has old style over-toe cage and straps so I just took them off). I managed one commute and put them back on again – it was the single most uncomfortable feeling I have ever had riding a bike (save for the time I tried pedalling a bike with V12s fitted barefoot). Saying that, I have ridden clip in on road and MTB for over 20 years though.