SPD’s on a road bike

So for the one day in a decade walk home (have you not got a mobile phone and somebody understanding on the other end with a car?!) you are willing to sacrifice pedalling efficiency for the other 3,652 days? This sounds like true STW logic!

I wouldn’t fancy a 10 mile walk home in any cycling shoes

I would definitely strap a small multi tool and tube under my saddle rather than ride SPDs on the road permanently.

Chain tool and a quick link, 5 mins at most to save a long walk…surprised that you’re happy to leave the house without means to fix the easiest of issues, regardless of pedal choice!

Time Atac on all my bikes.  Did the Rapha Manchester to London just fine, the Cardiff 200 and the festive 500 all in SPDs.

 3 bolt road pedals and shoes are tangibly better on the road. 

Not saying you are wrong, I have never tried them, but I I have never got dropped and thought, if only my pedals were better.

you are willing to sacrifice pedalling efficiency

How much, what’s the sacrifice? 

I don’t have an aero bike or deep carbon rims (due to a shallow wallet) and often struggle on group rides on fast flat sections, not convinced my lack of road pedals has any noticeable impact.

My point is that SPDs are OK, but road pedals are better. It’s horses for courses. You can quite happily ride SPDs on the road without a problem, but road pedals provide advantages. Not sufficient to ‘hold you back’, but definitely there is something in it.

You don’t miss what you have never had, but given free choice without financial or practical constraint (ie only wanting 1 pair of shoes), road pedals on the the road and off road pedals off the road would be the best choice.

Put it this way – most roadies ride road pedals without question. The debate around whether SPDs are OK on the road generally (but no exclusively) gets raised by MTBers.

Difficult to quantify, personally if I was doing crits involving sprinting out of multiple corners then I’d fatigue quicker on SPD.
Cafe rides probably no bother at all.

I just don’t see walking as a valid reason (unless to and from the office, flights of stairs etc). In all my years I’ve yet to see a roadie lying on a cafe floor like on a beetle on its back.

Obviously opinions differ on this subject, which should tell the OP there is not much in it. So get the SPDs if you value walking being easier and safer%

SPD-SL are a little bit better, for me, on account of being more stable side to side. But it’s marginal, and ride what you like. I would not use them for commuting, but I did use them when I had an office in Bristol.

@solarider  “Put it this way – most roadies ride road pedals without question.”

And there’s the rub.  Roadies as a dedicated species do tend to be really quite hidebound and set in their ways.  If you’re not actually racing at the very sharp end, then a decent pair of xc shoes and an SPD pedal will give away absolutely nothing relevant and are significantly safer in a few situations.  It’s a no-brainer for me and like many others, my road bike runs XT level SPDs.  I do prefer the slightly flattened contact areas on the body on this compact SPD and have never suffered a hotspot in the many, many 100mile plus rides, sportives and tours I’ve done.

The debate around whether SPDs are OK on the road generally (but no exclusively) gets raised by MTBers.

Most of the people I ride with on the road use SPDs and very few of them have come from an mtb background. Personally, I have noticed very little difference between the two systems so opted for convenience.

Conversely, most I ride with don’t 🙂

My point is that SPDs are OK, but road pedals are better

And my point was, are they, how and by how much? Just keeping saying they are are better doesn’t convince me.

The fact that racers use them is fairly irrelevant as I don’t race and even so if you look at most cross riders they use Shimano pedals rather than the much better at clearing mud options as they are sponsored by Shimano….

I don’t doubt road pedals feel better, what evidence is that they increase power/efficiency?

Sorry, roadies choosing to use them is not relevant, they’ll do what’s marketed at them. 

I’d likely go SPD or similar on CX, for the mud clearance but also as you wouldn’t often have the rolling momentum and time to tip the pedal with single-sided entry in some of the tighter sections.

You won’t quantify how they’re better, but subjectively they are…just how you use them may not matter so much 👍

And my point was, are they, how and by how much?

This. I “feel” like they should be better but I can’t say I’ve ever noticed a real difference. Any lateral rocking that SPD-SLs help with can also be reduced with caged SPDs or Candys – especially if you fit the little height adjuster tabs to the latter.

They are 1.265% better, because. Fact.

All joking aside since you want something more tangible:

More stable because of their size so they rock less – hard to quantify by how much this impacts power transfer, but it definitely feels nicer. The contact area of a small SPD cleat vs a large road cleat in considerably smaller. In the more fixed position that people adopt on a road bike, less movement is a good thing bio-mechanically.

They squeak less because they don’t have metal to metal interface – again, hard to put a number of silence, but no squeak has to be better than none, and all 5 pairs of my SPDs suffer from cleat to pedal interface noise from time to time.

They have a lower stack height – there is lots of evidence around shorter cranks being bio-mechanically preferable, and stack height is a measurable factor in rotational circumference, which impacts hip travel, cadence, power etc etc (Google this one – there’s plenty of evidence out there that even a 2.5mm crank length adjustment makes a difference and the difference in stack height between a road pedal plus sole vs an MTB pedal plus sole thickness is considerably more than 2.5mm).

The larger surface area of the cleat creates less possibility for hotspots – doesn’t effect every rider, so again hard to quantify but you would certainly be more comfortable without hotspots.

They are lighter – not by much, but it is a fact and marginal gains and all that.

The shoes are less compromised and designed to hold you foot more rigidly – an MTB shoe has to be designed with more movement from the rider as he/she moves all over the bike plus hike-a-bike, whereas road shoes are designed to hold one of the most complex parts of the body with the most bones in a small area (apart the inner ear admittedly) to remain static and therefore give better power transfer.

Just to be clear, there is no law against using SPDs on the road and plenty of people do it, and the original question has been thoroughly answered – it is perfectly doable. It’s just that if all other things were equal, the only compromises from road pedals (walking, single sided entry and potentially multiple shoes for multiple bikes) are generally thought to be outweighed by the advantages above given the amount of walking and clipping in that one undertakes on the average road ride vs the amount of time one spends actually pedalling.

Depending on which source you choose on Google, the stack height difference is negligible or even lower for SPD style pedals (I spent a lot of time faffing trying to replicate saddle height on gravel and road bikes).

Also, am pretty sure GCN did something reasonably scientific looking to “prove” no difference in efficiency between SPD/road SPD and flat pedals, although I think they acknowledged that the ex-pro they used for the test might have had such a good pedal stroke as to nullify the advantage of being clipped in. Either way I’m pretty certain the idea that you could usefully “pull up” on an SPD has been debunked.

BUT I recall trying to find flat pedal shoes as stiff/light as road shoes and came up empty handed. I’m certain most of the benefits come down to the construction of the shoe 🙄

Sidi Tiger or Drako for the win if you want stiff shoes for using SPDs on the road.

Stack height for an SPD is 17mm, plus a shoe which tend to be thicker soled in the MTB world. Stack height for an SPD SL is 14mm, plus a shoe which tend to be thinner. All in, it’s easily 5mm or more, and people get really particular about much less than that on crank length.

Since there is so much opinion and it’s Christmas, shall we just say that using SPDs on the road is OK, but that people might prefer road systems who aren’t simply herd mentality idiots who give little thought to it (Tour de France winners as an example)?

I think the pull up in clips is minimal, not conscious (on my part at least) but enough to provide a sufficient assist that I notice is missing when switching to flats.

For me I find SPD less comfortable over time if exposed to repeat accelerations.

Since there is so much opinion and it’s Christmas, shall we just say that using SPDs on the road is OK?

Think that’s already been agreed, just arguing now over each others subjective opinion 😁

Seems like the answer is, whatever works for you, works.

Stack height for an SPD is 17mm, plus a shoe which tend to be thicker soled in the MTB world. Stack height for an SPD SL is 14mm, plus a shoe which tend to be thinner. All in, it’s easily 5mm, and people get really particular about les than that on crank length.

But a Look Keo is 17.3mm, so for a vast number of people the difference is still negligible (Keo must be one of the most prevalent designs out there?). Not sure I believe an MTB shoe would be any thicker than a road shoe, I’ve messed about with enough shoes to know that the construction of the soles etc. all appears very similar (in fact the depth of the T nuts that I had to replace in the sole if my Lake road shoes makes me suspect they are thicker than my Giro and Specialized MTB shoes).

Don’t get me wrong though, I’ll take every marginal gain going and won’t be swapping my Looks for SPDs any time soon 😎

Only tangible thing I found int he brief period I used sl’s was the astronomical rate that the cleats would wear at.

Use spds on all my bikes now

there’s plenty of evidence out there that even a 2.5mm crank length adjustment makes a difference

Last time ths came up here, there really wasn’t! OK maybe a few percent at extremes eg 100mm.

I really don’t get how stack height can be significant, your ankle isn’t rotating enough.

I full agree with andrewh. I have some lightweight carbon road bike and all have SPDs – got questioned in a road bike shop when I spec’d XTR pedals on the build :-) All shoes fit all bikes and they are double sided and the walk in the cafe is much less risky.

Since there is so much opinion and it’s Christmas, shall we just say that using SPDs on the road is OK, but that people might prefer road systems who aren’t simply herd mentality idiots who give little thought to it

This is agreed. I am just genuinely interested in actual benefits. I would guess more secure for sprinting, judging by how difficult it looks to get out of them as most using them seem to unclip then stop, whereas with my MTB pedals I stop and then unclip. I would give some a try but wonky knees and hips made me stick to time Atac and the extra float ( for better or worse, too scared to change).

you are willing to sacrifice pedalling efficiency for the other 3,652 days

Is there any actual proof you do lose efficiency? Even if the sole flexed a little (and they don’t on stiffer shoes) it’d be absorbing almost no energy (they don’t get warm). Road shoes feel more locked in, but I doubt there’s any efficiency benefits or they’ll be used at the pointy end of xc racing (where unclipping isn’t a thing) as well

For me its more a footwear driven decision than performance based – I fitted them because I had one pair of MTB shoes to start with across 3 bikes (MT7 shoes, M520 pedals on gravel and XC and M320 on commuter), I have wooden floors in my house which I didn’t want to damage/skitter about on based on observations of roadie mates. The MT7s are all day comfy to walk about in if necessary.

On longer rides I found I got hotspots and then really sore feet at the contact points after about 2 hours on the MT7s so I bought a stiffer carbon soled shoe (Giro Sector) which seems to have fixed that. They have a decent sole can also sill cope with straightforward hike-a-bike for ‘gravel’ rides but are too stiff for confidently scrambling up rocks – not that you do that often on a road ride…. I do find that the stiffer sole gives better power transfer on climbs but that could be imagined…

That said, if I ever did get a dedicated road bike, out of FOMO as much as anything, I’d probably look at roadie pedals to clip into my pristine white roadie shoes (only in summer obvs) :D

Is there any actual proof you do lose efficiency? 

I haven’t seen any studies but consider this. On a bicycle, your legs are there to spin a set of cranks which only turn in one axis. Any movement away from that axis is inefficient. Some people require a little float to allow for some movement off that axis since the entire length of the leg is rarely totally aligned. Nevertheless, the less movement away from directly inline with the cranks the better.

Think of any machine (say an engine) where power is applied. A great amount of time, effort and design is spent on keeping pistons inline with as little play away from the vertical axis as possible. Now think of your legs as the pistons and the same thing applies.

ideas Vs evidence…

Are there any stats for SPD-SL related cafe incidents?!

When I was road racing, I much preferred the connected feel of a good road shoe and pedal combination which matters when you’re trying to squeeze out the watts on an uphill sprint, for everything else it rarely mattered. In winter, I generally wear 2 hole cleats and MTB boots – more time spent faffing out on your feet, dealing with punctures and mechanicals going into cafes rather than trashing a pair of carbon soled disco slippers. These days, most of my riding is on gravel bikes or MTB, all fitted with Time pedals and footwear to suit the season.

I used to use MTB SPDs and much preferred when I switched to SPD-SL. I find I’m hunting more on the little spd “platforms” whereas with the SLs I got in first try most of the time. Could just be down to pedal choice though, mine are the little ice cube-esque block ones. Also the bigger cleat helps with locating it I think. They felt a lot stiffer and the pressure seems more spread over the base of the foot.

Think I’m convinced enough to give it a go.  I’ve never liked the feel of the Looks to be honest and would prefer the double sided clip I used to have on the MTB.  We do a lot of riding over in Spain and they have a particular style of stone pavement that is lethal in road cleats.

The Shimano XC7 someone recommended look nice.  Any other options for shoes?  Guessing either a very stiff and lightweight MTB shoe or a road shoe that will take the 4 bolt MTB SPD cleats (if there is indeed such a thing)?

Stuck some Look Xtracks on my road bike when I started using it off road.

I had SPD on my road bike and stiff MTB shoes for years.

I bough a fancy carbon road bike and went for road shoes and pedals.

I’m not racing or doing speedy club rides. The main difference I notice is just how annoying it is walking in the road shoes. Just off the bike into a cafe requires concentration.

The shoes are good, light and comfy enough for me for 130 miles.

Ever time I walk any where or have to pull out of a junction I mutter about going back to SPD.

Personally I’ve had a couple of incidents in traffic of not being able to clip in quick enough with the single sided Looks to clear a junction with enough margin for error – situations where the plastic cleat has slipped clean off the shiny plastic/carbon pedal.  Left me in a rather compromised situation.  Never ever had with with my old SPD’s hence one of the reasons why I’m now looking to switch back.  Also nothing worse than trying to start uphill and not being able to clip in straight away and without thinking.