Road pedals

Ryan Cousineau said:

My suspicion is that the stiffness of the shoe matters a lot more with a
small cleat than it does with a big one, but if it's stiff enough, it's
stiff enough.

It does matter, but to a different problem - that of being able to feel a
small cleat through a flexible sole, which some people claim causes a
painful "hot spot" on long rides (it never affected me).

The small SPD cleat lets your footrock laterally, regardless of the
stiffness of the sole.

--
Home page: http://members.westnet.com.au/mvw

Michael Warner said:

Peter Cole said:

I always find it amusing when roadies claim that their riding is much
more demanding of pedals than off road riding.

I didn't claim any such thing - as I mentioned elsewhere, the benefits of
SPD for mounting biking surely outweigh the extra stability.

You certainly implied it. Why does road cycling require more
"stability"? MTB riding is characterized by more frequent periods of
brief high effort, much more variable surfaces and a greater variety of
rider positions on the bike -- all of which make much greater demands on
"stability".

Quoted message said:

Your chip is showing.

I don't think I have one. I do a lot of both types of riding and can
find no advantage for "road" pedals. I think it's just a style thing.

Peter Cole said:

Michael Warner said:

Peter Cole said:

I always find it amusing when roadies claim that their riding is much
more demanding of pedals than off road riding.

I didn't claim any such thing - as I mentioned elsewhere, the benefits of
SPD for mounting biking surely outweigh the extra stability.

You certainly implied it. Why does road cycling require more
"stability"? MTB riding is characterized by more frequent periods of
brief high effort, much more variable surfaces and a greater variety of
rider positions on the bike -- all of which make much greater demands on
"stability".

Quoted message said:

Your chip is showing.

I don't think I have one. I do a lot of both types of riding and can
find no advantage for "road" pedals. I think it's just a style thing.

SPD was and is ridden by lots of cyclists on the road. In bike
racing, SPD was ridden by lots of cylists on the road (even at the
highest levels of the sport) fora couple years and still is still
used by a few hobby racers.

Perhaps SPD on the road fell out of widespread favor on the road due
to the platform size/stability issue but I'm not very sure about that.
There are other pretty small pedal systems in use today.

I use SPD on the road because I liked that the center of rotation was
right under the ball of my foot, as opposed to farther forward as in
the Look system I used before that. Plus the cleats last a long time.

--
JT
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In article <[email hidden]>,

Quoted message said:

Ozark Bicycle wrote:
(I asked):

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Which spud pedals, ATB or road, have adjustable release tension?

(OB replied):

Quoted message said:

*Every* one I have ever seen? Which ones *do not* have adjustable
release tension?

The ones I've used in Spin class. I started looking through the Shimano
offerings; sorry, I didn't feel like staying around. Even though I'm a
booster of the Ultegra 6610's. Maybe they'll stay with this design?

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Wearing cleats down is a viable criticism.

Gee thanks for agreeing. It means the world to me.

Glad you care? Lighten up.

(me):

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Walking like a duck is a "who cares", IMHO <g>.

(him):

Quoted message said:

It goes beyond "walking like a duck" and extends into unsure footing.
Years ago, a friend's GF, an experienced rider, came upon a stop sign
at the top of a fairly steep rise. When she put a foot down, her big
exposed cleat slipped on the pavement, she went down and got a pretty
nasty knee laceration. Walkable shoes with a recessed cleat and a
reasonable sole probably wouldn't have slid on the pavement. Pro racers
don't come upon stop signs, do they?

Bad things happen to good people. I try for a heel strike or at least a
heel plant; but then I came up on the old white plastic Sidi Titanium
cleats. I also mentioned the favorable observations heard when someone
attended our "racer" ride wearing ATB shoes. Fine with all; but unknown
territory for most of us who have found "roadie" shoes/pedals that work
for our uses.

Reminds me of a hilarious incident a few years ago on our club ride. It
turns out our usual route was blocked due to road work. This involved
several large concrete blocks preventing cars from traversing a very
short piece of road. The ride came to a stop, I hopped off my bike, and
to the audible horror of my clubmates, jumped up onto the block with my
bike and then jumped down on the other side.

Of course, I was wearing SPDs with soft-rubber treads, and the rest of
the riders were not.

BTW, the Crank Brothers Quattro pedal comes with a cleat option that
works on a 3-bolt (Look) shoe, but also comes with a surrounding rubber
element, which effectively converts the shoe to "fairly walkable".

--
Ryan Cousineau [email hidden] http://www.wiredcola.com/
"I don't want kids who are thinking about going into mathematics
to think that they have to take drugs to succeed." -Paul Erdos