hi all

doing a lot of commuting at the minute on my winter hack bike and need to change my manky old shimano SPD shoes and pedal set up.

thinking about going with nice northwave shoes and shimao spd sl pedals.

just wondering if the pedals will fit my existing crank set on my mountain bike

Yep, I used to run SPD-SL with carbon road shoes on my MTB for commuting.

hi royal

did you ever try off road with this set up?
do you think it would be suitable for XC racing?

thx

Yeah a little offroad but only on stuff where I knew I wouldn't have to get off the bike. Wouldn't want to use them somewhere rocky or muddy.

I agree, somewhere like Thetford they're ok, where it's a safe bet you're not gonna be taking your foot off the pedal.

The other main downside, apart from the inability to walk, is the single sided pedals. The last thing you want at the start of an XC race is worrying about kicking your pedals over to clip in.

I have just noticed that this links to a review titled R540 but the picture and review is of an M540.

I thought that. Slack!

hi

sorry about the link being wrong - my mistake!

just got the shoes and in the box there was a leaflet showing all compatible pedal systems. it included "shimano spd" instructions as well as "shimano spd-l" and "shimano spd-r"

i think i might be able to use my existing spd's with these shoes? in the diagram on the leaflet the spd's look like these:

http://www.excelsports.com/new.asp?page=8&description=SPD+Cleats+SH%2D70&vendorCode=SHIM&major=5&minor=6

Those cleats are originally designed for the first generation road SPD pedals, they would probably work on newer MTB pedals, but the pontoons may foul on the pedal body, as they're not as flush as the road pedals were.

Just out of interest, if you're gonna use SPD pedals, why bother with road shoes? Surely that's just complicating things needlessly, they're not going to be massively stiffer than equivalently priced MTB shoes, but walking will be difficult and you restrict where you can ride the bike.

If you want to use a pedal like an SPD-SL I can understand, but if you're sticking with SPDs, I'd far sooner use MTB shoes.

And it's not you linking wrong, the picture and the description don't match.

hi nick

my existing mtb shoes and pedals for my commut bike are 5+ years old and completely cream crackered.

i will not be taking that bike off road so i bought the road shoes knowing that i will buy spd-l pedals as well.

it was just when i opened the box that i discovered the leaflet saying that i could use it with spd's.

i just thought i could hold off and buy the spd-l pedals next month and use my existing spd's in the mean time as money is a bit tight

I see, well yes it will be possible potentially, but you'll have to see what happens with the pontoons if you have them.

If not, you'll find walking a total bitch. If you need to buy cleats I wouldn't bother, as they're 25% the price of entry level SPD-SL pedals!

i have some brand new cleats for shimano SPD's on a shelf (without pontoons).

i have put them on the road shoes and they do sit rather proud! Still, do you think they could be OK for the ride to work?

They will work fine, you just have no platform to walk on, I've known people twist ankles and such, as you're walking on a very uneven surface, but as long as you keep that to a minimum you shouldn't have problems.

It'll be harder to get into/out of the pedals too, as there's no tread to 'guide' the cleat into the pedal. I'd definitely look to get the SPD-SLs as soon as finances allow, they're lovely pedals.

ok, will stick on the spd cleats as a temporary measure while saving for proper spd-sl cleats/pedals

many thanks for your advice and help. appreciated.

ciaran

I used MTB cleats on a road shoe for a couple of days. Fell over twice and bought a pair of road pedal on the third day.

yip - having tried to walk from the back door to the garage wearing these shoes I've very quickly decided to wait until i get the proper cleats.

it was like walking on a pair of ice skates and i'm only going to knacker the brand new spd cleats.