Hey,
I have seen people discuss about the pedals, but we haven't really discussed about the durability of cleats
from the point of view of the fixed riding. We yank hard when we stop or skid and I am wondering how this affect the durability of cleats. And, LBS people aren't fixed riders and they can't offer useful information.
I was using SPD for few month now. Lately, I have been clipping out often. This clip-out is strange. For one thing, it doesn't "clip out" rather it "slip out". Also, clip-out doesn't happen while skidding; it happens while pedaling fast or sudden slow-to-stop near cross-section. Pretty harmless, but kinda unnerving. So I took the cleats out to replace, and they look like this.
Note the wear is concentrated on the rear extremity; anywhere else has prestign coating. This means rear extremeties of SPD cleats are the only part that wear down. This, in itself, isn't a bad thing. But note this is precisely where pedals clings onto the cleats.
Thus, any wear in this small region can critically damage the SPD cleats' reliability.
I swapped to ATAC yesterday, but I like the way SPD work and living where I am SPD is much more preferable. ATAC cleats are soft, but ATAC seems to work reliably with greater wear tolerance.
Hows other cleats? SPD-SL, Neo, Look, etc.
Thanks in advance,
Tomo