Mountain Biking - Speedplay pedals ?

Any positive or negative opinions on speedplay pedals? I'm having some knee issues, and have read several reports stating speedplay pedals can help due to the "float" allowed in foot positioning?

They are the best thing since sliced bread.
Seriously, I have them on my road bike and my tandem. The float is great. They are easy to get into and out of. They last a long, long time. Just make sure you mount the cleat right under the ball of your foot. You'll love them. At first, they are a little strange because of the free float. Its like pedaling on ice cubes. You get used to it after 2 or 3 rides.

Worked wonders for me too. Moved from Look to Speedplay X and my knee pains have disappeared after a couple of weeks. I use them on a road bike so I don't know how they perform for MTB.
Buy the stainless, I've heard the cro-mo rust easily.

I have no knee issues, but have been riding Frogs for ~7 years now. I originally went to them because I couldn't seem to get unclipped from SPDs... 100% engagement, about 50% release. Strange. Anyway, the Frogs - with no spring forces - were the answer for me and I now have them on both my road and mtb. They do take a little getting used to for both the engagement and free float feel, but after a few rides it'll feel completely natural.

Ive used Speedplays on my road bike because of some pain I experienced climbing. I recovered from those injuries using Speedplays. I ve been using them for over a year now and have found my natural heel position and have adjusted my MTB Ritchey pedals to mimic the same heel position. However, I still feel some restriction in the knees. So I'll likely be switching to FROGs on the MTB shortly.

Thanks for the input, sounds like their worthwhile! Can the same style be used for road and mtb?

Any positive or negative opinions on speedplay pedals? I'm having some knee issues, and have read several reports stating speedplay pedals can help due to the "float" allowed in foot positioning?

I love them, and run them on my three bikes. BTW, there are numerous threads on this subject if you do a search.

You can use frogs on the road bike if you wish. I run X2's on my road bike and Sidi shoes but on my mountain bike, I have flats. They are an AWESOME pedal but do take some getting used too; feels like your riding on ice cubes.

just to put a few negatives...

frogs have a rep for clogging up w/ mud. if you ride in a lot of muddy conditions as a mtn bike rider, I would stay away.

as for the road type pedals, I find that the excess float on my x-5s lets my feet go into bad positions causing me more knee strain. it took me a while to figure out the problem, and now I know to hold my feet straight, but still, it was annoying to go through a pretty tough injury to find this out.

I have also had cleat problems with my x-5s, I left my original cleats accumulate 4000 miles on them, and I realized that my foot was rocking back and forth. not good. so I bought new cleats for the fairly high price of 40 dollars + tax. as soon as I installed the clears, I began clipping out in sprints. I figured it was my monstrous 1300 watt sprint (I hadn't been working on sprinting until the secpnd set of cleats), so I rode like this, in frustration for another 500 miles, and then I found out that the little "bowtie" was worn out because I kept the old cleat on so long, thats another $40 plus tax. on top of that, I'm going to probably need a new set of cleats because I undoubtedly screwed up my second set of cleats by using them with worn out bowties.

Lastly, I have ooh-gobs of play in my pedals, I thought my BB was dying...nope its my pedals. rebuild kit: $40 + tax. seeing a pattern? I did not realize that you had to be so religious about injecting the grease, I was coming off of a bulletproof set of SPDs. As such, I waited until the 3000 mark to inject my pedals, but that was in early march, and since then I've injected every 1000 miles (2 more times) and I'm feeling the play I described. I think that possibly the x-5 bearings are crap.

so anyway, I'm not a huge fan of the speedplay x-5, however I'm thinking of getting the SS zeros because I think they might have nicer bearings and you can restrict the float.

I think that new speedplay users must realize that these particular pedals require service every once and a while, unlike SPDs that go until they're dead 20000 miles later. buy the grease injector when you get your pedals, and replace your cleats at the 2000 mile mark, and you'll probably be ok. do what I did, and you'll be as pissed w/ the pedals as I am...

Thanks for all the info everyone ... I appreciate it!

I'm having a bike fitting done Monday on my road and mtb. I think i'll stick with my shimano pedals for awhile after that and see how my knees react. If the problem is still there, i'll try either the speedplay or eggbeater styles to get more float.

just to put a few negatives...

frogs have a rep for clogging up w/ mud. if you ride in a lot of muddy conditions as a mtn bike rider, I would stay away.



I have to disagree. It's never taken me more than 2 stomps, occasionally 3 in TX stick to everything mud to get clipped into my Frogs. So while they'll pick up some mud and probably don't clear as well as Time's or Eggbeaters, they do clear pretty well. This after many winters riding in the Puget Sound area....