vrkelley

I"m looking at another set of clipless pedals and noticing that some companies are advertising pedal surface area. I guess the idea is that the larger area gives more pedal power (in spite of the stiff shoe) esp on the hills.

SpeedPlay touts that their pedals have one of the the largest surface area. Any thoughts on this? Advertising hype?

slvoid

That's true if you have crappy shoes.
Otherwise, I can't see how that affects things, I mean, I have a pair of mtb shoes I race with and the sole is a huge sheet of carbon. Ain't no flex there...

The reason why speed play says that is cause they put the cleat on the crank and you're WEARING the pedal.

jur

+1. If you have suffiently stiff sole, the pedal area is irrelevant. Egg beaters have essentially no pedal area, you're on a spindle only, but these are hugely successful.

oboeguy

I have Look (large platform) pedals with carbon-soled (stiff as it gets) shoes on my road bike, no problems. I have sneaker-like MTB-style shoes with a somewhat rigid but quite walkable sole (so not all that stiff) on SPD-style pedals (small platform) and no problems. I've ridden centuries with both setups, which are at the extreme oppositve ends of the pedal and shoes spectrum, and still no problems.

Does this mean it's all hype? No, it means I have no problems. Anyhow, the point is that small platform pedals aren't a problem for everyone.

vrkelley

That IS hype...The 2 surfaces meet and it probably doesn't make a differance which end is the pedal/crank.

DanO220

I replaced my platforms with some bigger ones. The main advantage I find is that they are easier to get your foot onto when you start from a stop, and more stable once you do. If someone's trying to hype up some kind of hill climbing power number that's ridiculous. I'm riding in tennies for Pete's sake. And besides, if you're trying to milk every hill climbing watt, you better be running a clipless system anyway.

DanO

max-a-mill

but i have another point your missing.

i was an spd holdout for years... never had any problems with them and was constantly being told by people time pedals were better. finally i got a good deal on some used sets and tried them. THEY ARE BETTER

one of the reasons is lateral flex. even though your stiff shoe soless never flex, feel how much side to side play you have with your spd's. i used to be able to rock side to side quite a bit. with my time pedals there is NONE. no up & down looseness either. i don't know if i am doing a good job of explaining it but it is enough that i will now gladly shell out the extra $$$ for time pedals and there proprietary expensive cleats (that don't last a tenth as long as the spd ones)

slvoid

That's true, while not significantly LONGER, the time pedals have the width to reduce side to side wobble.
That being said, I don't feel any side to side wobble with my SPD's.

Paul And Pista

I thought the idea of increased pedal surface area was less for performance than comfort. The idea is that spreading the pressure on the pedal over a larger area will make "hot spots" occur less frequently. With my mountain shoe-Eggbeater setup, I do occasionally have some discomfort, but never anything major.

vrkelley

Here are some cleat comparison from SpeedPlay. SpeedPlay's touting comfort and stability
https://www.speedplay.com/index.cfm?f...=home.platform