Originally Posted by
RubeRad
?? Are we not all clydes? My cleats would always scrape on pavement or click on tile. They were Forte (Performance house brand, equivalent to something by Nashbar, I can't remember the name at the moment)
Tennies are not cut up so I can walk, they're cut up so my duck-footed-heels won't hit the cranks or chainstays. And because I pronate (or is it supinate?) I never use the insides of the heels anyways.
Pinned platforms FTW!
I go back and forth, depending on my needs. When I was commuting, it was easier to just use the pinned platforms. Too many stop lights, and when I was commuting after dark the cleats were just too much of a pain to deal with.
But for longer rides where I don't need to stop very often, some type of cleat. I have both SPD and Look - right now I have the SPD on my Zwift bike, but the shoes aren't as comfortable, and just last night I dug out the Look pedals and the Sidi shoes with the intent of putting on my Zwift bike.
My beef with the Look pedals is that you really can't walk in the shoes at all. And I got caught out when one of my tires exploded out on the road and I didn't have any sort of normal shoes to change into. I had about a mile walk to get to a LBS to get the thing repaired. At that point I realized that if I was using those shoes/pedals I would need to carry either a spare set of shoes or a full spare tire (not just the tube). The shoes survived the ordeal, but the heel pads were worn down pretty bad - fortunately those are cheap and easy to replace. At the time I switched back to SPD just because I didn't want to have to carry a backpack with extra shoes every time I went for a ride.
The SPDs I can kind of walk in - with my shoe, the cleat is recessed, so I am actually walking on the tread of the shoe and not the cleat. Not perfect, but still not great, and I have some amount of traction on the ground, so I don't feel like I am going to slip and fall. I am not 100% sure, but I think those shoes are Pearl Izumi.
The Sidi shoes just don't have any kind of proper grip on a normal floor and I worry about slipping and falling. For the trainer, they are perfect.
FWIW, I have somewhat wider feet myself. Shimano were horrible - impossibly narrow. If you have wide feet, see if you can try on some Sidi, and see if those are any better.