Originally Posted by
Marcus_Ti
You're assuming Shimano was fool enough to make the cleat and pedal out of identical steel, and that the pedal wears in the same manner as the cleat. Didn't you wonder why the SPD cleats are coated in black and the pedals clips aren't?
My XTRs bought last year have 9k miles on them....3rd pair of cleats. Only signs of wear are gouges from a few bifs on concrete....probably do need to do a bearing adjustment though.
The newest SH51 cleats are coated. You can still find loads of them that aren't, and I have personally only ever had a single pair of coated SPD cleats. I don't understand what's happening here, exactly-- your personal experience does not invalidate mine. My SPD pedals (and this includes pedals of multiple manufacturers of the same SPD design-- including Shimano, Look, iSSi, and Wellgo) get squeaky, and no cleat change will stop it. I also said squidgy above-- the wear on the pedal adds in unpredictable float that I don't want. Perhaps there's a significant difference between the top-end SPD Shimano and all the others. I'll never know, because I'm back on Look S-Tracks until the supply of discontinued pedals dries up.