It's the shoes that cause discomfort, not the pedals. I can do a 12 hour climbing ride with SPD mountain bike style pedals and my feet are fine with my good shoes. I also have Look pedals and my feet are killing me in a couple hours with my old shoes. BTW, I used the old Time pedals in the early 90s and broke 3 of them and crashed twice. That's when I switched to Looks.