Originally Posted by bvfrompc
Help me here becuase I have never been in a position to Sprint, though I did Sprint seated for 15th place in one crit, but wouldn't the cleat and pedal interact just the same on a MTB shoe vs road shoe?
Or is it that one needs a road specific cleat/pedal for sprinting that wouldn't fit on a MTB shoe?
Thank you for your clarification in advance, this may seem like ABCs to most roadies but I have to ask.
If you're seated, you're probably not in any danger. The danger of unintentional clipouts comes to the fore when standing. And they don't interact the same way. Different cleat mechanisms are... well, different. I had my SPD tension dialed all the way up, and I pulled straight up and out on the upstroke of a practice sprint. My knee hit the bar, the bar hit my chest, and my shoulder hit the ground at ~28mph. After investigating the issue, I discovered that many other people have encountered this problem with SPDs. SPDs are just fine for most kinds of riding, but they are definitely not suitable for sprinting on the road.