What do you all get in terms of mileage and wear on shimano cleats for the 105's or ultegra pedals? I bought went o road shoes about a year ago and just wondered the life span of the cleat. My old eggbeaters were fine for cleats but the pedals do not seem to stand up like the 105 road pedals I now have..

It largely depends on how often you have to clip in and out and do you walk in them. For city riding or roads with a lot of stops where you have to unclip frequently and put a foot down the cleats will wear a lot faster than for racers who clip in once at the start and clip out once at the finish line. Also, do you walk a lot in your riding shoes and do you use cleat covers when you do? These factors will determine cleat life, not just time and miles.

+1, Never walking on them will help. stop for long.. take off your shoes , cleat covers, carry a pair of flip-flops in your pocket or go barefoot.

deacon mark, I use SPD design pedals for all of my bikes save one. While mostly various Shimano models there are some Ritcheys and one old set of ICON pedals on my mountain bike. They have all delivered excellent service without any failures. The highest mileage I recall was around 15K miles for those on my distance bike and the roughest use would be from the mountain bike, which is 16 years old.

Cleats on road shoes are vulnerable to damage from walking. The cleats on my mountain bike shoes are recessed into the shoe's soles and fairly protected.

Brad

The OP is describing 105 and Ultegra road cleats. These are plastic and very similar to the Look triangle-shaped three screw ones and equally vulnerable to abuse.

I am still not sure whether the OP is referring to SPD or SPD-SL which is why I identified which I wrote about. The SPD pedal is still available and the A600 is still associated with the Ultegra group, at least by some on line stores.

Brad

Good point. I was pretty sure they were the SL versions but they may indeed be the older plain SPD road cleats. If so, they came with "pontoons" that kept them from ground contact when walking but, of course, made walking awkward.