I'm in the final stretch of equipping my new Mercian King of Mercia touring and sport bike. I'm kind of stuck on the pedals, and also the shoes.

Shimano A600 and Ritchey Micro Road pedals are under consideration. I'm a little worried the latter choice is going to depend on good stiff shoe. I do like the Ritchey's minimal design. While I've tried Looks I've preferred SPD in the past, plus I tend to be tempted by gravel roads fairly often. SPD is my preference but I'm not set in stone. A600 and Shimano RT82 shoes seems like a pretty safe choice. Walkability is secondary but I would like some.

I know I could go the roadie forum and everyone will say SPD-SL, or I could go to Touring forum and everyone would say to ride platform pedals with sandals or some nonsense. I would like however to hear what the C&V crowd thinks. I'm guessing most if not all of you aren't still running 1975 Detto Pietros with nailed on slot cleats and steel Campagnolo Record pedals. What do you guys like to ride on your vintage (or not) bikes?

My (albeit limited) experience with SPD pedals includes the original M-737 SPD pedal and, more recently, a pair of Shimano PD-M324 Dual Platform . I have to say that I was really pleased with the M324 dual platform pedals for the brief time I had the bike. I liked the ability to ride clipless with the option to flip over and ride with regular street shoes. The platform section was wide and stable. They are fairly heavy though (almost 2x weight of the A600).

For my keepers, I have about half my bikes set up with older Look pedals (shoes: Sidis or Looks), and the other half with clips & straps (shoes: rotation of Avocet touring shoes when I expect some walking, or Sidis with slotted cleats). These all work for me, but I'm sure there are probably better/stiffer options available.

Speedplay X5's and Giro Apecks shoes. Same as I use on my modern bike. I also have a 25 year old pair of leather Diadora's I still wear as well. If I plan on doing some walking i wear my MTB shoes and pedals. Nothing special for an older bike.

The Shimano PD-M520Ls are nice in that they're cheap and dual-sided. Especially when you're new to clipless pedals, it's nice to be able to just put your foot down and clip in, without having to worry about which side is up.

Any Time ATAC pedal is nice. The pedal springs are stainless and the cleats are brass which makes for smooth engagement. Mountain bike shoes are good 'cause you can walk around in them.

Thanks everyone. As I expected, some interesting suggestions. I took another look at speedplay, and noticed that they have a 'walkable' cleat now. Interesting. I don't need to hike, but would like to be able to walk through my apartment and down stairs. I fear my penchant for occasional gravel grinding rules it out however, as that cleat would be full of mud in no time.

I actually forgot about Time. I installed a lot of these back in the early days of clipless when Look and Time were the only game in town. Am looking at them again now. Not sure about the plastic bodies. In retrospect Shimano's SPD was heavily influenced by the Time mechanism.

Double sided mtn spd pedals is what I've used before on 'road' bikes, and not ruling those out either because they are easy to get into and obviously do well on gravel.

Not new to cleats at all btw, as I spent years with Duegis (etc) and slot cleats before switching to clipless. But I took a few years off cycling, and lots of new stuff now.

Thanks again for the suggestions. It helps.

My current favorite with SPD is Carnac Ventoux. Very comfortable, vintage look and pretty good for walking around. Usually pay around $30.00, but looks like there has been some inflation. I also have a pair of Carnac mountain bike shoes, model unknown, that are equally good. Found them some years ago nearly new for $4.00 in a thrift store, labeled as "bowling shoes"! Don

ride vintage clipless = Look (or the compatibles)
need to walk a bunch, buy rubber cleat covers to protect the plastic.

This C&V crowd member would go with old school pedals and toe clips. If you're not racing, clip-in pedals aren't worth it.
(Caveat: I DO have two bikes with SPD-compatable clip-in pedals [also brifters], but I don't ride them as much as they deserve since US 9.5 4E shoes to match don't exist).

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I have Shimano M-324 pedals on four of my bikes. I like having the flexibility of a dual platform pedal quite a lot. I moved over to mountain bike shoes several years ago so I could get off the bike and walk around normally. They pair up nicely with these pedals. The platform is wide enough for me, too, that I don't feel like I've got a hot spot in one small area of my soul. I used to use Speedplay pedals and that problem emerged during longer rides. Never happened to me with these though.

On my Moser, I'm riding MKS Nuevo Wide pedals, Ale toe clips, Binda straps and Mamnick Hibell touring shoes - no cleats


the shoes zip in and out of the toe clips and straps and have great stiff leather soles. They also weigh less than my Chrome sneakers with shanks (which are also tough to get in the straps)

here's a recent thread on touring shoes - https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-vi...ing-shoes.html

On my other bikes, it's spiked platforms with Merrells.

Bulldog1935 - thanks I may well get those shoes for my toe clip bikes (PX10 and Masi). It's between those and the Vittoria 1976 (w/ slotted cleats). I'm also using the Chrome Truks now and while they are fine for shorter rides, they start to get pretty uncomfortable for me after about 50 miles or more. Plus they are heavy. I find I definitely miss being able to pedal all the way through the stroke including pulling, which of course is not possible without cleats. It helps on the hills. Then again I rode with old school cycling shoes for years, and I'm used to them.

At any rate, I made a decision and went with the Shimano A600 one sided SPD pedals. The Time pedals looked fragile and expensive, and the Ritcheys looked like the bearings would break. I'm thinking the semi useless looking platform around the A600 will help with long term comfort. I never have butt or hand soreness, but my feet do hurt sometimes. Now to pick the shoes...

Very cool. I have the A600s on one bike. The only thing that bums me out about them is how quickly the undersides of the pedals got marked up from trying to clip in wrong-side up. Someone who used and liked toe clips, like you, should be able to get the hang of that sooner than I.

+ 1. I run this on any vintage bike that I ride long distance.

I'm sure that the A600s are fine pedals. The Time ATAC pedals are certainly not fragile in my experience. They hold up for a long time and a lot of abuse. They come in various price points as well. The top end of the line is pricey but there are a number of less expensive units. That said, it's hard, by and large, to go wrong with most of shimano's products. I've been thinking of picking up the single sided shimano for my touring bike. That way you can ride it in your bike shoes or in your camp shoes.

Good to hear that about the Time ATAC. I might still try them eventually.

Yeah, I think the A600 could be ridden with normal shoes in a pinch.

EVERYONE says the cages get scratched up. When mine start to get beat up, I will use that as an excuse to strip them down to bare metal...

These LOOKs for my bikes with LOOK pedals:



These for my one Podio-equiped bike (no, a Raleigh):



These with clips and straps, mostly used for C&V events:



And I got these recently for touring with clips and straps:

SPD is a versatile system. There are many styles of pedals and shoes.

My new favorite pedal is the Shimano M-324. They seem to be made impressively well and look like they'll last a lifetime, at least if the cleat hardware is replaceable.

I got a set of Wellgo SPD one sided road pedals a long time ago with a bike I bought. The SPD cleats with flat road shoes was really horrible because it was hard to clip in, I couldn't get any traction to get the cleat lined up. The cleats totally scratched up the pedal as well. Tried some of those plastic SH40 cleat adapters and they made it a little easier to walk in but they got destroyed in short order since I still had to slide the cleats all around before they would engage.

Last week I bought a Centurion, it came with some old Wellgo SPD MTB pedals, and he gave me his old Shimano road shoes which I suspect to be early '90's vintage. They had the old SH71 cleats with the pontoon thing which I had never used before. I put them on my shoes and they are awesome. Easy to clip in and easy to walk in.

Shimano TO 92 same Upper as the road and MTB sole of the era, just a un knobby SPD Pocket sole.

have a pair of Carnac Carlit Sz 45 , never off the carpet . so NOS.. will sell

Thanks for the heads up. I was actually wondering about using those pontoon cleats with a 2 bolt equipped road shoe like the RT3 or one of the Pearl Izumis, but I didn't know the model name/number.

I ended up going with PD-A600 pedals and RT82 shoes for now, mostly because I figure Shimano must have designed these to work together. The RT 82 shoes have a fairly narrow toebox, and I don't have wide feet. We shall see. I miss the old leather shoes that would stretch to conform to your feet.

That still leaves the problem of a decent shoe for use with my toe clip bikes. I wish I would have kept one of my pairs of slotted cleats from BITD. 46 does not show up on ebay.