when you do send it to me....

Late thread but I am seriously looking into this. Turning a normal pair of shoes into clipless is a pretty cool concept. First for people who haven't yet taken the full dive into clipless and for second people who want to create a comfortable clipless system. I plan on converting a pair of Adidas yhezys into biking shoes. I'll probably get a size smaller so it's still functional as a tight mountain biking shoe. I currently ride giro's full carbon sole shoes but looking for something comfortable and dope to wear when I'm doing my late night urban assault riding around bentonville ar. If you want to see some updates on my design let me know

Please do update us. I have a ruined pair of SPD sandals and have kept it around with the idea of bringing the sole to my cobbler, but I don't know what shoes to put the soles on.

I think you should defnitely try "half-clips" first. Like these: https://www.merlincycles.com/zefal-c...ips-97126.html . The Nashbar version is the "Nashbar Mini Toe Clip" and your LBS probably has an equivalent in stock.

They are cheap, compatible with most pedals and if you get a shoe where the toe is fairly rigid (like tennis shoes) and the toe volume fits snugly into the half-clip, you get very good matching. Mostly it is not for pulling up on the pedal but for keeping your toe fixed in place front-to-back. So you jam your foot forward into it and it always ends up in the exact right position relative to the pedal spindle. But if you're using the half-clips, you probably want a pedal that doesn't have any metal studs on it, unlike a big platform pedal that has a bunch of studs that are meant to give you lots of grip.

When I was riding with regular shoes in the city, I'd use these track pedals or similar https://alexscycle.com/collections/n...nuevo-a-pair-1 and the plastic half-clips. The half-clip makes the pedal hang down and that little tooth on the pedal is always facing up, so you just put your foot on it and pull and slide in. It's hard to explain in text but easy to master.

there was a plastic toeclip & strap with a molded Look style cleat made ..

"Decksters" is a metal piece resembling aluminum deck plate, which was drilled to fit the SPD cleat ..[QBP owns the distribution]


Get the SPuD cleat .. and the pontoons , and you could DIY something yourself..






....

Keep in mind that on mountain bike shoes they have tread on each side of the cleat so you can walk around:


No side tread on road shoes but they have a larger cleat that spans the width of the shoe:



If you attach a mtb cleat to a regular shoe, I would think it would be worse to walk around in off the bike than either kind of bike shoe.

The benefits of clipless are not that high, if you do some research. They make sense for racers where it's primarily keeping their foot attached to the pedal when sprinting wildly and they may or may not be able to slightly faster. If clipless works well for you without problems great, but if you are working real hard to try to make clipless work it's almost certainly not worth the effort. Clipless does not provide benefits in speed or efficiency to your average rider.

If you race, or almost-race, I'd say you'd be better off googling others with extra extra wide feet. I think some people sell shoes that are extra extra wide, where you can return them if you haven't put a cleat on them (so you can order them and try them on and return them if they aren't wide enough).

Most bike shoe makers seem convinced that cyclists have tiny slim feet to match their tiny slim shoulders. I have moderately large feet (12 wide) and always have a problem finding shoes to fit. My last one (mavic) sort of fit but were on the narrow side and created a lot of foot pain.


My current Pearl Izumis are the best yet. They fit perfectly! As others have said, buying cycling shoes is best done in person. And, btw, spd cleats have never touched the floor in any of the shoes I've owned.


Re making your own, it doesn't seem like a good idea as the sole would have to be replaced with something fairly rigid and hard (a 3/8" steel plate? really?) but if you have success I'd love to hear about it.