This might be better suited for the mechanics forum but has anybody ever converted a pair of mountain shoes to road shoes? Would I be better off buying new road shoes?

Yes.

or put your mtb pedals on your road bike.

Depending on the cleat system you want to use. Some quick googling got me some third party Look cleats that can be bolted to a 2-bolt SPD shoe. There's no adapter that I know of. Only a 3- bolt to 2-bolt SPD adapter made by Crank Bros.

https://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...=263602_263622

Mountain shoes it mountain bike pedals. If you are going to use mtb pedals, then they're the shoes to use.
But they won't fit road pedals. The drilling is wrong and the cleats will hit the pedals. You could cut the cleats off, redrill the shoes and put in threaded inserts but that's a lot of work. Most mtb shoes are also more flexible than road shoes, and that's less comfortable for long rides.

Alright so any recommendations for a budget (less than $150) road shoe? My LBS might only carry specialized and possibly Diadora.

I bought shimano r086 for under 100 at Performance. I see they have some sale going on now, so maybe shoe prices will be reduced

fixed it

There's a cobblers forum? Maybe I could strike a deal with one of them to do it for me. In all seriousness: Sworks is WAY out of my budget so I'm thinking either '08 Specialized Pro Carbons or '10 Trivents.

Or '09 Diadora speed carbons?

I'll see what they have in the store.

I know I'm going to regret this, but,
How do you convert a MTB shoe to a road shoe? Cut away the rubber soul and heal with a knife?

Right. I knew that part but it's more complicated than that because of the cleat attachment holes. MTB pedals have two holes spaced about half an inch apart, road pedals have three holes in a triangle formation which to convert from one to the other would require redrilling and like somebody above mentioned putting new screw-in thingys.

If you want to use LOOK style and be able to walk... you are as of 1996, S.O.L. without resorting to complete personal creation. Good news is - Its easy to do if you have the balls to carve your shoes away.

Don't take my word for it.... I have evidence*:



*For those keeping score - My Custom Ryan Rowes are still nice looking and riding after 800 miles

the scattante falcones are 99 at performance and they have carbon fiber soles.

MTB shoes are less than half the price of road shoes on auction here in Japan. There are some MTB Sidi's going for about 25USD in my size. I have replaced the screw things by using claw nuts and drilling small holes for the claws but never all of them.

Even if I use a knife or grinder to remove the rubber, I wonder if thee are holes in the sole to bolt the rubber sides on which might coincide, or semi coincide with the cleat bolt holes.



It looks quite fun

If I get it done

I have altered and repaired old road shoes using T-nuts (https://a.co/d/fj4L4vt). Of course the you’d have to simply drill the holes in the precise locations on the soles.
Those barbs on the circumference of the nut were a bit too long so I had to cut them down. Take out all in sole liners so that you can get right down to actual sole. I used Shoo-goo type glue to keep them in place. — Dan

this

You can also put Shimano ED500 pedals on your bike, it's a wide platform road pedal that accepts 2-hole SPD cleats. Perfect for base training (PZ2), touring, social rides, beginners, etc as MTB shoes are a whole lot more walkable.

Dan,
Me too!
Except I called them "claw nuts" (I am in Japan so here they are called something else in Japanese).
I did not use the shoe glue but will in future. So far I have only done it to Sidi-fy the heels of Shimano shoes for a replaceable heel pad, and to replace a single rusted cleat bolt never a set of six.
Your Most Recent Cycling-related Repair


I have about 5 pairs of shoes. Most or all of them don't take two bolt cleats. I want several pairs of shoes because when it rains (it is the rainy season here now) I sometimes have several pairs of shoes that are drying out.

I used to use those at first but these days I am into spd-sls.

Anyway, I bought some old SH-R133 for 12usd
SH-R133L
I am not sure whether the soles will be to my liking. They are "Carbon fibre composite" and I am not sure if that means that they are carbon fibre soled shoes (since carbon fibre soled shoes are carbon fibre composite shoes) or whether they have some carbon fibre (composite) plates in a nylon sole. The soles don't look the same as my other carbon fibre Shimano shoes.


I posted recently saying that when using a glute centric pedalling style the stomp becomes less important so shoes with less hard soles can be used, but lately I have been leveraging my whole body into my pedal stroke - sort of through my back and arms to the bars -- and like the rock hard heel cupped Shimano R200s (they have a heel cup as part of the carbon sole) best. They are also really ancient and patched with carbon fibre. I never customized them to my feet so I am hoping that the R133s will be equivalent.

Happy National Zombie Thread Day!

It's not just National Zombie Thread day, it's National Zombie Shoe Thread Day:

When to replace your road shoes?

I had forgotten but I had in fact replaced a full set of SPD-SL cleat nuts with claw-nuts in the past

Carbon Sole Repair with Claw-Nuts by Timothy Takemoto, on Flickr
so to convert a mountain bike shoe to a road bike shoe, all I would need is a template to position the three holes. Since the cleats themselves allow for some adjustment, this need not be all that exact, imho.

Claw nuts can be purchased cheaply here (M5 I am pretty sure)
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32898135040.html

Should anyone be interested, my thoughts on old threads are explained in my "About me."