Some road shoes like Specialized have a heel made out of rougher material so when you are standing you are on the cleat and the heel and there's no worry about slipping. They still aren't that natural to walk in but definitely better.

I second this. Keo's were my first set, I was able to clip in and out easy.

Egg beaters are probably the easiest pedal type to get out of, you just kinda twist your foot past the float range and you're out, no extra force needed. . Pretty easy to get in, you don't have to worry about which side of the pedal is up. Sometimes can be a big tricky to get in by feel alone if the foot angle/position isn't quite right and there's not a ton of tactile feedback that you're aligned right.

Look Keo type pedals are the easiest to get into IMO, as long as you find the right side of the pedal. They're weighted to hang a certain way all the time, so it's not too big of a deal. Finding the right foot alignment to clip in by feel is the easiest due to the large cleat toe acting as a guide (I haven't tried Speedplays, so they might be better)

I would not recommend SPDs. They are the hardest to clip in by feel in my experience and offer no real advantages.

Ummm, not so sure about that - especially when used as road pedals..:rolleyes: We're getting 25,000 miles out of SL's before a rebuild. ...And they are very rebuildable.

You know you're right, I don't know as much about their durability when used as road pedals. I know when used as mountain bike pedals they developed a crappy reputation for breaking within a year or two a lot of times.

Oh yeah - the one other thing I dislike about the eggbeaters I owned was that you couldn't tell by feel when you clicked in. You sort of tried to clip in and had to wiggle your foot to check if it worked (if you wanted to check). One thing I like about the Time ATAC is that you can feel it clip in so you know when you're clipped in. I don't quite remember how it was for spd's...

Many road shoes have holes for SPD and Eggbeater type cleats. There are also stiff soled "touring" shoes that take SPDs. I currently use and prefer SPDs on my road bikes and mtb.

There's not much point in my opinion, though, in putting "mountain" cleats on a road shoe. You don't gain anything because the cleat is the same size, but you do lose the tread on the sides that makes the shoe more walkable. Actually...I think it makes the shoe less walkable because at least with a road cleat it's fairly large though slippery, whereas a mountain cleat is small and slippery.

I'm thinking he saw this on Fox News. I think this statement is utter horse apples and the most preposterous thing I've read on BF in some time.

Let's see some links to this "science"...

I agree. Cleat adjustment is easy and doesn't have to be perfect. Speedplays are easy to adjust, too, but seem to be more picky on the shape of the sole.

Go eggbeaters, very easy to use. I have them on my Trek 7.5 FX and my Madone and use it with Pearl Izumis http://www.rei.com/product/810725/pe...ike-shoes-mens , I needed a pair of shoes that I can workout in the gym and these fit the bill.

screw spd...if you're concerned with riding road and you feel you outgrew your hybrid you'll regret getting spd's...you won't regret paying more for nicer shoes and a decent set of pedals...look keo classics or easy

spd-sl

This is correct in my experience. I went from SPDs to SPD-SLs with the same brand / quality of shoe for each system, and could feel ZERO increase in efficiency. It's all about how stiff the shoe is. If you have a stiff shoe SPDs are fine. SPDs are so much easier to clip into as well.

I've been riding with SPD-SLs for a few weeks now and I've *mostly* gotten the hang of it, but plenty of times I still have trouble getting clipped in because the pedal is upside down and I have to make a second attempt while soft pedaling, which costs me time and speed. Because of this I'm pretty sure my average speed is a slight bit lower with the SPD-SLs.

Shimano 105s

As you can see there is plenty of options out there. You mention "beginner" and if you are like me you will start out with an less expensive set and then go to something better. I did just that. I now think it was a mistake. Do some research and go with a high quality set first. I now use Speedplay Zero's and like them very much. They are a great "Stomp and Go" petal and there customer service is great too. They have the best adjustments in the field that I know of and with there rubber covers quite walkable. When starting out on a steep hill, you need to get clipped in fast and sure, and these make it easy once you get used to them. Now you have one more opinion. Good luck and safe ridding.

I wasn't sure I was going to like riding clipless when I first started using them so I got a pair of Shimano SPD-M520 pedals for my road bike and a pair of Specialized Sport MTB Pro shoes. I mainly did it for the cost factor; around $150.00 for pedals and shoes. If I didn't like or couldn't get used to riding clipless, I wasn't out a lot of money. I now ride clipless all the time and have really become used to those shoes and pedals. I can clip in on either side of the pedal (like Speedplays) and they are very easy and fast to clip in and out of. I was thinking about changing to road shoes and pedals until my wife got her recumbent racing trike that came with SPD pedals on them. I'm staying with what I have for a while longer.

Just went clipless myself and love my Shimano 105's. Worked pretty good for me being a total beginner.

I like my Shimano 105s SPD-SL a lot better than my friends eggbeaters.

I use these:

http://www.amazon.com/Shimano-SH-M07...116118&sr=8-35

With these:

http://www.amazon.com/Shimano-PD-A53...3116237&sr=8-3

On both of my bikes. I don't off-road at all, all paths and roads. I also like walking in my shoes when needed - I couldn't get comfortable with the Road shoes. Since I have two bikes, I like the flexibility of using the cleats with either bike, or just regular shoes. Good luck!

Geez there are a lot of options out there. Thanks for all the input...I think I'm leaning towards SPDs, since it seems that only a few of you felt that you quickly outgrew them. Walkability isn't a huge factor but it would be nice (and I'd like to keep the total cost under about $200).

Don't do SPD. Some of the posters recommended SPD-SL, which are NOT the same thing. They are the road version from Shimano, much more similar to the LOOK type. IMO, SPD has no advantages over any of the other systems. At least get the egg beaters if you want a SPD type system, you have the advantage of 4 sided entry and easier exit.

Oooh, thank you. I was assuming SPD = SPD-SL. There really are just too many options for this.

He's right about the spd vs spd-sl thing. However, a lot of people use regular spd's and are happy with them - they haven't stuck around just because they're made by Shimano, they've stuck around because they're decent. Still think if you asked on mountain biking forums, you'd get a ton of advice for the Time ATAC's. :D But if you're just road riding, I don't think it's worth killing yourself over which one to get either.

I saw a fellow roadie, in bona fide road shoes, who must have decided walking wasn't important, fall on his elbow in a restaurant with a tile floor, because he had no traction in his shoes. Not trying to throw horror stories out (carbon's gonna asplode!), but I think being able to walk is a bigger deal than most people make it out to be.

:) Yeah, I know. To keep it simple, there are basically two families of systems. 2-hole "mountain bike" systems, and 3 hole "road bike" systems.

The 2-hole cleats are small (like 1"x1/2")and are secured by 2-bolts, hence the name. SPDs fall into this category. The cleats are designed to be recessed in the bottom of a mountain bike shoe so you can walk around. Most pedals with this system also have dual sided clip in, so you don't have to make sure the pedal is flipped a certain way. Egg beaters have 4 sided entry.

The 3-hole cleats are much larger (2"x2"x2" triangle). These bolt directly to the outside of a road shoe, which has no tread. The cleats are exposed and walking is harder. The pedals are only one sided entry, although they are weighted such that they always hang in one orientation, so it's still pretty easy to find the right side without looking.

Here's the answer:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20827654

Thus changes in muscle coordination improved the pedalling effectiveness during the upstroke phase but would probably lead to impairment of the oxygen consumption. Therefore, training the pull up action could be of interest to optimize this muscle coordination associated with better pedalling effectiveness by additionally relieving hip or knee extensors during the downstroke.

But even the gobbledy-gook study you cite states:

However, an active pulling-up action on the pedal during upstroke increased the pedalling effectiveness, while reducing net mechanical efficiency.

I'm not sure I quite get the set up that was used for this "study" WTF is a "single pedal" a platform with no toe clip? How would you pull up? The abstracts are not a lot of help visualizing the test set up in this "study."

This study seems to come to a totally different conclusion.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17545890

When the participants were instructed to pull on the pedal during the upstroke, mechanical effectiveness was greater

My conclusion is that these studies are pretty poor simulations of actual performance during a ride. They are poorly conceived and totally unconvincing in their conclusions.

Like here's a recent thread from mtbr (mountain bike review) on pedal choices -
http://forums.mtbr.com/29er-bikes/do...rk-685141.html

As you can see...there's a lot of differing opinions.

The one drawback to eggbeaters I don't like for road riding is not being able to feel when you clip in. There are some other drawbacks for other kinds of biking that probably don't apply to road riding - like unclipping if you hit the bottom of the pedal on a rock. All I would say is that with their reputation for unreliablity, I would just make sure if you bought Eggbeaters to buy the newer versions which are supposed to be more reliable.

I would agree. If you have mountain shoes, get mountain pedals. If you have road shoes, SPD cleats are nearly unwalkable. While SPD-SLs give a large platform for you to stand on, walking on SPD cleats feels like trying to balance on a marble. You have far less stability.

I've also never felt I had any traction problems with SPD-SLs with Specialized shoes. Walking is a little awkward, sure, but they're solid to stand on and plenty grippy for most situations. Far better than SPDs on the same shoes.