I use the Specialized 2FO shoes for both my clip pedals (commuter and SS road bikes) and for my platform pedal MTBs. Nice stiff soles, but still comfortable to walk in, also a strap to hold down my shoelaces on top of the shoes (away from the chain rings).

+1. I wasn't convinced, so I made myself some straps that served the same purpose, and I liked them. I suspect the PowerGrip ones are better than my DIY ones (which broke after a couple hundred miles).

The steel SPD cleat, clipped into the steel and aluminum pedal, screwed into the aluminum crank arm, with a whole steel bike frame at the other end of it, is an enormous heat sink. In warm weather that's not an issue, but on recent rides I've been getting really cold feet despite pretty good insulation.

Re metal being cold, this makes sense. I commute as late as possible so ride a fair amount in temps down to freezing but only for an hour tops, so can very much see that using regular pedals and hiking type boots with a thick sole is going to be warmer for your feet being out all day just from the heat sink aspect.

Worth a try! Once read about somebody that made their own toe clips (to use boots) from steel cable or something, somehow they made it work.

A good cloth tape can help save the toes of your shoes if you use metal toeclips and don't use cleats. Wrap the tape around the area of the toeclip where the shoe will make contact. When properly set up with cleated shoes there's supposed to be about 1/8" of space between the toeclip and the toe of the shoe. The toeclip's main purpose is to hold the toestrap.

Wrapping the toeclipc also reduces the transfer of cold to your toes.

Cheers

Re cloth tape, I've wrapped my mtn bike brake levers with hockey tape for this exact reason. Good point

The ideal pedal for touring would probably be that flypaper pedal, it is only 4mm thick, and you stick to it almost as though riding in some binding system, but there is nothing. Unfortunately it is nor being adopted.


I use proper cycling sandals, and rat trap type pedals, I fabbed some metal sheet that goes over the top of the pedal so it does not dig in, Originally these pedals were designed to interface with metal cleats, not to have a knife edge bear on the sole of a casual shoe.

I use cages as well. I've worn a pair of Shimano MT34's on my last two tours and will wear them again this year. They were about $100 when I bought them but a Google search shows them for as low as $60 now. Fiberglass reinforced polyamide. EVA foam with nylon lining. They weigh 1lb 6oz for the pair. I've found I can walk and hike in them so they're my do everything shoe. They do have the clipless pedal deal built into them but I've never used it.

Put on a heavier pair of wool socks, or shoe covers! problem solved. !!! DUH!!!

How cold was it? I have seen that be a problem but not until it is pretty cold, like maybe single digits F or lower. The coldest I have seen on tour was probably 18 F but even then it warmed up pretty quickly once the sun was up, so for me the heat sink thing has never been an issue on tour.

Have you tried this, or are you just treating this as a thought problem?

Trust me, I have tried this. I've ridden centuries in sub-freezing temperatures every winter for five years now, and I have a pretty good idea what works and what does not. I have not found a way to make SPD's work in really cold weather.

You are of course free to disagree, but my point was: it's not a matter of insulation. I already have shoe covers. Thicker socks inside the same shoes do not insulate any better, especially if they restrict circulation.
You are quite right to emphasize that these conditions are rare on tour. My experience with this phenomenon has been on one day all day rides from home, not touring. Some such rides have been down in the single digits F, and indeed below zero.

But I believe I've experienced this even in comparatively mild conditions. On New Year's Day this year I rode 115 miles, temps above freezing, wearing good neoprene shoe covers and puffy smartwool socks. My feet just got cooler as the day went on. Not brutally cold, but I could feel that cold spot in the bottom of my foot, gradually spreading.

Maybe it was in my mind, but in my mind it was in my feet, so what do I know.

Thanks for the input. I would like some shoes that can work with both clips and SPD pedals. I am considering these now, as long as I can find them in a more subdued color. At first look it seemed like they would be hard to get into clips with all that bric a brac, but after a closer look it seems like the are pretty smooth.

You're welcome. They come in a black model as well. I've uploaded a photo of those. I like the bright blue but not for everyone. They have pretty good reviews and no one has mentioned any issues with getting into the clips.

I do not blame the SPD cleats, instead I blame cycling shoes. Even with toe covers, plastic bags over socks to stop the wind from coming in the mesh vents, even shoe covers, I do not wear cycling shoes below 30 degrees (F). My winter cycle shoes are a normal summer type shoe, but they are size 45 when I normally wear 44.5. Thus with those shoes I have the extra room I need to wear thick wool socks without compressing my feet. The insole that sits above the cleat hardware acts as an insulator, thus I think the cleat has minimal cooling effect.

Below 30 degrees (F) I use a Goretex lined hiking shoe or regular hiking boot.

I bought some DexShell Hytherm Pro socks, but have not tried them in the cycling shoes yet. I am hoping they will give me another 5 or 10 degrees.

I use Bombas socks while cycling. They seem to keep my feet fairly warm and they're comfortable. The issues I run into most are my fingers. I had frostbite in 2014 on my right hand. I didn't lose any fingers but the nerves are permanently damaged so anything too cold or too hot bothers them.

While it is theoretically true that some of your body heat may eventually reach the ground via the route of the cleat to the pedal to the crank arm to the bottom bracket to the axle to the wheels and across the tires, the actual amount of heat lost that way is going to be so small as to be unmeasurable. And that would only happen if you are riding in shoes without insoles and without socks. Even a little bit of insulation is going to keep your feet from losing much heat through the cleat.

Heat loss is area dependent as well. You will lose more heat through the tops of the shoes than through the cleat.

Perhaps you just haven't looked at the problem in the proper way. I ride a lot in sub-freezing temperatures. Over the years I've tried a lot of things to keep my feet warm while using SPD pedals and found lots of ways to make them work effectively. No single thing I've done has work alone but together the ways I prepare my shoes has been effective. First, I seal the cleat slots. It's not the cleat that sucks the heat out of my feet but the cold air infiltrating through the slot that is the problem. I use aluminum furnace tape across the bottom of the shoe under the insole to not only seal the hole but to provide a reflective layer to reflect some of the heat back towards me.

Next I use an insulated insole. There are aerogel insoles out there that insulate quite well. There are also sheep fleece insoles that trap air and provide a lot of warmth.

You are correct that thicker socks in the same size shoes that you wear in summer don't make your feet warmer. But why are you wearing the same size shoes for winter? Go up a size or two and you can fill the extra space with more sock. That works wonders for keeping your feet warm.

Summer shoes are made to shed heat not keep it in. There are a lot of winter boots out there that do an excellent job of keeping your feet warm and still allow the use of SPD pedals. They tend to be heavy but not any heavier than the winter boots that people use. You can even find some waterproof bicycle shoes that do a good job of keeping your feet warm and dry with the proper preparation (see above). All of these work better in a slightly larger size than a summer shoe.

Have you tried putting one little disposable heat pack in your glove? I have used them when canoeing in sub freezing weather, wearing them inside of my rubber gloves when my hands were frequently wet with ice cold water helped a lot. But I have not seen a need for them when biking, ... yet.

Cold weather is tough on extremities. Your hands and feet are your body's radiators. If you are producing excessive heat, your feet and hands get sweaty because excess heat flowed to them. If you are not producing excessive heat, your body limits heat flow to hands and feet to conserve heat for the body core and head, then your hands and feet get very cold. Thus, there are times when I am biking in 20 degree weather where even with ski gloves my hands are cold and other times in the same weather that I take my gloves off to try to lose some of the excess heat I am generating. Sometimes I even bring thick mittens on a winter bike ride, but mittens do not work well for things like pushing buttons on my bike computer.

I have a handlebar bag, when I put my hands behind the bag to cut the wind, that helps a lot.

you can certainly see how those doohickies that fit over your bars like giant mitts , for winter riding, really work. Nothing new there, snowmobilers and motorcyclists have been doing this for years.

Interesting thread for me not being from a cold area. Lots of ideas and so I enjoyed the different opinions.

I move from cages long ago. Clippless was a revelation. I had more problems with my toes going numb on long rides from pulling up not from temperature. Arches hurting from soft shoes.

Recently (over a year ago) I switched to flats on my mtb with 5 10 shoes. I was surprised at how positive the "lock in" the pins were with a flat specific shoe. Getting off the bike is much easier and I get why the OP was going in this direction. I was surprised how quickly I adapted to not trying to pull up. When I ride clippless now I think I pull up more than I did in the past just because I miss it a bit from being on flats. The wide platform flats keep the surface where your foot interacts with the bike less inclined for arch pain even on long rides.

If it were me I would go with the platforms some good warm hiking boots and ditch the traps

At this point I am 80 percent of even more on flats with my MTB. Still on clipless for my road bike.

If I were to tour and I have done a few over the years I would go with spd and carry some shoes. It is true they do not pack well. I would stuff socks and other items in to maximize space. I just would not want the same shoes 12 hours plus every day.

[MENTION=21724]cyccommute[/MENTION], thanks for that constructive response! : thumb:

To clarify, the rides I refer to were long rides (100+ miles), not touring, so certainly a bit off topic. And they weren't particularly cold, starting in the high twenties, reaching the mid thirties, ending a little below freezing. I had increased my shoe size as you suggest, perhaps not enough. I had adequate insulation on top, obviously not enough below. That was my point.

I don't mean to imply my body heat was getting transmitted to the ground, but rather to the air. Metal transmits heat well, and quickly moving air takes it away.

The heat loss I'm talking about took many hours. I was plenty warm over my whole body, with the exception of thumbs, fingers, and feet. I conclude that my body heat was leaving those areas faster than it was reaching them. And it was leaving them and into the air, both directly and from the bike.

While there is a bit of heat loss through the metal parts of the bicycle, I think your experiencing more of a physiological response to the cold than a thermodynamic one. Feet and hands get cold due to decreases in circulation as the body pulls more heat to the core. The surface area to volume ratio is higher for your fingers and toes so you radiate more heat there as well. Add in shoes that fit tighter and gloves that fit tighter and everything starts to works against you keeping warm.

well, I'll be the first to say that 160km + rides in any temp is quite an achievement, let alone in temps below 0c. Like cross country skiing in cold temps, doing a physical activity as long as a 100 miler is always going to be a challenge in those temps dealing with sweating, cool down at pauses, accumulation of sweat over time and how it can chill you.
What you've done I wouldnt be up to, like I said, quite a challenging thing to do.

[MENTION=21724]cyccommute[/MENTION], you may be right. I have no laboratory tests &c to support my idea, just my own impressions. I can't ever ride the same ride in the same weather with different gear. Nonetheless I think it's something to keep in mind, as we look over our equipment and prepare for long cold rides.

[MENTION=73614]rhm[/MENTION], I think a large part of the problem is simply that our bodies have to send that warm blood down long limbs so the blood that gets to our feet is considerably colder than our core temp before it even starts trying to warm our feet and fingers. (I have spent a lifetime trying to warm feet at the ends of skinny 34" pant legs. My fingers at the ends of 34" shirt sleeves don't do much better.) I suspect those with stockier, heavier limbs do far better (but I have never been able to get those guys to let me try them to see for myself).

Ben

I have not, no. I use them when I'm camping and they're fine as long as they don't make contact with my fingers which they wouldn't in the gloves. I purchased a new pair of gloves that I'm hoping will help. I usually don't wear gloves long when I'm touring. The first few miles until I warm up. I sweat pretty easily and doesn't take me long to strip down to shorts and a t-shirt even on cold mornings. I'm fine as long as I keep riding or hit a downhill. At which case I'll layer back up again. I moved once in a snowstorm and used the old medical glove trick but that was before my frostbite and haven't tried it since. I'll try the heat packs though!