theblackbullet

I currently have spd shoes w/ spd cleats and spd pedals. I'm looking to start riding at the somewhat local velodrome soon, but from what I have gathered, spd pedals are a terrible choice for the track. I've come across the spd-r pedals (which are cheap. FTW!) Instead of buying new shoes, is it possible to modify my shoes to fit spd-r cleats? Or is there by any chance an adapter that can be bought?

carleton

Nope. Sorry.

theblackbullet

hmmmm...

anyone know about these cleats? they appear to be spd bolt style spd-r cleat, but I can't find any information on them and Im not familiar w/ spd-r

Wellgo R2 Pedal Cleats for SPD and SPD-R Shoes RC-4

bitingduck

Sidi does (or did) sell adapters for some shoes, but I don't know of any generic SPD-R adapter. They usually use the look-style 3-hole pattern for holding the adapter on.

carleton

I would suspect that the reason why you found the SPD-R pedals for cheap is because it's now very hard to find shoes drilled for SPD-R. SPD-R wasn't popular for very long and is now discontinued. So, folks are unloading the pedals on unsuspecting buyers.

That cleat looks like it might work. I'm not sure. But, you've got to understand that pedals and cleats are VERY important on the track. Buying used gear on the cheap with a converted cleat might not be the smartest move.

Just because it's a clipless pedal system doesn't mean it will be suitable for the track. There are lots of standing starts in track racing which puts more force on your bike's drive train than you've probably put it through in normal use. Unclipping at high speeds on the track is not a fun feeling. It's OK on road or MTB bikes when the speeds are lower and you have a freewheel.

It's better to be safe than sorry. Save up and get entry level road shoes and entry level Shimano SPD-SL road pedals and be confident in your gear. You can get both for about $100-150 total. It's worth it.

bitingduck

SPD-R are excellent track pedals if you can get shoes for them and they're reasonably well maintained. You can easily get them so tight that you have to take the shoe off and release the tension with a hex key to get out (but when the tension is set that high it's hard to get into them, too). They're also pretty easy to align if you have a helper, because you can get to the cleat screws through the pedal body. They're a terrible road pedal because they can be hard to get into while rolling (the toe of the cleat tends to slide over the front of the pedal easily), but if you're getting into them at a rail they're great.

A few years back they were pretty popular with elite sprinters because they could be made really tight and they're easy to mod to take a strap without drilling anything-- you can unscrew the screw and use it to hold the loop from a toeclip when you put it back in (but the springs can be a real pain to get back in place when doing that). For a while all the sprinters had attached straps, but I gradually started to see the straps disappearing because it was easy to get them too tight to get out of. There have been various posts here with pics of the strap mod.

I picked up a small supply of them from friends and on ebay a couple years ago and have been using them for a while. Some of the used ones have had bad springs, but it's easy to tell because they let go right away. Most of them have been fine, but it's hard to get shoes for them now. A little googling will find you proper SPD-R cleats. They aren't cheap but they last forever.

As far as whether the wellgo cleats will work with them, I have no idea. I still have an extra pair of shoes that I can wear out before I have to think about how to attach cleats to new shoes.

bitingduck

here's an old thread on spd-r pedals on the track.

https://www.bikeforums.net/archive/in.../t-170012.html

and a picture of the strap mod with a double strap.

https://autobus.cyclingnews.com/photo...2/dsc_5915.jpg

You can see the rear strap is held by a piece from a toe-clip, and the second strap is held from flopping around by a zip tie.