Originally Posted by WaterGirlAZ
Greg - Thanks so much for the info! I like your idea using the same shoes for both my road bike and mountain bike. What would you recommend as far as pedals / shoe combo for both off and road biking?
Are there "better" pedals or perhaps some that you would NOT recommend?
I use Crank Brothers.
I got started on CB on my MTB, lured into it by their excellent self-clearing ability.
Quite important for a year-round rider.
At some temperatures, shimano-style pedals will fill up with snow packing into ice after only a few dabs of the foot.
And you have to break out the multi-tool to find something pointy to dig the ice out.
'Course, the low weight of the Egg Beater model attracted too.
First rides, the CB EB felt wobbly sideways due to the minimal support surface. But I soon got used to that.
Then I started bike commuting, and set the commuter up with CB pedals too.
Didn't want to need multiple shoes and couldn't be bothered with switching cleats.
I wanted a bit of platform to be able to put some power down w/o the foot slipping off to get out of intersections and suchlike even if not clipped in.
First I used Smarties, which I absolutely killed within a year. Then Candies. The Candies didn't last any longer but were rebuildable, as opposed to the Smarties.
Now, I do a decent mileage.
And there are undoubtedly people that are lighter than me.
And I used to be a bit of a masher.
But my CB pedals needs a rebuild every 6 months.
And a lube inbetween.
I believe that more recent versions of CB use a thicker spindle, which allows for a bigger glide bearing.
These might do better, particularly for someone who do fewer miles and don't pedal as hard.
But if I had those, I guess I'd still need to top up the lube every now and then.
Still if I'd know THEN what I know NOW, I'd have gone for Time (mtb) pedals instead.
My brother have those, and they just seem to last and last. He was quite intrigued about the need for relubes and rebuilds.
Also, the CB pedals can be quite harsh on the soles. It is strongly recommended that you use the CB protective plates(shields) between sole and cleat.
Although, since the mechanism of the Time pedals is so similar I'd guess they'd need it too.
For shoes I've used Gaerne, Sidi, Specialized, Shimano and Lake.
Favourites in fit are the Specialized, they've got the widest toebox.
Favourites as a piece of sports equipment are the Sidis.
The treaded patches on my model are owner replaceable at a tolerable cost. Means they can be made soft and grippy.
Quite useful when riding rocky sections.
The Specialized, with regular sole design, are much harder and have noticeably poorer grip. If they weren't, the shoe would wear out unacceptably fast.
Shimano were my first winter shoe. Sized to allow socks, fit is hard to judge.
I'm not that sold on Velcro fasteners, as they can wear out. But these lasted well enough.
Recently, they seem to have started to deform, but that might be b/c I've run them through the washing machine.
I've never been particularly troubled by walking in stiff soled shoes.
It might not be comfortable, but it doesn't hurt.
Riding in a shoe that's too soft though, that does get outright unpleasant fairly fast.