Which Clipless Pedals are the Best?

Id go with some speedplay pedals. They transfer power really well.

I would get either Speedplay, Look, Time, Crank Bros, Shimano..........

Seriously, there aren't too many terrible pedals on the market. Some provide more "float" than others (float is free or semi-free side to side movement of your shoes heel while clipped into the pedal).

I use Speedplay and love 'em. I usta use Looks, and they did well enough, although I didn't like their very limited float nor the recentering force in the float.....but that's me.

What sort of pedals do you have now?

FWIW, pedals are only half the equation. Shoes are equally important. Crappy shoes can mask any good qualities about pedals.

Another vote for Speedplay's (X series). I love the float, plus they're very easy to clip in and out of . Take good care of the cleats though. Replacement cleats are $35-$40, and they are affected by dirt, gravel, snow etc. Pick up a set of cleat covers and keep them in your pocket. 😎

somegaveall said:

I'm wanting to get new pedals, but I'm unsure of which ones to get. I was just looking for some recommendations.

I like the Look Keos. I like how they center your foot, and I am not about to carry cleat covers like you have to with some other pedals. The feel of Looks and Speedplays is different enough that generally people like one or the other. No one here can tell you what is best for you.

Bro Deal said:

I like the Look Keos. I like how they center your foot, and I am not about to carry cleat covers like you have to with some other pedals. The feel of Looks and Speedplays is different enough that generally people like one or the other. No one here can tell you what is best for you.

This last point is true, for the most part. The feel of some pedals is different than others, sometimes vastly so. Some people find Speedplays a bit "free" feeling if they've moved to 'em from another pedal. I didn't have that issue and was comfortable wif 'em a couple of minutes after clicking in. If you get Speedplays, you'll want the Cafe Covers--plastic covers that snap on over the cleats when you wanna walk about--Speedplays can get fouled by sand, mud. With that said, I live in the land of blowing sand and dirt--i.e., the desert--and haven't had issues, even when crossing sandy and rocky dry washes without my covers. Still I keep the covers in my back pocket so they're not hard to get at. It does take an extra 3-4 seconds to put 'em on. Still, I've managed to get 5000+ miles out of my cleats.

Whatever system you get, you'll need to care for the cleats in one form or another. I once got stranded with a flat--some brainless turd left his seatbag open and flat fixin' stuff fell out--with no way to fix it. I did have a cell, but I was new in town and had no one's number. I did have my wife's number, but she was 2300 miles away. At any rate, me, my shoes, and the attached Look cleats hiked the 9 miles, in the dark, back to my house (had to keep shoes on: I did not want my feet mutilated by the abundant goatheads). By the time I got home, the front lip of the Look cleats was, by my micrometer, about 1/64" thick. I learned a valuable lesson about seat bag zippers. At any rate, you can ruin anything.

Other considerations you might want to keep in mind are that some pedals allow you to clip in from more than one side: Speeplays can clip in from either of two sides, and Crank Bros. Candy's can clip in from 2 sides, while their Eggbeaters clip in on 4 sides. Time, Look, and Shimano pedals clip in from one side, but that's a doddle to do because the pedal will position itself so that it's ready for you to clip in. The only pedals that might give you issues clipping in are el cheapo Look knock-offs sold by big retailers and the like. Some work alright--they say Performance Forte pedals do ok--and some don't.....apparently the Wellgo flavor is less than loved. If you stay with the biggees, then clipping in will just be a matter of learning the technique, which is dead easy for any of the big name pedals.

Some people and companies make a big deal about the surface area of a cleat or pedal. The claim is that small contact areas lead to hotspots. I think it's mostly [censored], myself. Today's shoes, for the most part, are stiff enough that flexing around a small cleat isn't a real issue. If there's a pedal where this might happen, then it might be the Crank Bros. Eggbeater. However, that pedal is nearly universally loved, and I've not heard any real complaints about hotspots from their use. Some people theorize that Speedplays can cause hotspots because the "pedal" is so small, but it's not the case. In Speedplay pedals, the large bit is on your foot, so when you're clipped in, you still have a large contact area.

In reality hotspots are a shoe fit and/or a cleat position issue. I've never had hotspots with Speedplays. I did get 'em for a while with Looks, but that wasn't the pedal that caused the problem: it was the post-fracture enlargement of my foot that was the issue.

All systems are fairly robust. Speedplays might be more sensitive to fouling. Looks might have cheaper bearings. Time has had some QC problems with some pedals. All three, though, are quick to set things right with the customer, and all three are easily rebuildable by the user. Shimano pedals are maybe the most robust: at least the Dura Ace pedals come with some excellent bearings. Crank Bros pedals are great if you're planning on stomping through the mud. You cannot foul their cleats.

'round these parts, and among the people with whom I ride (50-100 people on Wednesday rides....recreational riders, CAT1-5 riders, and usually a few pros), I mostly see Speedplays, Look Keos, Shimano Dura Ace and Ultegras, and quite a few M2Racer OrbII's (out of business). I haven't see too many Time's or Crank Bros., but I'm sure they're around here.

One note about Speedplays....they come in two basic variants: the X-series and the Zero series. The X series has unlimited float, whereas the Zero series allows you to manually set the amount of float you desire. I like the X series.

With Look, you set float by choosing different cleats. I'm not sure how float is set on Time pedals. Float on Crank Bros pedals is set by how you mount the cleat.

With all that in mind, remember this:

Get the best fitting shoes you can afford.

If the shoes don't fit right, you'll hurt. And if you hurt, you won't wanna ride or won't enjoy the ride as much or at all. After you find shoes that make your stumps happy, you can then find pedals. Take time finding shoes, and if at all possible do it at an LBS. Buying shoes off the 'net, sight unseen, toes unsnuggled, is a recipe for pain iffin' you don't know what shoes fit you best. Don't be afraid to ask a salesman for help, and definitely seek multiple opinions and go to multiple stores. Your feet will thank you later.

Alienator, very nice summary.

I also had a hard time trying to understand why people blame hotspot issues on the pedal, and certainly couldn't see how Speedplay could be blamed unless they didn't understand the design and mechanics involved. And each time I asked, no one has been able to give me a reason based on basic mechanics.

Good job!

One vote for Campagnolo Pro-Fits, essentially a modified Look design, with all the advantages/disadvantages as outlined above, but with Campagnolo build quality.

And as Alienator said, the other half of the equation are the shoes. I would recommend that you consider a major brand - FWIW, I am and have always been extremely happy with Sidi shoes.

Edit - if you use the search feature on this website you will find all the information you need on each and every type of clipless pedal known to man. 🙂

Alienator, excelent summary.

This write up should be saved and then referenced for each time the pedal question comes up.

Just in case this line was overlooked, here it is again

Get the best fitting shoes you can afford

Unless you have special problems such as dickie knees then between the major brands, there isn't a lot of difference, it boils down to personal preference, the real difference is in having the correct shoes for your feet. I'm using look deltas on both of my road bikes, cheap, easy to click in and out and replacement cleats are cheap.

On my track bike I'm using Wellgo's that were designed for a different cleat to the Look Delta ones I'm using, basically they don't let go of my shoes no matter what, which is what you want for the track, but not what you want for the road.

I just switched from spd pedals to the shimano spd sl and I am very satisfied. They're easy to get in and out of and I find that my pedaling is more efficient especially on climbs. I don't have a comparison to other road pedals, but my boyfriend swares by the look keos.

Another note on the shoe issue. It is very important to go to a number of different shops when looking for a good quality shoe that fits you well. Every manufacturer's shoes fit differently and most shops don't cary more than a few different brands. If you just go to one place and settle for something that feels just pretty good, you may regret it. Example: I have Sidi genius 5's but was recently thinking of getting new shoes with carbon soles. A friend of mine said performance or something like that had a lot of shoes on sale, and I really like the look of the Adidas shoes so I almost bought a pair of those. I decided to go to my local shop to figure out what size I should get before ordering and in the process realized that Adidas were just not for me. I tried on a number of shoes from Adidas, Specialized, and Shimano while I was there, and while some of them were pretty good they just couldn't match the glove-like feeling of Sidi. That said, a number of my friends hate how sidis fit. So every foot is different, and every shoe fits a different type of foot.

I used Speedplays on my MTB for 10 years. I went to Cook Bros. on my road bike and though not as smooth feeling as the Speedplays, they work just as well. I wanted less of the floaty feeling Speedplays gave me on the road bike (I'm odd I guess).

OoAmericanGirl said:

I just switched from spd pedals to the shimano spd sl and I am very satisfied. They're easy to get in and out of and I find that my pedaling is more efficient especially on climbs.

Did you change your shoes with the switch from SPD to SPD-SL? If so, surely the difference in efficiency doesn't solely lie with the pedals.

sogood said:

Did you change your shoes with the switch from SPD to SPD-SL? If so, surely the difference in efficiency doesn't solely lie with the pedals.

The wider platform spreads the load better accross the shoe. Even with shoes of identical quality, 3 hole cleats are going to perform better than 2 hole cleats.

mikesbytes said:

The wider platform spreads the load better accross the shoe. Even with shoes of identical quality, 3 hole cleats are going to perform better than 2 hole cleats.

Appreciate that difference in two vs three anchoring points. But if graphixgeek switched from flexi MTB shoes to a pair of super stiff CF soled road shoes during her SPD to SPD-SL switch, I'd suspect the majority of the difference would lie with the shoes.

sogood said:

Appreciate that difference in two vs three anchoring points. But if graphixgeek switched from flexi MTB shoes to a pair of super stiff CF soled road shoes during her SPD to SPD-SL switch, I'd suspect the majority of the difference would lie with the shoes.

Yes the difference between my old plastic commuter shoes and my new CF training shoes is noticable.

Origionally I was running my (newer at the time) plastic commuter shoes on 2 hoe SPD's and then, on the same shoes, I switched to 3 hole look delta and I noticed the difference.

alienator said:

I
What sort of pedals do you have now?

shimano spd. I wanting one that is covers more ground on my foot, but also, if I have to walk on them, they need to be able to withstand it (cleat covers can help this as well).

mikesbytes said:

The wider platform spreads the load better accross the shoe. Even with shoes of identical quality, 3 hole cleats are going to perform better than 2 hole cleats.

i went from keos on my road bike to crank brothers quattro's. i'm currently running them with the bare brass cleat. do i notice a difference in performance between the two? (and keeping in mind i've retained the same sets of shoes).

when i stand up and crank in a sprint or am out of the saddle climbing .. no. the egg beaters have a little more float thats about it. in terms of longer rides and foot comfort, i'd actually say they are more comfortable, though this is possibly due to it being a bit easier to set the cleat further back in the two hole cleats and i've got them about 5mm further back than the 3 hole keos.

i've actually ditched the quattros and gone to eggbeaters. because the clip part of the quattro spins in the body part, quite often i found a quick clip a little hard to do, and usually at the worst time. the eggbeaters don't suffer the same issue.

-brettt

Quick question Brett. Does the greater Q factor on the eggbeater worry you? I had a comparison done, the Quattro is indeed narrower compared with the eggbeater and is of equal if not better than most other conventional roadie pedals.