Cleat pontoon or cleat stabilising adapter?

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goo_mason

Champion barbed-wire hurdler
Location
Leith, Edinburgh
As my beloved Sonoma shoes are starting to disintegrate after 4 years of almost daily use, I bought a pair of Shimano R076 shoes from CRC. They're a road shoe that will accept either SPD-SL or plain old SPD cleats, which is great for me as I use SPDs on my road bike and MTB.

Wore them this morning, but they're almost impossible to walk in with the metal SPD cleat. From the user guide, it appears that I should be using cleats with a cleat pontoon which would appear to make them much more walking-friendly (and may prevent me taking a tumble down 5 flights of stone stairs in the morning). Alternatively, there's a 'cleat stabilising adapter for road shoes' which looks to do the same sort of job.

Here are both:

Cleat Stabilising adapter

Cleat pontoon

Does anyone have any experience of using either or have advice on which is best?
 

Fiona N

Veteran
Not exactly the same thing but I put Crank Bros cleats (which look very similar to spd cleats, if you're not familiar) on a pair of Sidi road shoes and used the pontoon affair which comes with the Crank Bros Quattro (road) pedals.
It does make the shoes walkable in the same way as a Look cleat cover does - still awkward to walk but somewhat more grip on the floor. It doesn't hinder the use of the pedal/cleat combo at all.

As I always used a cleat cover when I used to ride Looks, I'm fairly used to the tip-toe adaptation you make when walking and I can't imagine what walking on naked spd cleats would be like :whistle:
 
I also have RO76 road shoes with SPD pedals/cleats.

I found walking in them to be OK as long as it wasn't far (with standard SH51 cleats). It was just a bit noisy.

However, I bought the SH71 cleats with the pontoon (same as the ones you linked to but with float) and walking is much better :blush:. Unfortunately though, the bottoms of my shoes are already very scuffed from using the SH51s.

I expect the pontoon may wear out quickly if they are used for walking too often.
 
OP
OP
goo_mason

goo_mason

Champion barbed-wire hurdler
Location
Leith, Edinburgh
Thanks folks.

I've plumped for the stabilising adapters & I'll see how they go.

Had to take my shoes off and walk up the 5 flights to the flat tonight in my socks as i couldn't do it with the SPDs sticking out so far.
 
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