Road shoes and pedels - worth the inconvienience?

[PaulSecteur]

Hi,

I currently have M520 SPDs on my Secteur, and have some heavy-ish shimano mt31 mountain bike style shoes.


Im thinking of getting some lighter shoes for the summer (and the longer rides that brings).
Do dedicated road shoes and their pedals (SPD-SL)really make much of a difference? I like the look of road shoes but cant help but feel they wont be worth the inconvienience over some light mountain bike sytyle SPDs that can be walked normally in.

Do they rally help get the power down better than normal SPDs? And do they help endurance by elininating the "hot spot" SPDs are supposed to make from having a small contact patch? (I have done some 0 milers and never noticed this with my SPDs)

Cheers

 

[HLaB]

I have a road shoe combo on my summer bike for, long sportives etc

My favourite however, are Touring pedals (A530's) as they look good on a road bike and the cage means there's no hotspot. I combine them with a stiffered soled bg mtb sport shoes which have the benefit of being more walkable (albeit there too stiff for a long walk/ hike). The difference IMO between them and the road combo for cycling is too small to be noticed.

 

[buggi]

unless your pro or semi pro i don't think so. you may as well just buy some "road style" mtb shoes and then you won't ruin your cleats. there's little difference in the design of the shoe except for the tread on the bottom which allows for the inverted cleat and easier walking. i've got a road pair of dhb's and a mtb pair of dhb shoes that are "road style". Really, you can't tell the difference, you can hardly see the tread!

some people say that road pedals have a wider contact area so are more comfortable for long rides, but i think that's bollox too. The sole of the mtb shoe is stiff so you can't tell what surface area you're treading on. i rode to Paris in my mtb "road-style" shoes and some of my friends who had proper road shoes had to take their shoes off at every water stop because they were uncomfortable. never once took mine off during the day.

 

[buggi]

here are my mtb shoes (mine are blue):
http://www.wiggle.co.uk/dhb-m1-mtb-shoes/

and here are my road shoes, which i only bought because they don't do the mtb ones in pink:
http://www.wiggle.co.uk/dhb-r1-ladies-road-cycling-shoe/

as you can see, very similar

 

[accountantpete]

It depends on your pedalling style - the pro's pedal in circles and here spd-sl type pedals are much better at getting the job done.

If you are pressing down on the pedal then I'd stick with what you have - especially as in my experience cheap road shoes are by and large pretty uncomfortable over long distances.

 

[Fab Foodie]

FWIW I have both SPD road and Look road and the Look system are far better over longer distances than my SPD ones and much better connection to the bike.