Shoes: MTB vs Road on a road bike

[vickster]

Unless a pro looking for marginal gains, I doubt it makes diddly difference, wear whatever is comfortable and works for you. Traffic, pot holes, hills etc will slow you down far more than any pedal or pair of shoes, most of us don't have the luxury of a peloton and closed roads to help us get the most out of our footwear

However, if you want a white pimpy pair of sidis, fill your boots

(Or ballet slippers )

 

[outlash]

He's talking rubbish.

good quality road shoes rarely offer an spd option.

Shimano do several models of shoes that can take both SPD's and SPD-SL and they're far from bad quality. Also -10 points for quoting the rules.


Tony.

 

[Drago]

Apart from my MTB In use touring shoes and split the difference.

 

[400bhp]

Sorry, this is rubbish. A top quality decent pair of MTB shoes have just as stiff soles as Road shoes and will transfer the same amount of power.

+1

So long as the soles are very stiff, then the power through the legs should be dissipated across the shoe plate through the pedal, hence (in theory) the pedal size shouldn't make any difference.

MTB shoes can be as light and as stiff as road shoes too. In fact some road shoes have the 2 holes to take SPD cleats.

 

[Banjo]

Sean Kelly was one of the last pros to go clipless as he said he didnt get any benefit and thought they could cause knee damage.

He only went over to clipless when forced to by the management due to sponsorship issues.

All things being equal then the lighter shoe/cleat/pedal the better but not worth worying about for most of us unless your worried tge fashion police will be on to you.

 

[cyberknight]

Last months c+ mag did a review of pedals on the m520s were lighter if you included cleats as a total weight than some "road " pedals +cleats .
I use single sided a600`s with mtb cleats and i cant say i have noticed any difference to when i use to use road shoes, apart from the fact i can walk without looking like a duck

 

[Leodis]

I use both and unclipped unexpectedly more using SPD clears than Look pedals. Over longer distances my Looks are far better than using my SPD's and also climbing is better as no matter how stiff you think MTB soles are they are not as stiff as carbon soled shoes but thats my view and I am switching to Look over SPD for commuting, unclipping in the middle of heavy traffic is a lot more scary than taking my time to clip into the Looks.

 

[Drago]

You think carbon soles mtb shoes are less stiff than carbon soles road shoes? Perhaps you.could explain the reasoning behind that.

I would also suggest your unplanned unclipping is user error - it never affects me and I'm a fat old middle aged git.

As an aside, it's interesting to hear that Sean Kelly is a qualified orthopaedic expert.

 

[Leodis]

So you need to argue over pedals? I said in my experience Look for me are far better than SPD, I use both you don't.

 

[Drago]

I own both, thank you very much, although generally use plain spd so I can wear my touring shoes across my steeds. LOOK, SL, SPD and Eggbeaters are all in my arsenal.

I'm still keen to know why you think carbon soles on MTB shoes arent as stiff as their carbon road cousins.

 

[PK99]

Last months c+ mag did a review of pedals on the m520s were lighter if you included cleats as a total weight than some "road " pedals +cleats .
I use single sided a600`s with mtb cleats and i cant say i have noticed any difference to when i use to use road shoes, apart from the fact i can walk without looking like a duck

Saw a guy on sunday wearing road shoes with a heel spike that avoided the duck look.

 

[Shut Up Legs]

i refer the honourable member to rule #34…

???

I believe he was referring to one of the rules invented by the Nobberati***.

*** Was that the correct name?

 

[Dan B]

I once unclipped accidentally while sprinting from the traffic lights and whacked my knee on the end of the handlebar. It was very painful. That was due to worn cleats, though, nothing to do with road vs mtb per se.

My best bike has Look Delta, but that's for riding in the countryside. I'd go double-sided every time for riding in the cut and thrust(sic) of London traffic.

 

[Sittingduck]

The bit about road cleats transferring power from the legs better made me spill Lol all over my keyboard!

However, I do use 'em, even for commuting... used to use SPD but I prefer a larger, more stable interface with the pedal. I used to sometimes suffer from hotspots with SPDs but it's a personal thing, I suppose.

EDIT: Plus I want to be able to use the same shoes and bike/s all the time so I just use a single pedal system now (SPD-SL). You get used to them for commuting, just need to practice. Have to watch you are clipped in properly in the wet before putting the power down though. Had a couple of dodgy situations and my left shin can testify to that! My own stupidity, rather than the fault of the pedals ;-)

 

[nickyboy]

This "transfer of power" garbage....

So what if a shoe flexes? This will reduce the efficiency of transfer of energy from your leg to the pedal. But the unflex works in the opposite way. It's a closed system, efficiency losses equal efficiency gains.

Cleats are great to makes sure that your feet are in the perfect position on the pedal. That's about it. So if your MTB shoes do this as well as Road shoes I can't see there being a happ'oth of difference