Road vs MTB pedals for gravel
 

If you plan to ride anything other than smooth gravel roads, go with MTB pedals. Most of the "gravel" events, in my area, involve some amount of singletrack to connect gravel road sections. It's not fun to try to clip into a one sided pedal on rocky/rooty singletrack. If you have to do any walking, you will quickly destroy a set of road cleats and road cleats do not offer any traction for off road hiking.

mtb pedals

If the gravel conditions get sketchy or really steep, you might be walking. Easier walking in SPD shoes. I use SPD on the road bike, so this is an easy choice.

Most of the folks I ride fast off road with are, regardless of what type of bike they brought, on ATAC pedals and the remainder are either on SPD or flat pedals.

There are a few dudes around here who are actually really fast on flat pedals and they get to be able to use their gravel bikes for normal around town riding in normal shoes/sneakers/boots as well.

If you foresee any unintentional unclipping, non-dry surfaces, or any amount of walking on your routes, I'd go down the MTB pedal route. I prefer the SPD-sl road pedals/cleats as a pedaling system, but they are PITA to clip into on rough terrain or when the cleat gets full of mud or snow. The vast majority of the time, I'm running SPD style power meter MTB pedals on my gravel bike.

100% MTB pedals and shoes.

100% MTB pedals and shoes (repeating whats been said above).

If I didn't have road style power meter pedals on my road bike - I would ride MTB pedals on my road bike as well (and my extra road bikes have MTB pedals on them)

I don't see any real benefit to road shoes in any situation - for the average joe rider guy. I like to be able to get off the bike and walk around, drive in the shoes, run into the woods to use the loo without slipping and sliding all over the place.

When I first started mountain biking years ago, used my road Look pedals and shoes, which seemed slightly better than toe clips. Just as soon as Shimano invented SPD pedals I bought a pair and never looked back! Now have SPD pedals on all my bikes, including road.

Completely agree. I use MTB shoes with SPD pedals on my road bike as well. The advantages of road pedals are so minor that the downsides outweigh them, IMO.

100% MTB pedals for gravel. My choice is Eggbeaters.

It's interesting to note that Keegan Swenson won the '23 Unbound 200, the old DIrty Kanza, on Look Keo road pedals, that Matej Mohoric won the '23 UCI Gravel World Championship on Shimano road pedals, and Tadej Pogacar ran off with the '23 Strade Bianche win on Shimano road pedals as well.

As Sierra_rider said, just depends on whether you've got to do any real walking and in what conditions. When it's dry, one can certainly do enough walking in road cleats without slipping and sliding around, particularly if outside and not on tile or hardwood floors. Dismounting to hop a road gate, or to scurry off to the tree line to take a pee, are things road shoes can do just fine. Even when it's '23 Unbound 200 wet and sloppy, road shoes do good enough to win.

Around where I ride, the gravel roads are all passable by riding, even the double-track, so I don't have to walk any more than I do on a regular paved road ride, and so I use my road shoes and pedals mostly, although I do use SPD kit in the winter if ice might be an issue, just to have a little more stability.

In all, I doubt there's much to be had either way, so pedal selection is probably more about running what you've got, running what you like, and knowing whether you're actually gonna be riding or hiking.

I too prefer road pedals, I like the stability and support of the wider cleat. With my SPDs, I've got the tension turned up so high it's sometimes hard to unclip, but I'll inadvertently unclip during sprints, with less tension. I don't have that same issue with my road shoes/cleats...although it's a problem that is worse after I went to a Garmin Rally spd power pedal.

Sometimes I get into stuff that I'm underbiked with my gravel bike and I'm too lazy to be bothered trading pedals between my road bike and gravel bike...so I just run SPDs on it. It's already bad enough that I share the SPD pedals between my gravel and XC bike. I used to run dedicated pedals to each bike, but I'm a power data junkie and now have 2 pairs of power meter pedals in both SPD-SL and SPD forms that get shared between the bikes.

I've noticed pretty much every gravel race (or event/ride) around here has been won on road pedals also - BUT - there is pretty much no walking or dismounting for these top guys and gals (Unbound aside).

Personally I've got SPD pedals on my gravel bike mainly because I already had the pedals and shoes. I rarely tackle anything so technical or gnarly that I need to unclip so I could easily get away with road pedals 99% of the time. Maybe I'll switch at some point.

Is it interesting?
What elite pros do or dont so should minimally impact casual cyclists and even most enthusiast cyclists. They should use products that suit them best, and if some of those products happen to mirror what some/many elite pros use, then cool. But citing what elite pros do or use often doesnt seem to be applicable to the needs of the masses.

Keegan is a monster, and isn't necessarily a realistic example for the rest of us. He was riding mud at Unbound that everyone else was walking. I don't think there were any walking sections at '23 WCs. Strade Bianche is a road race. Pros often pick road shoes because they're lighter.

For the rest of us regular humans, if you expect to be doing more than a few feet of walking with your bike, a shoe with a recessed cleat (MTB/gravel shoe) is quickly going to become a better choice. For events/races, I've done some where there was no walking (except at aid stations), and others where the walking was fairly significant. For me, my MTB/gravel shoes are as stiff as my road shoes, so the only downside is a little weight, which is pretty meaningless to me.

No, that’s not the interesting part. What’s interesting to note in the context of this discussion where people are like, “absolutely, 100% MTB,” there are not only obvious riding conditions and routes where even putting a foot down is completely unneccessary, but pros who wear road shoes and ride road pedals for everthing from mild to wild gravel racing, and a few of “us ordinary guys” do to, putting the lie to the definitively expressed sentiment, “100% MTB.” MTB pedals are neither theoretically needed or better for all gravel riding, nor are they practically needed or better for all gravel riding.

I don’t really care what the pro’s ride. They get the gear for free. When I use mt SPD pedals on all my road, gravel and mt bikes, it’s mostly as I don’t need to buy road SPD-L shoes and pedals. The Shimano 520 pedal is pretty cheap and I only need to buy one pair of shoes,

I would bet that most of us aren't making changes to our pedal and shoe choice depending on the specific route we're riding on that day. Pro racers will, however, because marginal gains (less weight, for example) tend to be larger considerations for them than they are for most other riders. I would also bet that a lot of folks are saying "100% MTB" because it makes the most sense for the way they ride, and the conditions they face on a regular basis.

EDIT: My previous "100% MTB" comment was purely about my choice. Even if I'm doing a ride all on the road, I'm not going to swap out my shoes/pedals. The comment was not an indication about what anyone else should be doing.

Makes you wonder if these guys would have had any chance of winning had they been running mtb pedals...

I’m sure they would. As I said, I don’t think there’s much in pedal choice performance-wise.

Right, so why even mention it...

Agree with most of the other stuff you were saying by the way, just don't think throwing out results by some biking monsters has any bearing on how most peeps should run their own gear.

Because one doesn’t need to be a “monster” to not have to walk during a gravel ride. That’s the point. I prefer the feel, especially for the lateral stability, of road cleats, and since I can ride all over SE MI gravel roads until I’m exhausted without ever having to walk anywhere, I mostly use road pedals. I use MTB/SPD pedals sometimes— as I said before— primarily for extra peace of mind in the winter when it’s sloppy, icy, and treacherous to walk about should I need to for whatever reason.

I brought up the pros to highlight that road pedals give up nothing to SPD…if you’re actually riding. If you’re walking around so much on unrideable roads, trails, paths or whatever, the yeah, pick SPD I guess…maybe hiking boots and platform pedals would be better? Dunno… walking during a ride is for me more like .01% than “absolutely 100%,” just as it is for virtually every gravel rider in the lower peninsula of MI.

I've never ridden gravel in the lower peninsula of MI, but from this description it seems pretty tame.

They ride what is given to them. Doubt they would ride heavier mt bike shoes to use in SPD.