wheelhot

For those who have MTB shoes with carbon soles, does the SPD cleat leave an indentation once clamped? Wouldn't this crush the carbon layer? And how do you'll prevent the indentation markings as the issue I find with Nylon soles is that the indentations make it hard to fine tune adjust the cleat angle as it'll tend to go back into its indentation markings. Thoughts?

tangerineowl

I suppose it may depend a little on the carbon hardness.
Using Frog cleats on my carbon-sole mtb shoes, although I think these cleats are only meant to be torqued to around 4nm max. No markings.

DrIsotope

Both pairs of my shoes have full carbon soles. One pair came with a plastic bit that goes between the cleat and the sole. The other pair has the whole outsole clad in rubber, with a hard plastic insert where the cleat goes. I've only seen cleats mounted directly to the carbon on road shoes, where it's just a big plastic triangle.

It's not really the cleat digging in you need to worry about, it's the pedal itself. Crank Brothers sells a little metal shield for their cleats for this exact situation, to stop the pedal bales from digging into the carbon sole.

CliffordK

I've got a pair of lakes. Not a lot of miles on them, maybe 1000 or so. But, moved or adjusted the cleats since install.

I certainly see imprints from where the cleats set in on the plastic sole shoes. I haven't looked at the CF sole shoes, but I wouldn't worry about it to much.

Cyclist0108

https://www.bikeforums.net/mountain-...bon-soles.html