mark d

yes i used search, lots of good info but nothing exactly fits

just got back into cycling this year. when last i rode the old fashioned shoes and cleats was all there was. i have been trying to find some nos along these lines in my budget. no joy. yesterday in goodwill i found a new pair of flywheel shoes for $13. they fit perfect. i bought em.

cleats don't match my shimano 600 pedals of course so i took em off and rode bare shoe. huge improvement.

so i start my research and it turns out they are supposed to be for indoor spinning. don't see why they cant be used on the road ? cleats are something called look system (photos enclosed). there are some bolt holes that are not being used. perhaps for cleat options but one of the sites i looked into said these shoes only have one option. totally confused. any help would be much appreciated. thks in advance

Tourist in MSN

It looks like it could take a road shoe cleat that uses three bolts or a two bolt mountain bike cleat like SPD cleats.

There are four screw holes for the two bolt cleats, that is so you can use the front or the rear two for more choice in placement.

mark d

Tourist in MSN, thks for the response. what do you think of the provided cleat ?

Tourist in MSN

No opinion, I have only used the two bolt type SPD cleats. I am clueless on the three bolt ones.

With the two bolt cleats, usually the sole surrounds the cleat so that when you walk or stand on floor, your weight mostly or completely is on the sole, but the cleat often touches the floor or pavement. Your shoes lack that surrounding sole.

If you look at some mountain bike shoes on the internet and look at the soles, you will see what i mean. For example, look at the sole photo on these shoes.
https://www.rei.com/product/141419/s...ike-shoes-mens

Steve B.

That’s a Look cleat for Look pedals. Similar to a Shimano SPD-L road cleat/pedal. They *can* mount a 2 bolt SPD standard cleat (or Time or other), but will not provide any support in the sole. A 2 bolt SPD standard shoe typically has lugs (like hiking boots) alongside the cleat to support the bottom of the shoe. Shimano did, for a while, offer a road pedal and shoe that uses a 2 bolt cleat, it had rubber supports that installed alongside the clear to support the shoe. Discontinued, but these shoes might be that vintage.

mark d

steve b, thks, would you recommend i just buy some look compatible pedals ?

79pmooney

When you say :"old fashioned" do you mean the old slotted aluminum (or plastic) cleats that toeclip pedals fit into? If yes, you can get those cleats in the LOOK 3-bolt pattern. Exustar track cleats. ~$20. Excellent cleats. If we had them (and the 3-bolt shoes) 45 years ago, we would have thought we'd died and gone to heaven.

Google Exustar, Those cleats are easy to find. I use them on Lake shoes with exactly the bolt pattern you're showing. (Maybe those shoes are Lakes. If so, they could be excellent shoes.)

Steve B.

That’s one route. I personally don’t like the Look/SPD-L system (I’ve used both) preferring dual sided clipless like SPD. It really depends on the riding you do and since this is the Touring forum, Look is not usually a pedal recommended for somebody touring. Basic and or fast solo or group road riding, yes these are good, and just getting pedals off E-Bay would be an inexpensive route.

mark d

zpmooney, that is a very interesting option that i did not know existed. i am researching now , thanks

steve b, why are these clips not favored for touring ? thanks

TiHabanero

Had used the Look Delta cleat system since the introduction in the mid nineties. Works well with one exception, they squeak. Put up with it until last summer, then changed to Shimano Road SPD (SPD SL). No more squeaks. Same big platform to support the foot, same type of engagement. Much better. You can use the Shimano SPD SL pedals and cleats with those shoes, and I recommend them over anything Look has available.

mark d

Google Exustar, Those cleats are easy to find. I use them on Lake shoes with exactly the bolt pattern you're showing. (Maybe those shoes are Lakes. If so, they could be excellent shoes.)[/QUOTE]


are these the cleats ? if so nice inexpensive solution. also it enables me to keep my bike with the original equipment

https://www.ebay.com/c/1621413661

thanks for your help

Steve B.

Real PITA to walk around in, primary reason. The cleats wear out faster then the metal SPD designs as well, being plastic

79pmooney

are these the cleats ? if so nice inexpensive solution. also it enables me to keep my bike with the original equipment

https://www.ebay.com/c/1621413661

thanks for your help[/QUOTE]

The cleats further down the page on the right are the ones I'm talking about.



Price has gone up. $32. I've never seen the plastic ones. If you are riding pedals with aluminum rattraps, plastic will not mar them, aluminum will and in time, kill them). I use only pedals with chrome steel rattraps on which aluminum cleats work really well. Chrome steel rattraps last forever and the cleats get a good "bite" when you are riding hard. Aluminum cleats also last a lot longer; enough probably that they are cheaper in the long run even at that new price. Less treacherous to walk on though harder on floors. They have a rubber "bumper" to make walking better but I have never gotten them to stay in so I simply don't sweat it. I don't even put the bumpers on because they simply become trash on the roadside (or wherever they fall off).

hfbill

A few years ago I bought Shimano RP-9 custom fit road bike shoes. At first I liked them, but I found after a while that they my feet became sore after about 40 miles. I switched to my inexpensive Serafas MTB shoes and Shimano "Saint" SPD pedals and found that they were much more comfortable than the expensive road shoes and cleats. The SPD/MTB shoes are also easier to walk in.

Miele Man

Original style Look cleats can be protected with cleat covers. The cleat covers also give great grip on a tile floor. If you want to walk easier you can put a heel on each of your cycling shoes to level the shoe for better walking. Adding a heel to the show does NOT intefer with engaging or disengaging the cleat and the pedal.

I have the original Shimano new 600 pedals on some of my bicycles and I have a few pairs of the original cleats that fit them. One pair is NOS still in the bag.



I use these shoes without any cleats for most of my riding with toe-clips and straps.




Cheers

mark d

miele man, so you have the cleats always mounted to the pedal somehow and use the shoes without cleats ? do i have that right ?

nos shimano clips very cool. are there others available somewhere ?

thanks

staehpj1

I never found Look cleats too bad to walk in for short distances, but the cleats do get worn out fast walking on rough surfaces. The covers help with that. I think they were sold as "Kool Kovers".

While I find Looks very nice for riding and okay for walking short distances, I have never toured on them. I have always chosen to use two bolt SPD cleats for touring which it looks to me as if those shoes support. The thing is that the cleats will not be recessed so they won't be great for walking with the SPDs, maybe even worse than with Looks unless you modify the shoe with some rubber to recess the cleat.

Bare shoe bottoms and clips and straps are an option, but you couldn't pay me to go back to clips and straps myself.

Personally for me shoes are an area where I am willing to splurge a little. I wouldn't hesitate to just spend a couple hundred or more and get a pair of nice Sidis (and pedals to go with them). I tend to be a bit of a cheapskate on a lot of stuff, but tend to find it worth spending a bit more to get nice shoes. Of course sometimes nice doesn't mean expensive so if these work out for you great, but if they are uncomfortable don't live with them on a long tour. It isn't worth it.

mark d

staehpj1, thanks for the advice

Tourist in MSN

This is starting to look like you are over-thinking things. The shoes you have are not designed with adequate sole for walking, which would make sense if the shoes were sold primarily for spinning classes.

You are on the touring forum, so presumably you want to do long distance multi-day trips. For that, shoes that you could comfortably wear with or without cleats in grocery stores, restaurants, etc. would be best. Not sure if your plan is loaded touring (camping) or credit card touring (motels), but many if not most people bring a second pair of shoes for extended periods off the bike. I do.

So, if in the long term you choose to use cleated shoes for touring, you should focus on a shoe and cleat system that is good for walking.

Then buy the pedals and cleats you want for that purpose. And later if you buy shoes that better fit that purpose, you would already have the right type of pedals and cleats.

Shoes like you have would certainly work with older style pedals and toe clips. And you can still buy toe clips, but they often are made of plastic now. I use toe clips on one of my bikes. And you could easily walk in the shoes you have if you had toe clips because you would not have cleats making them harder to walk in.

A friend of mine tours with toe clips instead of cleated shoes, that way he only brings one pair of shoes on a tour that are comfortable for all purposes. That did not work so well after three days of rain and his feet started to have problems because the shoes were wet, but that was only on one trip where he started to suffer foot problems.

I usually bring a pair of sandals to wear in showers at campgrounds, hostels, etc. And if my shoes are wet, I often wear sandals in the campsite to let my shoes rest and dry out, but the sandals I bring have a soft sole that would not work on a bike.

I have only used Shimano SPD type cleats. Some Ritchey mountain bike SPD pedals/cleats are interchangeable with Shimano too. Possibly others too.

***
I have quite a few bikes:
- two sided SPD pedals on my road bike, older Ritchey V4 Comp that are over a decade old.
- platform on one side and SPD on the other side on my touring and rando bikes. Shimano A530 or M324.
- errand bike for short shopping trips, etc., platform both sides, cheap generic pedals.
- toe clips on my folding bike. MKS Ezy tool-less removable.

***
Touring, multi-day long distance riding also means all weather conditions. Consider if you want some rain covers later. These were high visibility yellow/green before they became mud color. Works best if you also have rain pants so that the rain does not run down your leg into the inside of the shoes.

mark d

tourist in msn, thank you for the thorough and well thought out response.

79pmooney

I use the steel rattrapped version of htose pedals, grind the vertical lips on the plate at the toeclip bolts (and toe of that cleat), use the aluminum Exustar cleats I pictured in the post above, bolt a big, strong steel tab to the rattrap, replace the toeclip bolt you can see with a much longer one and nut several big, heavy fenderwashers to the underside to get the balance right for easy fix gear pedal pickup.

Those cleats are for racing on the track. Those "ears" slide under the plate, With the plate and its lips, with a tight strap you are basically locked in. I find the Exustar cleats work just fine, probably last longer and are far easier to find. (Any slotted cleat is a wear item. In my racing days I went through several a season.)

Not all of those style pedals from Shimano have plates with the ears, I have both. I've never seen a boxed set or known models, model numbers, etc so i don't know the rankings and history. Now, my pedals are all mixed up as I have them on three bikes and it is critical that the bearings are good. Some can be accessed, others take special tools and knowledge. I bring a bunch to a good mechanic every few years and have him save the ones he can. Working pedals then go to bikes with ailing ones. Matched sets? Yeah, I wish!

Oh, LOOK cleats? Use KoolKovers. Your cleats will last far longer. They have also been known to extend coccyx life. KoolKover makes them for Delta, Keo, I believe SPD-SL and probably a few other cleats.

Ben

mstateglfr 

The shoes arent designed to be used for anything more than sitting on a trainer bike- hence the total lack of tread. They will be annoying to tour in as they wont be comfortable to walk in for anything more than a few feet at a time. So every time you get off the bike, you will have to either walk goofy or change into other shoes. Neither seems like a good plan.

Just get some closeout SPD mountain bike shoes, buy some SPD pedals either new or used, and call it a day. The total cost could be $50 if you look around. For $100 total, you would have your choice of many different shoes and pedals.

I cant imagine trying to make these spin shoes work for touring.

Miele Man

None of my dedicated road bicycling shoes have any tread either. That includes my circa 1985 Adidas Eddy Merckx road shoes.

Cheers

mstateglfr 

Ok.
I cant imagine touring i your shoes either, i guess. There is just no upside.
To each their own. Some find pride in the struggle, even when its self inflicted.

Miele Man

What struggle? I don't struggle with any of my pedals/cleats setups. I did struggle to get my foot to engage into or sometimes release from MTB style pedals and cleats which is why I went back to toe-clips and straps or Look type pedals and cleats. When I ride with toe-clips and straps and cleated shoes or with Look type clipless pedals and shoes with cleats, I don't have any struggles riding. If I'm touring I'll pack a pair of lightweight shoes to walk around in.

Cheers