burnthesheep

The equipment combo is: pd-m520, spd, Giro VR90

I remount fast and find the pedals fast then it's a fumbling mess. I can actually do a flying mount on my TT bike with Speedplays or roadie with spd-sl faster than the dang cross bike.

I was about to try to order eggbeaters but a teammate said he tried those and ran into the same problem!

I just don't get it. I probably do 50 barrier remounts a week in-season. So it ain't practice. I could set the thing up on a stationary trainer and the engagement seems junk. They aren't "that" tight either. They're clean/lubed/new cleats.

Thanks.

shelbyfv

I've had shoes that needed the tread trimmed to give more clearance around the cleat.

mstateglfr 

You find the pedals then it'd a fumbling mess...does this mean that once you find em you can't find the cleat on your shoe or does it mean you can find the cleat bit it won't engage without a lot of work?

If it's the latter, new cleats are more difficult to engage with the pedal mechanism. Once the cleat wears down a little, clicking in becomes a lot easier.

unterhausen

I found a lot of problems went away once I started using Crank Brothers shoe shields.

You have to tighten down the cleats just a little more though.

Bryan C. 

Shimano makes shims that go under the cleats if the shoes themselves are interfering with pedals while clipping in. I had a similar problem when using Specialized shoes with Shimano XT M8020 pedals. I swapped over to Shimano shoes and the problem went away.

The shims I have came with my M9100 XTR pedals. I found this pic on the web, they look the same as what I have.

burnthesheep

Those vr90's just seem to have not much space around the tread and cleat. Like the user above said they had to trim around it. Even when it is a direct "find" and not coming down too fore or aft it seems to take a bit. I feel like it won't go unless you nail the location coming down right on it, within a mm or so.

I guess I could experiment first by putting the spd cleat on an old road shoe without any walk/running sole rubber and see if the remount is easier.......then I'd be onto something if I can do it easier if the shoe sole rubber is making it tougher.

Thing is though it is a cross shoe. It's got freaking spike provisions. I can't imagine that'd be the issue since they'd be intended to be used for this task.

Worth noting, I've played with cleat tension but the pedals are a bit old. Like I'm the 2nd owner of the bike, previous owner had it for 3 years and I've had it 4 years with the same pedals. Cleats are new brand name Shimano spd's, so not worn. They're lubed.

Some of it may be habit based from road riding and how an spd-sl engages. But really, I rode my TT bike most this year that has Speedplay zeroes. Those are more like an spd in that you don't "slide" your foot into engagement versus locating and pressing down. So...........shouldn't be that. Especially since an spd is supposed to be easier.

I mentioned this to guys in my group that since I do a duathlon once in a blue moon I do the flying mount on the TT bike sometimes with the Speedplays and can do it faster than on my cross bike with spd's. Like, WTH.

One thing I had not considered is there are two types of spd cleat. I'm using the sh51, not the sh56. Not that on entry that would be it.

mattcalifornia

Yeah - make sure you have the correct cleats. I had that problem a long, long time ago and it turned out that I was using Ritchey cleats on SPD pedals. I had thought they were the same, but they actually were slightly different (not sure if that is still the case -- this was ages ago). SPD pedals should engage really easily. If you're having trouble engaging (as opposed to finding the cleat), there is definitely something wrong -- either wrong cleat or interference from the shoe.