Russ Roth

Since my first foray into clipless was well before the advent of crankbrothers I just lived with the occasional inconvenience of having slightly clogged spd pedals. As my kids needed clipless I started by giving them older pairs of pedals I accumulated over the years, the mud this season resulted in several races that were difficult to clip into but it was the final race of the season that convinced me that over the next year we're switching to some form of eggbeaters for pedals.

My 11yo complained they couldn't clip in. This is how much was still in the pedal after driving in the rain for 8 hours and sitting on the back of the car overnight in a downpour.


So much mud had built up on the last lap that the tires stopped spinning, thankfully the kid was near the pit and most of the mud could be cleared out for them.


Interestingly, even though the headset now feels slightly notchy, and the first BB which was new this year seized halfway through the season, the 8000 series XT hubs are spinning completely free with no evidence of any grit in them. Still going to tear them down and regrease them since its been 2 years since they were last done, but impressive sealing all things considered.

Clipped_in

Looks like you had quite the "fun" race!

Russ Roth

Didn't see a single kid coming away from the race looking like that who also didn't sport a smile. Mud is when the good times really start.

Fentuz

yes, the 520 can be a little bulky and clogged with mud. This is why I rode with the XT version. These days, in UK muddy cyclocross I ride with garmin rally and I have not problem although the pedal is bulkier like a m540


This was after a XC race on November 11th... 50 shades of mud

msu2001la

I've heard/read complaints that Egg Beaters are hard to get used to because the engagement is a lot different than SPD. People talk about feeling like they're going to suddenly pull out of the pedals because the unclipping is really vague. I've also heard that reliability is an issue.

They do seem to be a much better design for mud, and I've been in CX races where it was impossible to get clipped back in because the pedals are jammed. I'm intrigued by the design, but I'm also not racing at a high enough level or in mud races frequently enough for this to be a big factor so I've always just stuck with SPDs.

I'm curious to hear opinions of anyone who's made the switch.

Russ Roth

That's about what the rest of the bike looked like but with a little more grass mixed in.

My wife did the switch years ago not liking how hard it was to get out of her spd. She has one pedal she has a hard time getting into on her gravel bike but no trouble with 3 other pairs. In general she likes them better than spd.