If The Shoe Fits...

I am a creature of routine. I am also extremely hard to please. So when I find something that works exactly as I want it to, is comfortable, aesthetically pleasing -- hopefully all three! -- it's sometimes hard for me to give it up and move on.

As the years go by, I exercise more foresight: the moment I realise something works for me, I buy up as many as I can (a) afford, and (b) reasonably justify storage space for! If something goes on sale at a dramatically reduced price, I worry that means it's about to go out of production or out of stock so I order a supply to last several years! This is why I have safely stashed away: four pairs of my favourite trousers, two new pairs of my favourite walking shoes and a Smartwool cycling jersey identical to the one I wear most often. 

But sometimes I get caught out, having enjoyed the use of a particular brand or model only to find I can no longer get an exact replacement. 

So, having worn out my beloved Shimano R320 cycling shoes (a model that Shimano has discontinued in favour of the new and improved and staggeringly ugly R321) and Speedplay Light Action cleats (a flawed but wonderfully knee-friendly design)... what was I to do?

SPDs

Because of the issues with getting on and off ferries when we went to France in May, I tried SPDs.

I absolutely loved the comfort and ease of walking in these shoes. However, I did not get on with the cleats as well as I had hoped. With only 6 degrees of float available, getting the position absolutely right is crucial. I tweaked them on every ride, morning and evening, for 3 days before I felt fairly satisfied. 

Then I took a detour home one evening to take in some proper Chiltern hills. And I found that my knees, indeed probably my entire kinetic chain from hips to toes, require just a bit more scope to move freely, to climb comfortably and without a distinct loss of power. 

Looking ahead to our Lowlands Tour, while days 3-8 will be on pancake flat terrain, the first 2 days from Dieppe to Ypres will definitely involve several hills. It would not be possible to take two sets of shoes and pedals. Regrettably, it seems SPDs cannot be that one-pair solution that I need. 

Frogs

I have history with Frogs -- the only 'MTB' style pedal and cleat system that Speedplay make. They were the first clipless system I tried, adopted on the advice of my physiotherapist the summer after my knee arthroscopy. I used them for about a year before switching to road pedals to improve foot and knee stability. 

I remember liking the Frogs very much. But unfortunately, after two years with road cleats, using them again felt like ice skating. I felt very insecure on the pedals, with too much movement in my legs (especially laterally), and indeed quite anxious about coming unclipped accidentally. When I used these before, I was still quite new to cycling. With road cleats, I am much more confident standing out of the saddle when climbing and getting a bit aero when descending. Those more (dare I say) 'aggressive' skills require stable engagement, which the Frogs simply do not provide. 

Frankly, my knees and I are unwilling to go back to Frogs.

Remember those sayings?  

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. 

I know what I like and I like what I know.

So.... if the (old) shoe fits, then (get new ones just like them and) wear it! 

Cyclefit Shopping Session

I made an appointment at Cyclefit, as they offer an hour session with one of their technicians which essentially works like a personal shopping experience. I did some research and online 'window shopping' and emailed over a list of 4 models of shoe that I'd like to try, if they had them in stock or could get them in for me. These were: 

* the R321 (the new pro-level offering from Shimano which completely displaced the R320 at the top of the tree)

* the R171, which appears to be less fully featured version of the R321

* the R260, which looks quite similar to the discontinued R320 (based on a comparative review here)

* the womens-specific WR42, which in looks and features also seemed to resemble the R320 with the possible added attraction of a narrow heel cup 

(Here, Cyclefit made a mistake and got the WR32 model into the shop instead. It's easy to see how they made this mistake!  What they didn't know is that the top velcro strap is a deal-breaker for me.)

It was an enlightening session. No single pair ticked all the boxes for me or were 100% comfortable, but where one pair presented a problem, another pair didn't yet presented something else. Two pair had tongues that extended far beyond the cut of the throat of the shoe, which was very uncomfortable. One pair had a sloppy loose fit around the throat. Two pair felt too wide at the heel, so my heel slipped out of the shoe when I flexed my foot. 

Meanwhile, however, although the WR32 weren't quite what I wanted, trying them prompted curiosity about the rest of the women's-specific range so I went to the Shimano website to find that the top of the range is the WR83 which -- no surprises -- is the result of Shimano's famous "trickle-down technology", which means the 2015 model WR83 is pretty much what the top of the line men's model was two years ago, which was... the R320. 

Bingo!  (While the fact that entire women's product range lags behind the men's by as much as two years infuriates me, it is a huge relief on a personal level to find these available now that the R320 have been discontinued.)

And so to cleats -

Speedplay’s Ultra Light Action Walkable™ Cleats 

I got the "walkable" versions of my tried-and-tested Light Action cleats, which are fully compatible with my existing Light Action pedals. This is a very good thing, as the pedals are very expensive -- but do last for years and years as there are no real working parts to wear out, the only ongoing care being re-greasing the bearings, which I believe all pedals require anyway. 

Until this summer when I first fitted Shimano SPDs (as discussed above), I had never fitted any type of cleats other than Speedplay Light Action. I had no idea just how much more complicated they are than SPDs! There are a lot of small pieces to be dropped and lost, and possibly the most pedantically detailed instructions ever to accompany any cycling product other than a groupset. 

This however is I believe my 4th time doing the job. I seem to have developed a working process that works for me and makes sense. Fortunately, I do have a facility to read written instructions and translate that into practical visuals -- if you're a highly visual person, you may struggle with all the closely typed, badly organised written content provided by Speedplay. There are a few illustrations, mostly in the form of exploded diagrams. I did find these helpful this time round, since the various bits and pieces were slightly different from 'normal' Light Action cleats. 

While I am not aiming to give a full tutorial here, I hope to flag up key features of these cleats which may be useful to readers with experience of other pedal/cleat systems who may be interested in how Speedplays are different. (Functionally, as I've mentioned many times, Speedplay's key advantage -- for those of us who need it -- is the knee-friendly non-spring-loaded free float.)

My main piece of advice when it comes to assembling and fitting Speedplay cleats to your shoes is to get organised! Lay out all the pieces, identify them, then take care not to bump/jostle the whole lot off onto the floor. If you drop an individual screw or something while actually working with it, that's not an issue. Tipping everything off onto the floor in a second of spectacular clumsiness while retrieving that one screw you dropped is quite another! 

I took about an hour beginning to end, with at least half of that taken up by photography with a view to writing this blog post. Your first time fitting Speedplays may take as long as that, maybe ever longer -- although if you've fitted other systems, then at least you won't spend as much time as I inevitably do checking that I haven't got 'left' confused with 'right'!  The key here though is be methodical. Get it right at the initial fitting stage you will probably spend far less time refining the cleat position or adjusting anything after going for a test ride.

So relax and get yourself comfortable. Truly the only 'stressful' aspect of this job is reading the instructions! But as infuriatingly detailed as they are, I have found them to be 100% accurate and worth studying to do the job right. 

You may like to pour yourself a large drink before you start! 

If you intend to walk much, stop right here and go get yourself some SPDs!

If your shoes have a 3-hole pattern on the sole, you will need to use the black baseplate which serves as an adapter to be fitted to the sole before fitting the 4-hole cleat system. The baseplate comes with factory-fitted shims providing the right curvature to match the carbon soles of many road shoes. But first check Speedplay's Shoe Compatibility table, included with your pack: your particular model of shoe may require shims with a slightly different curvature! 

Pictured below:  the pair of baseplates are in the middle. The one to the left in that pair have the correct shims for my shoes fitted; the one to its right has the factory-fitted shims. To the outside are the corresponding partners: to the far right is the second set of shims which will need to be fitted to the middle-right baseplate; to the far right is the original factory-fitted shims that came off the middle-left baseplate. (Sorry, that is confusing! I wasn't thinking about how the descriptions would have to be written, when I laid the pieces out on the table to be photographed.)

Shims for the baseplates

Checking the position on my old shoe (left) --

And the right --

Fitting the baseplate -- this needs to be done as centrally as possible, with the key decision being the fore/aft placement, i.e. do you want the cleat under the ball of your feet or more mid-foot? (For more information on this, you may like to read the views of experts like Joe Friel, Steve Hogg or Phil Burt.)  The lateral (side to side) position of your cleat, as well as any particular slant/angle you require for one or both feet, is achieved when you attach the cleat itself to the baseplate. 

Fit the baseplate according to the
fore/aft position you require.

Next come the cleats, to be screwed to the baseplate using those four small holes you can see in the photo above (two at the top, two at the bottom just before and just after "CAUTION!") -- 

Cleat plus tread cover. Note, the scope to customise
the lateral position of your cleat lies here when fitting it to the baseplate.

New versus old: same mechanism, different shape to the
'housing' in the way they are screwed to the baseplate.

 New cleats all fitted to my new shoes --

Cleat screws are now recessed below the contact surface,
which should save a lot of wear and tear!

The cleat "tread covers" are fitted by starting in one corner than stretching them around the other four corners of the cleat. Speedplay's instructions compare it to fitting a bicycle tyre but I think a better analogy is fitting a sheet to a mattress -- you know the one I mean, the one you lie on, with the elasticated hem. 

The whole cleat set also includes a pair of "plugs" called "Cleat Buddies" which fit into the cleats much like fitting a Garmin to its mount:  you set it into the cavity at the centre of the cleat, then turn it 90 degrees to secure.

When not fitted to your cleats, the two Cleat Buddies snap together for storage in your jersey pocket or seat pack. The design looks well thought out; the two plugs snap together securely so you shouldn't lose one. 

Why Cleat Buddies?  I think the beauty of the "Walkable Cleat" design with the covers that stay on is that you don't need to be fitting "cafe covers" that fit over the whole cleat, each time you need to walk around off the bike for more than a few feet. This looks ideal for the dilemma I've had with boarding and disembarking from ferries. But for those times when you'll be walking away from your bike for a short while and want to make sure no contaminants (mud, sand, grass) get into the cleat/pedal interface itself (which is still exposed), you can pop these in to completely plug the cavity and protect the engagement mechanism. 

These are definitely much smaller than 'cafe covers' (which I have found to be indispensable with 'regular' Light Action cleats). 

Speedplay's Coffee Shop Caps
for Light Action and Zero cleats

Finishing things off, I opted to keep the (yellow and red) 'custom-fit' insoles from my old R320s, as they are in great condition and have much better arch support than the standard (grey) insoles in the WR83s. 

Shimano's 'custom fit' insoles allow 3 options for arch support inserts.

After a short ride of about 1 kilometer round the neighbourhood, I can say I am very pleased with both the shoes and the cleats. No post-ride adjustments were needed. 

Now for a few days of commuting before we're off to France again!

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You can find a great article on shoe fit by Steve Hogg here.