I’m old as dirt. My first two race bikes employed toe clips and toe straps and that set-up was bad. For many reasons it was bad and any retro-hipster who thinks otherwise is wrong. When Lemond and Hinault started racing on the white Look clipless pedals, everyone but Sean Kelly quickly switched. Talk about a quantum improvement, it was long overdue change. Look made improvements to their models, like the notion of float, and other manufactures jumped in. The new paradigm was a cleat on the pedal, like the original quill pedal system but with a spring loaded snap-in, twist-out pedal. Everyone was happy.
Everyone is happy until you have to replace a worn out plastic cleat. Did I walk a lot in my cycling shoes? Did all liquor stores have rough cement floors with giant moving sanding belts in front of the cash registers? I don’t remember that but I do remember replacing cleats too often and the duplication of cleat position was tedious. I could live with that, practice makes perfect but it was the creaking that drove me to madness. No amount of wax could stop the occasional creaking the cleat and pedals would make while climbing. Rule #65 was being violated before it was a Rule.
Wiser friends had already switched to Speedplay pedals. I was a little wary; they looked weird. One day into using them I understood: total frictionless float, two-sided entry, mindless pedal release. There is no cleat alignment issue as the pedal has no fixed position in the cleat. I was overcome with regret. Why had I waited so long? Why did I stick with creaking Look French pedals? Life is too short for such rubbish and I wasted too much of my cycling life with them. I’ve been using the X-series stainless steel pedals and the original pair was happily going on eighteen-plus years until I replaced the pedal needle bearings and bodies…I don’t want to talk about it. If you employ the good aftermarket cleat covers, and use a little white lightning teflon on the cleat spring bales, the cleats can last a few years. The pedal bodies have grease injector ports. Inject, wipe clean and that is the maintenance routine, easy and fun.
I’ve never used another model of Speedplay so I can’t speak to the advantage of limited float. When riding my right foot does a weird swing out toward the bottom of each stroke. To my mind that is a good thing, the float allows my leg to do that, without that maybe some extra knee wear would occur.
Frank and I have discussed the great pedal switch and his major obstacle to switching pedals is having to switch the whole n+1 stable over and that is not cheap. For Frank and VHM that stable may be five bikes. That’s a lot of pedals. Inertia. Commitment. It’s a big problem. Or one takes Marko’s approach: different shoes for each bike.
I have brand loyalties but if another cycling product is superior in form and function I hope I will see that and move on. Campagnolo gruppos and Chris King headsets are two brands on my bikes that I don’t see moving away from but I would ditch either of those before I would stop using Speedplay pedals. I’m that convinced.
This film is from Peloton’s website. It’s an interesting look at some American cycling manufacturing including Speedplay.
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@ChrisO
OK, so you push the point. In reply, journalism is not a profession. You and your ilk have always been conduits through which media and newspaper advertising is sold. Your one duty is to the newspaper/media owner. Professionals owe their duty to their client. Methinks that is a far bigger distinction than a bunch of fellas operating a website and making a few calls on bike gear.
And did you not read Frank's reply? Not one, NOT ONE, reverence article has ever been on something that has been supplied gratis. Take a break champ. Your arse must get sore with your head stuck up it.
@Marcus
There were a number of comments on the thread, most of them fairly sensible and reasoned, even yours. I haven't looked at the site since last night so I replied to the issues which had been raised. My original post was barely more than a throwaway comment so I thought it would help to explain the reasoning behind it.
As for whether journalism is a profession, I said it was my profession - perhaps you can suggest a better choice of words. And you may have noticed the two organisations I mentioned are not advertising supported. The reason I mentioned it was not to laud journalism or journalists as highly ethical or moral judges, but to make the point that my comments were not personal. I have myself been subject to these questions and I have asked them of others - I don't take it personally and when I ask them I don't mean it personally.
Unlike you...
@ChrisO
I think what Marcus is trying to say is "Lighten up, Francis".
I like Speedplays.
I was persuaded to buy them by the LBS as my Looks were older than Peter Sagan.
Speedplays are not quite as easy to get in to as putting your foot on a rat trap pedal and there's a particular junction with a stop light in our town that's difficult with any cleat because it involves an uphill start and the cleat on the road often slips making it very hard to make a smooth getaway.
I broke a cleat on first pair in low speed crash - we suspect it was a manufacturing fault in the adaptor plate.
Occasionally they jam if if you don't clean them properly.
The cleats are now yellow.
I didn't know the company had been going for so long or were American.
When I saw this piece I thought, "Great - a discussion about something I own".
No one gives me free stuff.
I am not a journalist.
I am all grown up and understand that my original plan for world peace formulated at the age of 14 - namely that everyone should just like each other - doesn't seem to work.
I am delighted to find a blog that doesn't go on about conspiracy theories, global warming or the criminality or otherwise of banks.
I am looking forward to actually meeting some of the nutters on here before too long.
@Marcus
Actually the more I think about that the more it winds me up. Maybe it isn't a profession because in a profession you don't get killed trying to bring news to thickhead idiots, so on behalf of my friends Kerim and Miguel, fuck you.
@ChrisO
You raise some good points and I think it's probably timely for Frhonk to consider, judging by his earlier response. I think (and it might just be me and I might also be really misguided) that my bullshit radar goes off very early when it comes to product articles, and they haven't been set off here (apart from Bretto's article on time pedals cos he wrote it before they recalled the cleats) . I also think the Keeper's disclosure has been appropriate, around the Fizik stuff and also the geezers who run the Keeper's tour.
Cycling Tips blog occasionally cops a bit of flack in the comments section for the way their reviews are written, even with disclosure about where the products are from, largely because they tend to push the latest and greatest and can quite similar to advertising copy. I don't think there's anything malicious there, and am willing to think that the writer of those articles just isn't sensitive enough to pick up on this similarity.And cycling tips is still a very good website, even if it is becoming more commercial.
Velominati operates to a higher standard, hence the fact that we're having this conversation now. But ultimately it does come down to whether you trust that Fronk and the other Keepers' bullshit detectors are calibrated so that it is within the range of your expectations. I agree that its not reasonable to expect anyone to be completely free from bias or marketing (this article for instance; Speedplay is revered more in the US than elsewhere, no doubt due to greater marketing presence in their home market, and of course they're going to plug Castelli kit) but you have to trust someone or else you'll never get anywhere.
Dealing with pressure from advertisers and other interested parties is going to be something the Keepers will have to deal with, and frankly I think the site's been getting very good traffic for a long time and they've done well to resist that pressure. Basically because if they fuck it up they'll have to look us (their readership) in the eye one day and explain temselves in a way the fourth estate doesn't.
@ChrisO
I'm reading Fisk's Great War for Civilisation and you can call it whatever the hell you want it is simply amazing what he has done. It's largely irrelevant if someone thinks it's not a profession or not given what he's achieved.
Ah, you guys write so much stuff
....actually, I strangely find her even more arousing when she is giving it some of this!
@Dr C There's a full length version of that that I'm not going to post from work. Where have you been? Representing Ireland in the sailing?