After a late (and LARGE) pancake breakfast at the Chocolate Box in Camberwell with Tee, I visited my “dealer” Mick to get a fix. Today’s fix would consist of an even blend of Ultegra SPD-SL pedals (PD-R600) and SPD-SL shoes (the carbon-sole SH-R151’s to be exact).

After 3 or 4 years of using the SPD mountain bike pedal system for commuting, road racing, mtb racing and even track racing I felt I should move to a proper road system for the road and track bikes.

At this stage I’ve roughly positioned the cleats and taken the Pug for a quick spin around the block. Everything feels strange!

The shoe is 3 strap rather than 2 and a lot stiffer than my old Nike SPDs so my feet will have to get used to the change.

The engagement mechanism operates differently requiring a softer click-in in a slightly different position.

One-sided entry will make my starts interesting for a while and I’m sure to slip onto my backside any time I have to walk in these things! They are much less walk-friendly than the SPDs (well.. duh!).

The actual pedaling action feels more solid when powering down but the amount of float took me by surprise – the shoes seem to ‘skate’ around a little more than my SPDs.

Using the good advice of not trying anything new before a race, I will take them off and fit the SPDs before tomorrow’s crit.

– Addendum –

This might answer a few of your questions:

www.cyclingnews.com review the Dura Ace SPD-SLs

Also bought:

– an Alien multi-tool

– one of the new red sidewall Pro Race tyres

– selection of High-5 and GU bars and gels to test out