How to choose your road bike pedals?

How to choose your road bike pedals?

Guaranteeing comfort, safety and performance, the pedals must be chosen with care. Today, flat pedals have all but disappeared from the road cycling landscape, where automatic pedals are preferred. Not only do they allow you to transmit all your power to the crankset, but they are also much less dangerous for your joints in the event of a fall, since the mechanism unlocks if the effort becomes too great.

Standard pedals

  • Step* pedal axle screw pitch: 9/16
  • Fitting LOOK, SHIMANO, TIME or SPEEDPLAY cleats
  • Degree of freedom

Pedal types

Concerning threadToday, there's only one standard for mountain bikes, road bikes, city bikes and BMX bikes. The standard thread pitch is 9/16" (14.28 mm diameter).

First thing to remember about assembly: the thread* is reversed on the left pedal. So be careful when disassembling/assembling pedals: for the right-hand pedal, the screwing direction is conventional, i.e. clockwise, whereas for the left-hand pedal it is reversed, i.e. anticlockwise.

Concerning the type of shimsthere are two main types of assembly between the wedges and the shoes in models commonly used on the road: SPD SL or Speedplay. SPD SL road cleats are fitted to your shoes using 3 screws, and are the most widely used system. Speedplay wedges are fitted with a 4-screw system, and require specific shoes if you want to get the full benefit. However, wedges are always supplied with adapters for fitting to SPD road shoes.

More rarely, you'll also find the SPD MTB system mounted on road shoes, where the pedal mechanism and therefore the compatible cleats are different. SPD MTB cleats are fitted using 2 screws, one next to the other.

Finally, you'll often hear about angular freedom for automatic pedals. Despite the fact that the shoes are "clipped" to the pedals, it is in fact possible to move the foot from left to right without detaching the shoe from its mounting, depending on your settings and the cleats used. This degree of rotational movement is known as angular freedom.

Some manufacturers, such as Time, also offer a Q factor of the foot from left to right, called lateral travel.

Which pedals to choose?

The choice between road and mountain bike systems depends directly on your riding style. If you only ride Cyclosportive-type road bikes, choose one of the two standard road-only pedals. For Rando or Cyclocross, the MTB standard is a good choice.

For the degree of freedom, it's a question of compromise. Generally speaking, the freer the foot, the less likely you are to run into joint problems; the less freedom, the better the power transmission. However, it's important to bear in mind that the source of pain is often first and foremost an incorrectly adjusted position.

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