Tyres or pedals/shoes?

KevGuinness

HI folks, I have a crappy halfords road bike, looking to make my life a little bit easier and since I can't afford a new bike (well I could but would need to give up Guinness) I was wondering- first step to upgrade the tyres or get a set of clipless pedals and some shoes for it?

Budget may stretch to both but I doubt I can do that without the Mrs getting stroppy and she is too good a cook to get a divorce

Philby

Clipless pedals and shoes, though they could set you back a fair amount compared to tyres. They will revolutionise your pedalling and you will get much more power out of each pedal stroke, and you will especially notice the benefit when going up hills. They will also be easily transferable to the new bike you will be buying when you give up the Guinness

CarleyB

oooo toughy. i went for pedals and shoes over tyres...but they will be next.

KevGuinness

Giving up the Guinness

preposterous



aye they will cost a fair whack more but I can sneak them in as one package and hope she wont look at the cost. I can justify needing the shoes to go with the pedals, not worked out how I ca say it is essential I get new tyres or the pedals will not work

wilko193

Exactly which crappy halfords bike do you have?

If you're not slipping about and getting punctured all the time on your current tyres I'd definitely say shoes/pedals - they'll make a much bigger difference than tires IMO

KevGuinness

Carreara TDF 2009 limited edition baby yeah! Bet you are all jealous :twisted:

no problems with the tyres, just heard and read that tyres are a quick win and cheap but I had a feeling shoes/pedals would make more of an impact and seems as though thats the majority view.

Being a sheep I am happy to follow the crowd -at this stage of my cycling addiciton following is about all I can do

bobtbuilder

wilko193 wrote:

Exactly which crappy halfords bike do you have?

If you're not slipping about and getting punctured all the time on your current tyres I'd definitely say shoes/pedals - they'll make a much bigger difference than tires IMO

Shoes + pedals are the best upgrade you can make. Whatever bike you're riding, they will improve your technique and speed.

wilko193

Ahhh the TDF's are ok - not bad for begginers! (not sure about the colour though) :P

i could imagine riding my racer without racing tyres - but not without SPDS

KevGuinness

black and yellow suits me fine, you spot it a mile away in traffic I have been told

add in some horrendous looking black and yellow lycra I had purchased for me and the ninja bumblebee look is complete :oops:

Buckled_Rims

Pedals and shoes especially on a road bike. Which type depends on you, but I prefer SPD pedals the M520 at £20 are extremely hard to beat but many see them more MTB orientated. As for shoes, Wiggle has their own dhb brand that are OK, or the Shimano MT41 shoes at £40 are great but not road specific for long long distances. If you go with the flow, ask how many on here use the M520 pedals and MT41 shoes!

Tyres, well I recently bought a pair of schwalbe lugano for £20 at a cycle market and they're great. Even after 400+ miles not a single cut.

wilko193

KevGuinness wrote:

black and yellow suits me fine, you spot it a mile away in traffic I have been told

add in some horrendous looking black and yellow lycra I had purchased for me and the ninja bumblebee look is complete :oops:

ahhhh trafic visibility! didn't think of that...

having said that theres a little yellow on mine...

http://www.bikeradar.com/forum/viewtopi ... 5#16254445

(also a Halfords bike)

But yeah shoes and pedal get my vote

Just decide whether you want to go mountain bike style spd with easier to walk in shoes and dual sided entry, or road style with harder to walk in but lighter and stiffer (therefore more efficient) shoes and single sided (but larger contact area) pedals......

The real question is, fast or very fast? :P

Truth is if you're starting out most guys go mountain bike style - benefits of SPD whilst not quite so challenging....

That said if you want to get into "decent" riding, go for it, the learning curve is steep and if you stick at it through the embarrassing falls i'm sure come to see the benefits

KevGuinness

I think your halfords bike just about beats mine

you must be psychic, was just about to ask about the differences between spd and all the rest of it

falls not so worried about, got a cycle track at the end of my street with lots of lovely soft grass at the sides to collapse onto for practice!

NormanPrice

I'd go with the shoes and pedals. Definately.

And then I'd go out for a ride and come back with a big chunk of glass is each tyre. Damn, those tyres are split too badly - I'll have to replace them. :twisted:

You know it makes sense.

KevGuinness

Hmmmmmmm, there are a lot of kids who drink on that cycle path at weekends and smash bottles on it............ :twisted:

wilko193

KevGuinness wrote:

I think your halfords bike just about beats mine

you must be psychic, was just about to ask about the differences between spd and all the rest of it

falls not so worried about, got a cycle track at the end of my street with lots of lovely soft grass at the sides to collapse onto for practice!

Yeah there are two main types of clipples pedals-mountain bike and road bike. (SPD stands for Shimano Pedalling Dynamics or something like that-so only really refers to Shimano)

Typically road bike pedals have single sided entry-i.e your fool only clips into one side of the pedal. This means that there's a larger contact are between your cleat and the shoe-therefore less pressure points and in my experience just feeling more secure.

This means you need road shoes though-with a three bolt cleat fitment-all road shoes will have this but it means you can't use mtb shoes with road pedals.

Mountain bike pedals are smalled and typically dual sided. This means that they're easier to clip into without looking-just kind of stomp on the pedal. However the contact area is smaller, and in my opinion feels less "secure". By that I mean locked in, and solid.

Mountain bike shoes are typically easier to walk in and usually have some kind of tread on the bottom, and use a two bolt cleat fitment.

If you're not worried about falls and want to go for it- I'd reccomend the shimano 105s-google "shimano 105 pedals" and see what you think. If they're out of price range I know shimano do some cheaper ones-really cant remember their name though and I'm typing this on my bb-so can't really look them up.

Shoes is a hugely personal thing. Look up reviews on individual shoes.

Anyway-thats my advice .

And yeah-the Boardman"s good - staff discount and all. But shhhh don't tell anyone I work there-il never live it down! . Anyway its part time whilst I'm studying full time!

Halfords get a sh!t press-but some of us know a little bit .


Good luck!

KevGuinness

cheers my good man much obliged for the info.

agree totally about the staff, I got lucky one of the good ones was just coming back from a tea break and saw me wheeling the bike out she shop with loose brakes and a seat that was miles too low and he called me back in to set it up properly while the guy who sold me it slunk away sharpish.

jamlala

I'd go for pedals and shoes.....but don't EVER give up the Guinness, its not as if we're doing this professionally is it?!

wilko193

No worries 4 the info-let me know what ya go for in the end!

Yeah its frustrating for the good guys having all the goons work there to be honest

But hey that's life!

Strickland

After reading pretty much everywhere, that pedals and shoes are the best upgrade you could think about making, I've decided I will make this the first thing I change once my bike comes (and funds let me).

What Im trying to work out, is how it all works.

For example, if I were to get these shoes (randomly picked from website)...

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/p/cycle/7/Shimano_R076_Road_Cycling_Shoes/5360040183/

... what type of pedal would I have to pick out? Do I go for a clip in pedal, and do these come with everything needed, as I've noticed cleats are sold individually. Sorry for sounding a bit of a noob, again. Still trying to get my heads round the basics, and don't want to part with hard earned cash until Im sure Im getting the right stuff.

wilko193

Ok those guys are road shoes- so you do need to used clip in pedals.

You cant really see in the photo on wiggle - but in the one below (the same shoes) you can see that there's no tread on the sole - just the cleat fitments.



Now to make things even more fun - these road shoes have the fitment for mountain bike cleats also.

The three fixed holes in the triangle are the road cleat holes, and the two holes really close to each other that slide up and down in the middle are the mountain bike ones

Cleats come with pedals that you buy - the cleats that you're seeing sold seperately are for when the ones that come with your pedals wear out

So with these shoes, youcan use either road or mountain bike pedals.

For road, you need look or shimano spd-sl cleats and therefore pedals..... These are both single sided entry pedals, basically either

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Mode ... delID=5369

(those are the cheap shimanos i was talking about last night

or

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/p/cycle/7/Look_ ... 360022791/

My advice is go with shimano - i've had sthe exact shimanos in that link, and i've got some look keo sprints on my road bike now - they were such a b!tch to set up it's unreal - wouldnt do it again to be honest.............

And for mountain bike the tried and tested trojan of a pedal is the shimano m520

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Mode ... delID=3759

Yes they're cheap but they're completely bomb proof......

So the answer is that this shoe can do both

My reccomendation are the shimano r540s - they are "proper" road pedals and will feel a lot better IMO - maybe a little more difficult to clip into at first, but you'll learn soon enough

wilko193

Ok those guys are road shoes- so you do need to used clip in pedals.

You cant really see in the photo on wiggle - but in the one below (the same shoes) you can see that there's no tread on the sole - just the cleat fitments.



Now to make things even more fun - these road shoes have the fitment for mountain bike cleats also.

The three fixed holes in the triangle are the road cleat holes, and the two holes really close to each other that slide up and down in the middle are the mountain bike ones

Cleats come with pedals that you buy - the cleats that you're seeing sold seperately are for when the ones that come with your pedals wear out

So with these shoes, youcan use either road or mountain bike pedals.

For road, you need look or shimano spd-sl cleats and therefore pedals..... These are both single sided entry pedals, basically either

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Mode ... delID=5369

(those are the cheap shimanos i was talking about last night

or

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/p/cycle/7/Look_ ... 360022791/

My advice is go with shimano - i've had sthe exact shimanos in that link, and i've got some look keo sprints on my road bike now - they were such a b!tch to set up it's unreal - wouldnt do it again to be honest.............

And for mountain bike the tried and tested trojan of a pedal is the shimano m520

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Mode ... delID=3759

Yes they're cheap but they're completely bomb proof......

So the answer is that this shoe can do both

My reccomendation are the shimano r540s - they are "proper" road pedals and will feel a lot better IMO - maybe a little more difficult to clip into at first, but you'll learn soon enough

Strickland

Thank you very much. Clears that up for me.

Strickland

One more quick question, sorry to hijack the thread.

I use my bike for pretty much everything, as I don't drive. The bike I have coming next week will be my first road bike. Is there a 'plate' (sorry if there is a technical term) that you can get, that can fit over the top of the pedal, clipping in like shoes would, allowing me to ride without having to wear cycling shoes?

I'd rather not have to take the 5 minute trips to tesco in jersey, lycra shorts, and cycling shoes.

wilko193

I have seen the plates before- but only on mountain bike style pedals. (Egg beaters) and they broke very quickly.

One solution is to get pedals with a pop up binding mechanism. Essentially a normal pedal with the binding mechanism in the middle which is spring loaded, so that when you put weight on it with normal shoes, the mechanism just ducks down into the pedal.

Sounds like an awesome idea but from experience they don't quite go down far enough and you can still feel the mechanism under your foot.

Truth is, I ride my 5 minute, 2 mile each way ride to work with just trainers on my look pedals on my bike and they're fine-be careful when its wet but if its a 5 minute journey I'd just live with it .

Buckled_Rims

Strickland wrote:

One more quick question, sorry to hijack the thread.

I use my bike for pretty much everything, as I don't drive. The bike I have coming next week will be my first road bike. Is there a 'plate' (sorry if there is a technical term) that you can get, that can fit over the top of the pedal, clipping in like shoes would, allowing me to ride without having to wear cycling shoes?

I'd rather not have to take the 5 minute trips to tesco in jersey, lycra shorts, and cycling shoes.

You can get Shimano M324 which has one side is SPD and the other flat. I use them for commuting. They're OK, but clipping in can be a pain as you need to feel which side that the SPD is on. They've lasted through all weathers (4 years so far) and are very tough (and a bit heavy).

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?PartnerID=79&ModelID=5937

KevGuinness

looking at this for my shoe/pedal solution, anyone got any experience with them they would like to share?

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/p/cycle/7/dhb_R ... 360042950/

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/p/cycle/7/Shima ... 360011753/

(also I have heard from someone wiggle is great, heard from someone else they are a pile of steaming donkey poo, which is true?)

Buckled_Rims

That's the road shoes I have. Be careful with the sizing. They are OK and have good ventilation.

The SPD-SL pedals are harder to clip in if you're not experienced (single sided as well as large cleat). Clipping out is even harder, but with practice everything is possible

Add the 2 together and you have a good basic combination for roads and sportives.

I still prefer the M520 SPD pedals. I feel safer in the knowledge I can clip in and out easily, especially through town. However on sportives I change to 105 SPD-SL and those dhb shoes.

fastbatard

I've just ordered these pedals for my new bike, might be worth a look as a budget option.
http://www.jejamescycles.co.uk/outland- ... 53221.html
Also reviewed on here
http://www.bikeradar.com/gear/category/ ... s-10-37752
Must say I'm now considering swapping them for the Shimano R540 as I've also ordered Shimano shoes and it just seems right to have them both Shimano.
As for justifying the purchase of both tyres and pedals/shoes, if you're commuting on your bike just tell the missus you're doing it so you can get home to her quicker

KevGuinness

fastbatard wrote:

As for justifying the purchase of both tyres and pedals/shoes, if you're commuting on your bike just tell the missus you're doing it so you can get home to her quicker

She would rather put tacks on the road to keep me away longer than get me new bits for it after I stayed out 2 hours longer on the bike today than I said I would