Shimano SPD-540 compatibility question?

lifeform

Hi gang

Looking to buy my first set of pedals/cleats/shoes tomorrow.

My LBS said something odd on the phone yesterday - that the SPD540s are only compatible with RT-51 shoes.

Having browsed around the net, can't find any other mention of this - and it seems ludicrous for Shimano to limit a pedal to work only with a shoe which now appears to be OOP.

Is someone telling a fib?

careful

Sounds like theyre trying to sell you some shoes!

lifeform

Well that's the really odd thing - I looked at said shoes on google whilst on the phone and said "okay, but I'm a size 11, so you'll need a 46 or so because I know Shimano come up small"

To which I got the reply - "oh we don't keep them in stock, but we've got some Shimano MTB shoes which we can fit you with and then we'll order the RT-51s"

vorsprung

I have 3 bikes with 540 pedals on

They use a standard 2 bolt MTB SPD cleat

I have several shoes I use or have used including Specialized Comp MTB, Shimano MT60, Specialized Sonoma, Shimano MT40 and some Northwave winter boots

lifeform

Ah, so they're not for road shoes then?

iandennis

There are two types of Shimano 540 pedals.
One is a 540 SPD SL pedal fitting the other is a MTB spd type.

I've got the road pedal (excellent by the way) and as long as you have a three hole shoe you can use any type of shoe, I use specialised carbon sole.

MTB pedals should be compatable with any mtb fitting shoe.

Sounds like your looking at the road pedal whilst vorsprung is describing the mtb pedal.

Cleat Eastwood

Thats an odd thing for the shop to say.

In this instance there are only 2 types of spd cleats-single direction release and multi direction release.

I think what they are saying is that the pedals favour single direction release (that is twisting ankle), but they can also be used for multi direction release cleats (they have the option to allow the user to pull at right angles to release).

so any spd cleats should do, and they should fit any spd compatible shoe.


You can tell because some shoes have 3 holes in a triangle shape for Look/spd-sl cleats (these are considered road shoes), some have the 3 hole configuration with a long slots for spd cleats, like this:



so as long as the shoe has those slots then any spd cleats will fit.

For what its worth my first set of pedals were m520's (liek the m540's but heavier) on a road bike and they were fine.