Lateral Play/Rock - New Speedplay aero/walkable cleats

JamesFree

I was wondering if anyone has experienced any lateral play/rocking on the new aero/walkable cleats when coming from the older style cleats?

Over the past 3-4 years I had only managed to get get the lateral/rocking on 1 very worn pair of cleats (1 1/2 years of commuting) and it was only very slight. Though I have just fitted the brand new areo/walk-able cleats for the first time and there is a load of lateral cleat play/rock on both cleats on all 3 of my bikes (pedals range from 6 months old to 3 years), yet removing these cleats and using the same shoe/baseplate I can put an old style & pair of cleats (1 year old) and there is no play at all when clipped in.

Anyone else experienced this with the new cleats or is this a dodgy pair of cleats ?

964cup

Subjectively, yes, the aero cleats "rock" more and seem somehow less well attached than old-school cleats. Doesn't seem to matter once you're riding, though.

JamesFree

Well it was when I was riding when I noticed all the lateral/rocking, it's unusable for me like that. Surely the level of play I'm getting on the aero cleat can't be normal though

Beatmaker

I haven't experienced the rocking sensation, I have however lost 2 of the plastic cleat covers now though, which is very annoying.

sungod

i've used them c. 18 months, have them fiited to two different pairs of shoes, don't find any difference in feel vs. standard zero cleats (which i have on a third pair), no play or rocking

are the cleats exactly matched to the shoe with shims? i think there's far less room for error with the aero cleats, on one pair of shoes i had to use a mix of aero/non-aero shims to get them just right

haven't lost any covers so far, in the early days i learned that any twisting/turning on the ball of the foot is a no-no, it'll stretch and/or remove the covers, since then no problem, on hols they go in/out of the supermarket, cafes etc., and even on quite rough ground to get to one cafe, the covers are slowly getting a bit worn, probably will need to replace 18-14 months with the usage i havr

27brad72

Old thread but yes I have brand new zero's with walkable cleats and they rock terribly out of the box. If you remove the cover and flip the shoe over you can see the C-spring moving around under the retainer housing as the cleat rock. I spoke to a mate with the older style cleats and he said he never experience rocking. I think this new style cleat has a design flaw. Looking closely the pressed metal retainer housing does just not secure the c-spring enough and I can move the c-clip vertically quite a bit so will never give a stable pedal platform, especially if you are prone to any pronation of the foot. The older alloy housing was just more robust and perhaps had tighter tolerances, hence why no one had a problem until the cleat was worn.

I have emailed speedplay twice to find out if this is normal but have never had a response which is disappointing. I want to love them but because of the rocking they are just sitting in their box with the SPD-SL's back on the bike.

sungod

out of the box, there's zero clearance on the spring and it certainly won't move vertically, and if correctly assembled/fitted they'll stay that way

if it were one, maybe it could be faulty/damaged, it's unlikely both would have the same issue, that leaves assembly/fitting as the cause, maybe not correctly shimmed to match to the sole, they are more sensitive to this than the standard ones

i've got these on two pairs of shoes for >2 years now (and have high pronation), they are rock solid

27brad72

sungod wrote:

out of the box, there's zero clearance on the spring and it certainly won't move vertically, and if correctly assembled/fitted they'll stay that way

if it were one, maybe it could be faulty/damaged, it's unlikely both would have the same issue, that leaves assembly/fitting as the cause, maybe not correctly shimmed to match to the sole, they are more sensitive to this than the standard ones

i've got these on two pairs of shoes for >2 years now (and have high pronation), they are rock solid

Thanks for the input. The've gone back to the shop to be checked over. Everything was setup as per the instructions, checked and double checked so we'll see what the warranty department finds. Here's a vid of what is happening

https://youtu.be/Z1lMBxskT6k

27brad72

Ended up having them checked over by speedplay and they found to be ok on the shoes they tested. Got them back and tried again but seems however that on my specialized shoes with the BG carbon soles that the base plate, although flat when installed flexes down in the middle when clipped in as there is a small gap between the shoe and base plate. I added some shim steel under the center of the base plate and now the cleat to pedal interface rock solid. Note this was the same on my S-Works, pro road and Torch 3 shoes.

bondurant

What used to result in a slight rocking for me as the old cleats aged was the plastic baseplate wearing away slightly. The metal shims are priced by a pirate but seem to have solved this issue at least in the medium term for me. I use them with the old and new style cleats and the life I'm getting out of them has noticeably increased.