Steven Hanley
About
email: sjh@svana.org
web: https://svana.org/sjh
twitter: https://twitter.com/sjhmtb
instagram: https://instagram.com/sjhmtb
Other online diaries:
Aaron Broughton,
Andrew Pollock,
Anthony Towns,
Chris Yeoh,
Martijn van Oosterhout,
Michael Davies,
Michael Still,
Tony Breeds,
Links:
Linux Weekly News,
XKCD,
Girl Genius,
Planet Linux Australia,
Bilbys,
CORC,
Canberra Weather:
forecast,
radar.
Subscribe: rss,
rss2.0,
atom
Categories:
Archive by month:
|
Tue, 09 Jan 2007
Specialized brand cleats and associated hardware are like cheese - 14:26
Specialized cleats top, new Shimano cleats below (fullsize)
|
So I know I tend to be tough on bike equipment, and shoes do not seem to stand
up to much of my use. When I
bought my new
Specialized Comp MTB Shoes in September last year I simply left the screw
plates that came with them in the shoe and used the cleats and screws that
came with them also. I now discover I probably should have simply used one of
my many spare pair of Shimano cleats as they last longer.
In the first few weeks of having the shoes I had problems keeping the cleats
tight, eventually I swapped the bolts that came with them for some Shimano
bolts, though one of them snapped off in the screw plates when I was trying to
tighten them. The last few weeks I have had my feet pull out of pedals on my
single speed, my road bike and my mountain bike (sometimes causing painful
bike meet body moments, sometimes coming close to crashing (starting a
sprint)). I was surprised at the possibility of cleats being worn out as I
have seen cleats last for more than a year, even with the sort of use I give
them.
However when I looked at the cleats the damage visible in the photo was
there. They had worn out rather badly around the bottom retention lip and that
was the cause of the problems. I have asked a few people about this since and
it was pointed out by a few of them (one of whom uses Specialized shoes and
sells them in a shop they work in) that the cleats are made of some form of
metallic butter or cheese it seems and are not recommended for use. Ahh well.
Of note also is that when I was changing the cleats over last night I noticed
the screw holes in the plate in the shoe had split in two places so I had to
throw away the Specialized screw plate and use a Shimano plate I had sitting
in the shed.
|
[/mtb/gear]
link
|