My GF rides Shimano pedals. Boy does Shimano have a lot of different cleats. I would like to get her set up to use one single style of cleat for mountain and road use so she can put on any old pair of shoes she wants. Currently she has SH51 mountain cleats for her 959 pedals. These seem to be "fixed" (no rotation) and "single release" (WTF does that mean?). We have her cleat set up perfectly so no knee pain and she likes them fine. I don't think it would be bad for her to have some float though. We also have some SH71 road cleats with the pontoons for some road shoes for her. These offer float. No miles on these yet. The ones with float have a much smaller release stub so they would seem to wear out a lot faster, yes?

What do the numbers mean? I would have thought that a nuber ending in zero like "SHx0" would mean fixed and one ending in one like "SHx1" would mean float, but that would be too easy. What's the freaking deal here? Anyone have a chart or website which spells this out?

This may help you out a little:
http://bike.shimano.com/catalog/cyc...der_id=2534374302040278&ASSORTMENT<>ast_id=1408474395181419&bmUID=1133673357793

Shimano's website has a list of their cleats and what each one is intended to do although it does not explain the float. I'll keep digging.

 

Thanks. I already looked at those pages but they were what drove me to the point of asking here .

 

From cycleexpressco.uk's site for the 959:
"The SH-55 cleats are multi-release, which means you can clip out either to the outside or the inside of the pedal"

 

Interesting, but she has the SH51 cleats and they are symmetrical and it does not matter which shoe they go on, so they also release in both directions equally, it seems. The pedal engagement is also symmetrical. The 55's are described elsewhere as having " These cleats release in both lateral twist mode and diagonal upward mode."

 

sounds like you should run the 51's on all her shoes and set the road bike up with mtb pedals or maybe these?

 

Interesting, but she has the SH51 cleats and they are symmetrical and it does not matter which shoe they go on, so they also release in both directions equally, it seems. The pedal engagement is also symmetrical. The 55's are described elsewhere as having " These cleats release in both lateral twist mode and diagonal upward mode."

I had a pair of early Shimanos and I think the explanation was more about multiple directions of entry/exit also, not just sideways, but I'm not sure and thought maybe they modified the definition after all these years.

 

My GF rides Shimano pedals. Boy does Shimano have a lot of different cleats. I would like to get her set up to use one single style of cleat for mountain and road use so she can put on any old pair of shoes she wants. Currently she has SH51 mountain cleats for her 959 pedals. These seem to offer some rotation and are "single release" (WTF does that mean?). We have her cleat set up perfectly so no knee pain and she likes them fine. When I snap these into some road pedals they offer no float. I don't think it would be bad for her to have some float though. We also have some SH71 road cleats with the pontoons for some road shoes for her. These offer float with road pedals but release VERY easily in her 959 pedals. No miles on these yet. The ones with float have a much smaller release stub so they would seem to wear out a lot faster, yes?

What do the numbers mean? I would have thought that a nuber ending in zero like "SHx0" would mean fixed and one ending in one like "SHx1" would mean float, but that would be too easy. What's the freaking deal here? Anyone have a chart or website which spells this out?

SH51's are single release which means they will only release with a sideways twisting motion, pretty standard clipless pedal setup. SH71's are the road version of the 51 the only difference is the pontoons. tthe variations in float and release may be from different shoe to pedal interfaces. I'll bet the MTB sole of the SH51 setup is rubbing the road pedal body and making float and release difficult and the opposite is true of the road shoe setup. SH55's are multi-release which means that theoreticall they'll release from sideways as well as upward pressure, this is usually reserved for beginners. 55's are usually a shiny steel color while 51's are black.

 

Fwiw

I really like SPD for the simplicity, and I ride em on all my bikes, on and aff road. The old road pedals were the same cleat, ane just a one-sided design.

I use 51 cleats on my shoes if I have to buy shimano. They offer some float adn do not release straight up like the 55. I think there are three models of uni-directional cleats offering a variety of float options. (leave it to Shimano, right?)

I prefer the winwood stainless cleats. They last WAAAYYYY longer, and I think the harder steel tends to make them work smoother. I have some on my regular day to day shoes and so far they have lasted longer than the shoes. Going on three years now, and when I had the soles re-glued, I used some Shimano 51's,

 

The multi-release thing is starting to make some sense: avoid those. The pedals that Airwreck posted would make some sense for her if she were wearing her mountain shoes on the road since they offer the same interface as the 959s, but all that platform would not make sense with road shoes. I think some of the behavior differences (ease of release, lack or presence of float) is due to shape of the retention jaws and the little guide plates on the pedal bodies. It's just hard to anticipate which cleat will behave which way if you are not snapping them into Shimano pedals.

 

I use 55's

Tscheez,

Don't be so quick to eliminate the 55's as a cleat choice for the GF (Barney, right?). My wife and I both use the sh-55 cleats. My wife uses them with her cheap wellgo mountain pedals, and I use them with my shimano 424 pedals (with the resin platform) for all-mountain use.

For an SPD pedal, I prefer the 55 cleats. They are, as most have explained, "multi-release". In my opinion, they hold quite well. They release both to the side and straight up, which I like for emergency bail outs. You might think that an upward realease would ruin a circular pedal stroke, but I haven't found that to be the case. I have to intentionally pull my foot from the pedal on a upstroke.

Good luck!
-Mike

 

tscheezy, what pedals is she using on the road? Jewels is into all shoe all pedal compatability so she uses the 515 single sided road pedal, and has the 51's on her road and mtb shoes. With the pedal pictured I believe the platform is primarily to ease entry into the pedal, although I haven't seen them in real life so I can't comment on the whether the platform provides any kind of support. A bit lighter than the 959 also.

 

From cycleexpressco.uk's site for the 959:
"The SH-55 cleats are multi-release, which means you can clip out either to the outside or the inside of the pedal"

Actually the multi-release cleats don't just release with a sideways motion to the left or right, but can be angled to release too, pulling upwards. If you know the trick. Basically they're better for crash bailouts.

They do not work with many wellgo pedal mechanisms though at ALL. Either releasing too easily, or not engaging at all in the first place.

Victor pedals they work with fine though. And shimano 858s they're not terribly good with, hell, MANY shimano pedals made since the original 737s and 525s they don't work so well with. Shimano pedals originally weren't designed with float for the cleats, and the newer ones where they have it, the -55 cleats aren't usually as compatible with. It has to do with how the topside of the cleats are profiled. Hold a 51 next to a 55 and you'll see what I mean.

 

My wife moved to clipless pedals last year for mtn. biking last season, and Shimano pedals were used. The entry-level (can't remember the model # exactly but it was something like 520/540...) pedals came with single release cleats (SH51). These are hard for first-timers, so I switched them to multi release cleats (SH 55). These are much easier to use and improved the clipless learning experience significantly.

-Adam

From cycleexpressco.uk's site for the 959:
"The SH-55 cleats are multi-release, which means you can clip out either to the outside or the inside of the pedal"

 

Multi release are for beginners? I'm running them happily and have been riding mtn bikes since about 86'.......someone really should have told me

 

55 knockers - please explain

It puzzles me that people advise against the 55's. You can release sideways, diagonally upwards, and upwards. I have been riding them for 10 years, and struggle to understand why anyone wants LESS release angles available to them in an emergency bail out situation. As long as your spring tension is correct, and your cleats are not totally worn out, you are not going to accidentally come unattached left and right. I can't remember ever getting stuck in my pedals during a crash, and furthermore, they've saved my ass by allowing me to literally jump straight up and over my bars in a couple of endo situations.

Please chime in, because I'm contemplating buying the newer style multi-release shimano cleats for some newer shimano pedals that I recently got, in favor of using the stock cleats. Shimano warns that their older style cleats (used on older pedals like the 545's, 747's, 646's, etc.) are somewhat incompatible with the newer model/mechanism pedals.

 

this maybe sacraligous....

but why not use the same pedals on road and mountain bikes.

My GF rides Shimano pedals. Boy does Shimano have a lot of different cleats. I would like to get her set up to use one single style of cleat for mountain and road use so she can put on any old pair of shoes she wants. Currently she has SH51 mountain cleats for her 959 pedals. These seem to offer some rotation and are "single release" (WTF does that mean?). We have her cleat set up perfectly so no knee pain and she likes them fine. When I snap these into some road pedals they offer no float. I don't think it would be bad for her to have some float though. We also have some SH71 road cleats with the pontoons for some road shoes for her. These offer float with road pedals but release VERY easily in her 959 pedals. No miles on these yet. The ones with float have a much smaller release stub so they would seem to wear out a lot faster, yes?

What do the numbers mean? I would have thought that a nuber ending in zero like "SHx0" would mean fixed and one ending in one like "SHx1" would mean float, but that would be too easy. What's the freaking deal here? Anyone have a chart or website which spells this out?

 

Multi release are for beginners? I'm running them happily and have been riding mtn bikes since about 86'.......someone really should have told me

Neat trick since SPD's didn't exist in 86'

 

Uummm.......I'd suggest that you re read my post.

 

It puzzles me that people advise against the 55's. You can release sideways, diagonally upwards, and upwards. I have been riding them for 10 years, and struggle to understand why anyone wants LESS release angles available to them in an emergency bail out situation. As long as your spring tension is correct, and your cleats are not totally worn out, you are not going to accidentally come unattached left and right. I can't remember ever getting stuck in my pedals during a crash, and furthermore, they've saved my ass by allowing me to literally jump straight up and over my bars in a couple of endo situations.

Please chime in, because I'm contemplating buying the newer style multi-release shimano cleats for some newer shimano pedals that I recently got, in favor of using the stock cleats. Shimano warns that their older style cleats (used on older pedals like the 545's, 747's, 646's, etc.) are somewhat incompatible with the newer model/mechanism pedals.

Its precisely because they release by pulling up that they are not recommended beyond beginning. I actually don't even like to recommend them to beginers because it gets them in the bad habbit of not learning to release correctly. Once you get used to the standard sideway release you don't really need to be able to release any other way.

One of the very advantages of clipless is being able to power through the dead zone of the stroke by pulling hard up. I've been in plently situations were I need to unweigh one pedal to stay up or keep rolling and the only way to keep the power is by giving the other pedal a good hard yank up as if I were riding with only one leg until I can get the footing or balance on the other side. That would be very difficult to accomplish with a cleat that releases by pulling up.

 

I must say I have never had that problem. Maybe I'm lucky...or maybe they are tensioned properly.

 

I must say I have never had that problem. Maybe I'm lucky...or maybe they are tensioned properly.

Or maybe you don't use the pedals the way he does. Having a pedal release while pulling up would negate every reason I run clipless. Might as well run flats.

 

Its precisely because they release by pulling up that they are not recommended beyond beginning. I actually don't even like to recommend them to beginers because it gets them in the bad habbit of not learning to release correctly.

I learned with the multi-release, but I had no problem when I switched to single release...no bad habits. It's still easiest to clip out of the multis with the conventional twist that you'd use with single release. The main advantage with the multis is in panic situations, where a beginner would otherwise just fall over before getting unclipped.

Anyway, that's how it was for me. My friends seemed amazed at how remarkably few cuts, scrapes, and bruises I got when I started using clipless, and I have the multis to thanks for that. After a few months, I started clipping out unintentionally, so I switched to single release, and the transition was pretty easy (it took about 1 ride to get used it, if that).

 

Fair enough, but not really convinced yet....

Its precisely because they release by pulling up that they are not recommended beyond beginning. I actually don't even like to recommend them to beginers because it gets them in the bad habbit of not learning to release correctly. Once you get used to the standard sideway release you don't really need to be able to release any other way.

One of the very advantages of clipless is being able to power through the dead zone of the stroke by pulling hard up. I've been in plently situations were I need to unweigh one pedal to stay up or keep rolling and the only way to keep the power is by giving the other pedal a good hard yank up as if I were riding with only one leg until I can get the footing or balance on the other side. That would be very difficult to accomplish with a cleat that releases by pulling up.

To each his own I suppose. I understand why this is useful to you, but I respectfully disagree that a window of tension can't be found to avoid unintended clipouts in situations where you might want to pull upwards with force. It may be that I run a higher cleat tension than you would feel comfortable with, or simply know the multi so intimately at this point that I know just how to finesse the angles when it comes to upward tension. I can bunny hop hardtails and fullies without coming loose, as well as do small drops. One of the pedals has on rare occasion released on me in the air when the tension was too low. I make sure to maintain (my) optimal window of tension to avoid the one pedal landing. An interesting possibility is that the multiple release angles might allow me to more confidently run a higher release tension than I would feel safe doing with single release.

I also ride flats about 50% of the time nowadays, and on the same trails, so I may tend to use pedals somewhat differently. Being pedal schizo, I'm probably not milking everything out of the attachment that I once relied on it for. Some very efficient clip-specific techniques might not even occur to me now, that once would have. I've forced myself to learn body-english ways to approach various technical things. Some admittedly may not be as efficient, others moreso. But I digress...

For the record, I don't favor clipless or flats, but each has its advantage in certain situations. I now prefer clipless with a platform around it over the xc racer style that I spent years on though. YMMV