On Wednesday, September 16, 2020 at 3:33:03 PM UTC-7, Tom Kunich wrote:
Has anyone used both of these pedals? I have a set of Keo Blades and I was going to install them in place of "Tour de Franc" Keo pedals and much to my surprise and the knowledge of a scale, they weight exactly the same. The Tour de France might have been a couple of grams lighter! And they have a far better release mechanism.

But when I got a set of used but unused Bontrager shoes, they had the SpD cleats on them and they are all hell and gone better to walk in. You don't need to be fumbling around with cleat covers. DuraAce SpD's are expensive as hell but if I didn't have to carry cleat covers around in my back pockets it might be worth it. How do the SpD's compare to the Keos?

O.K., this is not a put down, but don't you have any SPD pedals? I know you have/had a CX bike.

SPDs are the world's greatest dope pedals. Double-sided, so no pedal flipping. You basically just step down and click in. Very easy to get out of and a good reason for using them riding CX or MTB -- if you stall, its easy to panic exit. No skill necessary. I gravel ride and commute in SPDs.

The big difference for me is the shoe and the small platform for pressure distribution. I have some pretty nice lugged-sole SIDI MTB shoes, but they're not as svelte or stiff or good-fitting as my racing shoes, but still stiff enough where I don't think I'm getting pressure spots because of the small size of the SPD platform, but I can feel the smaller platform area. Its more of a feel thing than a problem of any kind. At least theoretically, SPDs give you less support than a Keo Max, which is what I use. For me, the biggest difference is the shoe.

-- Jay Beattie.