Giggle if you must: spd drilled slot cleats?

the rub: I spent about the first ten years of my cycling life in
traditional cleat, clips, and straps. First with a set of MKS quills and
some steel shanked Bata brand cleats (cheap, heavy, and comfortable), then
with some '91 105 platforms and gorgeous chrome calfskin Diadora lace-ups.
Then I fell out of road riding and became a city cyclist, rode just as
much, but adapted all my bikes to fit my favourite footwa Blundstone
boots--so rat-traps and clips all around.

I worked on my bike for a short time and got some spd Lake cyclocross
jobbers--very ****e kicking with aluminum spikes but traded those for
some wheels when that crappy job fell through and went back to my dank
urban rider ways.

Now I've been riding my lovely restored Viscount for close to a year (1978
version with new wheels, fork, cassette, and old 600 grouppo) and just
love it. But I'm sick of using sneakers, cool black ones of course, with
the MKS's and clips.

I never had any problems with traditional cleats and honestly preferred
them to spd--I never tightened the straps because of my scrape-the-mud-off
pedaling style so I really liked being able to simply pull up and get out.
Simple and predictable. Never any knee issues either.

Sorry for the back story, but I thought it might save some unnecessary
responses

So, although I wish I could get my Diadora's back, I can't, and have been
unlucky at ebay, so it's time to just get a modern pair of shoes--BUT--how
hard would it be to find traditional slotted cleats that fit a modern
drilling? Impossible from what the web tells me...they are a simple object
though...perhaps carve a pair myself? I'm only somewhat joking ;D

Any thoughts?

If you do an eBay search for "vintage cycling shoes" it returns 23 matches.
Lots of Detto Pietros and New Balances. Rivendell Bicycle Works gets them in
occasionally, too.

On 24 Jun 2004 15:08:33 -0800, Benjamin Weiner
wrote:

maxo wrote:

So, although I wish I could get my Diadora's back, I can't, and have been
unlucky at ebay, so it's time to just get a modern pair of shoes--BUT--how
hard would it be to find traditional slotted cleats that fit a modern
drilling? Impossible from what the web tells me...they are a simple object
though...perhaps carve a pair myself? I'm only somewhat joking ;D

SPD holes are under the ball of the foot while the slot in
cleats is behind the ball, at the rear edge of the pedal.
So SPD drilling might not support slotted cleats well.
OTOH, Look drilling might. See for example

weren't Look cleats originally designed to be nailed onto
old-fashioned cycling shoes?

-Luigi


http://www.yellowjersey.org/cleats.html
http://www.yellowjersey.org/tocleat.html

maxo wrote:

So, although I wish I could get my Diadora's back, I can't, and have been
unlucky at ebay, so it's time to just get a modern pair of shoes--BUT--how
hard would it be to find traditional slotted cleats that fit a modern
drilling? Impossible from what the web tells me...they are a simple object
though...perhaps carve a pair myself? I'm only somewhat joking ;D

SPD holes are under the ball of the foot while the slot in
cleats is behind the ball, at the rear edge of the pedal.
So SPD drilling might not support slotted cleats well.
OTOH, Look drilling might. See for example

http://www.yellowjersey.org/cleats.html
http://www.yellowjersey.org/tocleat.html

On Thu, 24 Jun 2004 15:08:33 -0800, Benjamin Weiner wrote:


SPD holes are under the ball of the foot while the slot in
cleats is behind the ball, at the rear edge of the pedal.
So SPD drilling might not support slotted cleats well.
OTOH, Look drilling might. See for example

http://www.yellowjersey.org/cleats.html
http://www.yellowjersey.org/tocleat.html

Nice lead!!! I'll check them out and see if they have any with the Look
drilling--now that I think about it, you're totally on about the drilling.
All the shoes I owned in the past had two holes a couple cm further back
than the spd drilling.

I did bite the bullet and order a cheap set of spd pedals and shoes from
Nashbar today to tide me over, till I find something more cool and
vintage. I got some blue atb pedals and the house brand road shoes (first
thing I'll do is textile paint the tacky silver bits black) for 53USD plus
shipping. It was need combined with morbid curiosity--will something that
cheap be so horrible as to be useless? You never know. My Bata road shoes
from the early eighties were super comfy and cost less than 20bucks!

Anyone remember the "bata bikers" casual cycling shoes?

Luigi de Guzman wrote:

http://www.yellowjersey.org/cleats.html
http://www.yellowjersey.org/tocleat.html

weren't Look cleats originally designed to be nailed onto
old-fashioned cycling shoes?

Well, that is really before my time, but I doubt it.
Looks are designed to be bolted on. By the time they were
introduced, slotted cleats that bolted on were common, often
through one or two holes ahead and behind of the slot.
Like these:

http://www.yellowjersey.org/oldcleat.jpg

My first gen Sidi Dominator MTB shoes have additional holes
to accept some of these cleats, as well as SPDs.

Nail-on cleats are a different animal, you can see some
attached to a pair of Dettos in the fourth picture at
http://www.yellowjersey.org/tocleat.html

maxo wrote:

the rub: I spent about the first ten years of my cycling life in
traditional cleat, clips, and straps. First with a set of MKS quills and
some steel shanked Bata brand cleats (cheap, heavy, and comfortable), then
with some '91 105 platforms and gorgeous chrome calfskin Diadora lace-ups.
Then I fell out of road riding and became a city cyclist, rode just as
much, but adapted all my bikes to fit my favourite footwa Blundstone
boots--so rat-traps and clips all around.

I worked on my bike for a short time and got some spd Lake cyclocross
jobbers--very ****e kicking with aluminum spikes but traded those for
some wheels when that crappy job fell through and went back to my dank
urban rider ways.

Now I've been riding my lovely restored Viscount for close to a year (1978
version with new wheels, fork, cassette, and old 600 grouppo) and just
love it. But I'm sick of using sneakers, cool black ones of course, with
the MKS's and clips.

I never had any problems with traditional cleats and honestly preferred
them to spd--I never tightened the straps because of my scrape-the-mud-off
pedaling style so I really liked being able to simply pull up and get out.
Simple and predictable. Never any knee issues either.

Sorry for the back story, but I thought it might save some unnecessary
responses

So, although I wish I could get my Diadora's back, I can't, and have been
unlucky at ebay, so it's time to just get a modern pair of shoes--BUT--how
hard would it be to find traditional slotted cleats that fit a modern
drilling? Impossible from what the web tells me...they are a simple object
though...perhaps carve a pair myself? I'm only somewhat joking ;D

Any thoughts?


Cycle Art has a .pdf download of old stuff they're selling. It includes
some Detto Pietro shoes and several types of slotted cleats. I don't
know how well nail-on cleats would work with modern shoes though.

http://www.cyclart.com/pdf/Sale%20Report.pdf (scroll to page 39)

--
My bike blog:
http://diabloscott.blogspot.com/

On Fri, 25 Jun 2004 23:17:01 +0000, Diablo Scott wrote:

I don't
know how well nail-on cleats would work with modern shoes though.

LOL, not well at all.

the other reply had a link to the holy grail: a Look drilled slot cleat
made by a bike shop in Madison Wisconsin.

check it out:

http://www.yellowjersey.org/tocleat.html

I'll have a look at the pdf too, thanks for the help!