Hi All!
Oh...my! I have opened Pandora's Box, whose lid I kept firmly squashed for so many years by remaining a Cycling Anachronism.
35 years ago, I found shoes that pretty well kinda-sorta fit my weirdly skinny feet (with insoles and orthotics and wedges atop that) and they had super-stiff nylon soles encapsulating a steel plate and replaceable cleats. I walked like a duck off the bike, but soared like an eagle on it. I bought extra pairs and put away when I could and have been using them ever since.
Life was good.
Those same shoes fit my very nice road-quill pedals at the time, but I found even better pedals in my 250g SunTour Superbe Pros...pedals so nice, I bought *7* pairs of them for my bikes and rode them collectively well over 150,000mi/241,000km entirely maintenance-free. A couple pairs have over 32,000mi/51,500km on them and are still smooth as new though they've been subjected to every element except outright submersion. Never had to even think about them, except their unique cage spacing meant I had to reset my cleats or use another pair of shoes when switching to different pedals on my remaining bikes.
Life was great!
Then...! Detto stopped making the shoes and the nylon Pavarin cleats are no longer available, even as old stock. I still have *three* unused spare pairs of of Detto shoes/cleats left and 10 or so other bikes that require cleats-on-quill pedals. All of those bikes, I'm likely to use the Dettos to just ride. The Nomad, I'm likely to ride and walk or push to a degree -- enough to quickly wear-out my cleats and that essentially means the shoes as well. I can't afford to swap the whole fleet of bikes over to clipless pedals, so if I do just the Nomad, the rest can continue to live in a Bicyclist's Brigadoon where it is still 35 years ago...and they can likely do so for the next decade or two if I use care. I also have laid-in a supply of toe clips and straps.
Now I'm coming into the future all at once and Life doesn't seem as Good in some ways.
I have to admit to future-shock on several fronts here myself (says Rip van Dan, coming up for air):
• These new SPD-compatible shoes and (some sort of) clipless-cleat pedals sure make for a lot of rotating mass and a heavy system.
• It appears I'm unlikely to get the sort of pedal bearing life I've come to take for granted with my SunTour Superbe Pros.
• It appears it is going to be hard to get a good fit, so I will need to build-into the shoe; that is expected, but I have to get something fairly close.
• It occurs to me I could go with a "racing" clipless system and pretty much duplicate what I have with the Dettos/clips, leaving the old shoes for the old pedals on the other bikes. The "racing-roadie" shoes fit much better than the MTB shoes, but I can't walk in them. I suspect they are more frangible in walking than even my old nylon-soled Dettos.
• Walkability -- however limited -- seems worthwhile with the Nomad for its intended purpose and use. If I can get off and occasionally push the bike, clump into a little store without falling down or marring their floors, use a primitive restroom or put up the tent, then that's pretty nifty. I got away with the Dettos when touring with my other bikes, but the loads were less and the margins were greater. I'll simply need to walk more often with the Nomad in the kind of use it will get.
• The Shimano MT43 shoes Jim (Relayer) linked to pretty much exactly fit my mental image of what I'm after if they're stiff enough. They also come in black, the roadie-traditional "proper" color for cycling shoes -- yay! They tick all the boxes for me, and even combine laces with Velcro, something I haven't seen before. In trying on shoes yesterday, I tried several from Pearl Izumi that looked like trainers adapted for cycling use. The walked the best of all the shoes, but looked as if they would offer the least pedal stiffness/isolation, which would be a Bad Thing for me. I'd much rather go as stiff as possible on the pedal for the greatest isolation from hot-spots and nerve pain.
• I've given a lot of thought to the matter of dual-use pedals (platform on one side, clipless on the other), and have concluded for most of my remote-country touring I'm unlikely to ride the bike in anything but bike shoes (having busted the fat sacs in my feet riding too much in unsupportive trainers early on). So, bike ride = helmet + bike shoes for me. My current pedals (and the little nub or "quill" at the outside of the cage, so named 'cos it resembled a writer's nib) limit me to cycling shoes only; trainers or casual shoes are uncomfortable on the cages and the wider shoe soles overhang the cages and the quill hurts under foot. If I rode into town from camp to restaurant, I'd likely use the bike shoes and carry another pair of shoes and switch once I arrived. I sometimes carry a small pocket-foldable backpack or fanny pack for such things.
• The main purpose for me to consider a dual-use pedal would be to grab any pedal surface on rough, steep startups to get the pedals spinning till I could click-in. I sometimes pedal on the back of my quill pedals for a stroke or two till I can enter the clips/straps. On the other hand, if a dual-sided pedal would allow me to click-in right away, then I'd much prefer that so I could get going at full speed soonest.
• I think I'd like a pedal wider than the "SPD-only" perch so I could avoid hot-spots and get a little more surface area underfoot. The SPD's with either a formed metal pontoon or a plastic "horse collar" around the SPD latch would seem to fill the bill in that regard. It looks like Pete's Time ATAC pedals would, too, and they come in both narrowish and horse-collared versions as well.
• Never having ridden clipless pedals, I'm concerned I'll trash my knees. My Detto cleats had "no" float, but have worn over time to where there's about 4°, which should mean I can use anything and still be fine.
• I'm a bit disturbed many of the better pedals lack wrench flats. I rarely remove my pedals except when flying with a bike, and my non-separable Nomad came with a 15mm pedal wrench at the end of the eccentric wrench as well as an 8mm box wrench for the EX shifter. My multi-tool has a slim 15mm wrench that is unlikely to reach proper tightening torque for pedals even if combined with the 6mm allen key in the other half. I do have a little 6mm->8mm adapter sleeve like Julian's (from my CoolTool kit) that I could use to tighten or loosen an 8mm pedal. It would be a nuisance, but the only reason for me to carry it in most cases would be to either remove the pedal for air travel, for service, or to tighten the pedal if it became loose. An inconvenience to carry another tool, sure, but not a stopper for me if the 8mm socket meant I also got better bearings. I need to look more closely at those Time ATACs.
- - - -
Thanks to everyone's contributions, I feel my needs are coming into focus and I can better seek a solution that will work for me. Not really sure what that will be yet, but I'm much closer. Next task is to find a shoe that can be made to fit.
All the best,
Dan.
