Speedplay Zero Stainless Pedal

Cornering clearance

If you live on a diet of crit racing, as my team does, then cornering clearance is all important and the Speedplay pedals have the best on the market. This is an even more pertinent factor right now, as a team-mate of mine came down mid-corner, at 25mph last night, after grinding one of his Mavic pedals with all of 300 metres to go to the line, sending those of us immediately following him scattering into the undergrowth and himself to the A&E department of the local hospital until 1-30am. Naturally I therefore really appreciate this excellent feature.

The Zero’s have superb clearance and I cannot get them to hit the deck, even when hammering it hard in a crit. All of my other pedals have ‘cornering wounds’, though I have to say none of those touches have ever resulted in my coming down either. I was once told that if you don’t touch a pedal down once in a while you are not going hard enough; Speedplay may just make that pearl of wisdom completely redundant…

Trick looking Speedplay Zero Stainless pedal fitted to crank offer fantastic cornering clearance

Entry and exit

Years of using SPD and LOOK style pedals meant that I did find entry to the Speedplay pedals quite odd – much more so than to exit. You have to come down straight on top of the pedal and not use the angled, tip first entry of Spd and LOOK. You literally just push straight down, with perhaps a bit of extra pressure to one side or the other. There were a few occasions when I ‘struggled’ briefly but I have used all sorts of pedals over the years including one sided road SPDs on a fixed wheel – fun if you miss the initial connection – so it’s all relative. Still years of the toe in first style of most pedal systems does make Speedplay very different – it’s just a case of acquiring the knack, and once mastered, Speedplay are easy to get into due to the double sided nature of the pedal.

Cleats

The other issue that people mention a lot when discussing Speedplay pedals, is that of walking in the bulbous cleats. However, its common sense really… The base of the cleats are metal, which makes them slippery. Solution: Avoid tiled floors. Take your shoes off and walk in your socks. That metal base also damages wooden floors. Solution: avoid walking across nice polished, wooden village hall floors at race meetings. The cleat contains all of the moving parts. Solution: best avoid walking in mud or similar.

Obviously to test this I did all of the above. I have a damaged wooden floor here at home to vouch that you should not walk on wooden floors and I tested out the mud issue very successfully on a long winter sportive with Mr Hopkins. Fortunately we discovered that you can get rid of most clogging by banging on the road but obviously it’s not the best thing to do regularly; just avoid mud if you can.

As for slipping, I never had any issues, even when walking across tiles. You simply adopt a slightly different, heel favouring, penguin style of walking, which reminded me of the nervousness associated with the first time I ever walked in clipless pedals some 20 odd years ago. It is honestly no big deal.

Of course the real issue here for most will be what happens if you damage the cleats from getting mud or stones trapped in them? Or for that matter what happens when they get too worn? Well, as with other cleats you have to replace them. Unlike other systems it’s a bit more of an expensive exercise but I now believe its well and truly worth it.

To prolong the life of the cleats, Speedplay use as much metal as possible. After six months of constant use I am yet to have an issue. You can get cleat covers which may be a sound investment if you are concerned about cleat life.

Some wear to the metal of the Speedplay Zero cleat from walking but certainly no evidence of cornering strikes