ATB Pedals vs. SPD Pedals

i THINK atb pedals are either mountain bike or platform pedals. I did a quick search and those are the type of pedals the majority of the links led to. If you have a road / tri bike dont get mountain bike pedals. Platform pedals are what you already have.

Some good road / tri pedals are:

LOOK KEO
Speedplay X1 / X2 / X3
Time RXS

Those are the big 3 IMO. Each brand has different models from 100-300 dollars. My suggestion would be a pair of Look KEO Classics. They retail for about 70.00 and they offer the least amount of spring tension to clip into and out of. The good point of having a low amount of tension, is if you have never ridden clipless pedals before, youre going to fall because youre not use to unclipping. The tension is also adjustable so as you get use to the pedals you can tighten it up. The Looks also come with 3 different mounts. Each mount offers a different range of float (lateral movement). With the Looks, you just simply screw the cleat with the amount of float you want onto your shoe. With Speedplays you have to shim the cleat which can be kind of a headache. Also another feature of the Looks is the shaft the connects the pedal to the crank arm is only about 1cm long vs. 4cm with the Speedplays.

Ive never ridden any Time pedals but I believe they are very similar to the Looks.

I'm not sure what you mean by ATB pedals...i think that's a generic term for mountain bike pedals. SPD pedals are a specific clipless cleat/pedal design that can work on either road or mountain bikes. The pedals actually come with an option that has both a platform and the SPD system in one...it's not great for pedaling without the shoes with cleats, but gives a bigger platform overall, and in a pinch, you can ride your bike in sneakers.

Most people prefer non SPD pedals on their road bikes, but so far they are working just fine for me. I have one pair of bike shoes, and both bikes (road & mountain) have SPD pedals on them, the mountain bike has the platform style SPD pedals.

If I were to upgrade and probably will within the next year, I'd probably go with speedplays on my road bike with a carbon soled road bike shoe.

 I like speedplays, personally. Easy to use, easy to lube (supposedly, I haven't had to do it yet), and you can enter from both sides, which you can't do with Looks.  The pedal itself is small but the cleat is large so you still get the effect of a larger platform.

Edited by CindyK 2006-09-04 1:01 PM

This user's post has been ignored.