Road Shoes vs. MTB Shoes

Posted April 11th, 2010 by JonP
I recently realized that I didn't know the reason as to why I purchased seperate road shoes and pedals for my road bike when I could use my mtb shoes and pedals. Now I have heard of people getting hot spots when using smaller platform pedals, but what if you have a larger platform? Ultimately I would like to know if you have a high end carbon soled mtb shoe and good pedals, could you not use them on the road just as effectively as road shoes? Or do road shoes and pedals make a big difference that I have yet to notice? Thanks for feeding my curiousity, JonP
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Road riders will make fun of

On April 14th, 2010 David says:
Road riders will make fun of you and avoid you like you have a communicable disease. I ride mtb pedals also, in the winter because I have a pair of insulated boots. The only thing I have noticed is that the cleats have more movement and tend to rattle on the upstroke. This could be my imperfect circles shining through. Be warned you have to really button them down if you want to contest a sprint. Off road settings for release tensions are different.

Take this for what it's

On April 15th, 2010 ridley25 says:

Take this for what it's worth:

I ride fairly crappy MTN pedals (Shimano 535 I think) with fairly nice MTN shoes (Sidi Dragon 2) when I race road.

But my road racing consists mostly of Tuesday night crits on my CX bike with 22m slick tires.

No problems to report, but I haven't won any races either.

kevin

Last year I rode with SPD

On April 16th, 2010 djerek says:
Last year I rode with SPD pedals and mountain shoes on my road bike, but this year I made the switch to road pedals and shoes. 3 things I noticed:
1. Road pedals are a much more stable platform. My feet don't move around much at all on the pedals and it feels like there is better transfer of power.
2. With road pedals, my feet don't hurt as much on long rides.
3. The metal cleat on mountain shoes seems to suck more heat out of my feet. My feet stay warmer on winter rides with the road pedals, which have a plastic cleat.