shimano pedals and cleats

[Alan M]

I am looking to buy some winter shoes/boots and upgrade winter bike pedals from Time SPDs to Shimano ultegra road bike type. The cleats recommended are SPD SL cleats which look similar to my existing cleats for my Shimano Duraace PD7800 pedals on my other bike, but are red instead of yellow tipped, so does this signify a different fit? It would be my aim for shoes and cleats to fit interchangeably between pedals on both bikes. Also. cleats are described and 'floating' or 'fixed' - what is the difference and which is best? Also, is it necessary to buy in addition, metal shoe plates?

[Andrew G]

Can't help on the colours etc, but you are almost certainly after floating cleats. With Look for example (delta) the red cleats are floating and black are fixed - the colour difference may relate to the same sort of thing. Floating means you have a bit of lateral play and foot wiggleability - sorry not very technical. Very few people can get along with fixed cleats as this will lock your foot in position on the pedal without any play. This means that climbing, soft tapping, rolling, TT-ing, whatever your foot is fixed to the pedal in the same place. Apart from not having the comfort factor of a bit of play it is also uber-critical to have the position of the cleat perfect or you can destroy your knees very quickly.

Metal shoe plates are for tap dancing aren't they?

[MattI]

yellow are floating cleats,
red are fixed.

[Marky Mark]

[quote="Ramanujan"]yellow are floating cleats,
red are fixed.