Wishlist: Speedplay Pedals

So I've taken a little bit of a hiatus from this blog, been a little bit busy, little bit tired that and I somewhat forgot to write the saturday post.  But today is the return of posting and the monday wishlist post of stuff I'd love to get if money were no object, but unfortunately it is and therefore I'm only going to be wishing that I had all these cool gadgets and toys.

Today's post is about something that probably doesn't get all that much thought, I mean I didn't give my pedals a whole lot of thought when I got mine.  Find a pair of pedals, if they work, don't spend too much money on them because it can be better spent elsewhere.  So I got a pair of plain old Shimano 105 pedals, I even got them cheaper because Bow Cycle kindly price matched them for me.  It was also before I got my bike that I started following my first team (Cervelo Test Team) and they used these pedals that looked kinda weird.

I mean usually your cleat is relatively small, while the pedal itself is relatively big.  Speedplay reverses this and makes a few claims about it.  They say that it's light, and yes the pedal/cleat system is quite light.  There is a a ton of ground clearance because the pedal is so small, it easily clears the ground.  The contact from the cleat to the pedal is also huge because now you've got that entire platform for your foot from the cleats. 

Other little things is that it's dual sided entry which makes them an absolute joy of just literally being able to mash your foot down and you'll lock in.  Second thing is these pedals don't employ the use of a spring loaded jaw mechanism, but rather is a true locking mechanism.  They say that it's easier to get in/out of and better for your need.  A lot of people that I've talked to say otherwise, but hey that's their marketing department trying to make a sell on you. 

The other thing is because of how speedplays are built, there is a TON of customisation and I mean a ton.  Like a dealer fit kit has different size spindles, float, cleat adjustment, shims, everything that you could ever want/need.  And they're also highly rebuildable, like you can literally rebuild an entire speedplay unless you've snapped the spindle off.

Both my brother and I have scratched the hell out of our pedals from various encounters with the pavement and this probably could've been prevented with fancy schmancy pedals.  The other thing is you can get various materials for what the pedal spindle is made out of and that allows you to have a pretty fluid sliding scale for prices which is sweet.

Last of all, last year Garmin bought Metrigear and there looks like there might be a speedplay pedal that can do power measurement too.  That my friends would be AWESOME

~Cheers