If you raced a full cyclocross season last year, or can’t remember the last time you had both an Allen key and your cycling shoes in your hands at the same time, it’s probably a great time to look into replacing your clipless pedal cleats.
Your two-bolt mountain bike cleats probably took a beating with all the dismounts, remounts and run-ups, and because they’re so critical to a confident and secure cycling experience, cyclocross racing or not, new cleats represent the best $20 or so spent in bike maintenance.
Worn cleats can lead to unintentional unclipping, whether it’s while sprinting against your buddies, or using body English to clear or hop an obstacle. Both can be ego blows at best, and result in crashes at worst.
But what if you can't easily remove the cleats of your shoes?
The Perfect Springtime Project
A few years ago, we wrote briefly about this topic, offering tips on replacing stubborn stuck cleats before the spring cycling season was fully underway. Why spring? Spring is the perfect time to replace the cleats on all your two-bolt shoes. Your cleats have probably not only been beat to hell from cyclocross season, but this time of year many of us often divide time between different bikes in the quiver, whether it’s a winter bike, mountain bike, commuter or cyclocross/gravel bike. Hopping from bike to bike, there’s nothing more unsettling than different pedal spring tension or release points on each bike. Swapping between shoes with new and worn cleats, or hopping on a bike that was last ridden with new cleats can be a recipe for ejection or dejection.
Also, if you live in a wintry climate and have braved winter on two wheels, there’s a good chance your cleats have received more than their daily allowance of salt, which is conducive to rust and corrosion. That’s awesome for making orange snow tracks, but bad for easy removal of the cleats.
So assuming your shoes don’t need replacing as well, grab those kicks and have a look where the sun doesn’t shine on them. Do the bolts look anything like this?
Spring is the perfect time to check, loosen and replace worn mountain bike cleats and bolts. Tips to remove stuck cleat bolts of SPD or other mountain bike pedals. © Cyclocross Magazine
Or worse yet, this?
Obviously these cleats ended their useful life eons ago, but the bolts are what we care about. Can you see the hex wrench socket? Does it resemble anything like a hexagon? This determines the complexity of the task at hand.
If the holes aren’t just filled with dirt but resemble nothing like Allen key holes, and your shoes are tattered, consider your own time vs. money value before embarking into the following four-bolt adventure.
"Can you see the hex wrench socket? Does it resemble anything like a hexagon? This determines the complexity of the task at hand."
However, despite our society’s throwaway tendencies, when there’s a will there’s a way when it comes to giving your shoes new life with new cleats. We’ve got a prioritized set up of steps to try to remove those difficult-to-remove Shimano SPD cleats (or CrankBrothers, Time, Look, Xpedo, Issi, Speedplay, etc.) in the slideshow below.
On Your Mark...
But first, a little prep work. If you’ve got a new pair of cleats ready to swap in once you’ve got the old cleats out, and are happy with your cleats’ position, grab a Sharpee and a ruler to mark your current cleat’s position. Draw a horizontal line on your sole on each side of the cleat that intersects the two bolt heads, and a vertical line that represents the center line of your cleat. This makes precise positioning of your next set of cleats easy (although there will likely be indentations on your sole that provide a decent guide).
Marking your cleat position before removing your cleats makes for precise positioning of the replacement cleats. Tips to remove stuck cleat bolts of SPD or other mountain bike pedals. © Cyclocross Magazine
Now onto the hard part: getting those bolts loosened. See our 8-step guide below. We're hoping you only need to follow a few of them.
Steps to Remove Stuck / Stripped / Rounded SPD Cleat Bolts:
Bonus Tips: An Ounce of Prevention Against a Sequel, and Free Pedals
If you’ve managed to save your shoe and female threads, clean out the threads and use a bit of grease on the bolt when installing fresh cleats. Sure, you’ve now got the steps and necessary tools down for the next time you need to replace a cleat, but we’d all rather be clipped in and riding rather than messing around with cleat bolts next time around.
No need to overdo the grease (not chain lube) on your cleat bolts, but a little every month goes a very long way. © Andrew Reimann / Cyclocross Magazine
Also, in the course of the next season of riding, periodically check not only the condition of your cleats but your bolts as well. If your cleats are in good shape but your bolts have seen better days, perhaps after some rocky mountain biking or gravel road foot-dragging, you can always replace a bolt or two before you’ve got four damaged cleat bolts and a major project on hand. Bike shops should have spare bolts, and if you ever replace a worn cleat that still has bolts in good shape, save them for this exact occasion.
If you’re a Shimano SPD fan and need new cleats, here’s two more tips:
1) Make sure to get the SH51 “single release cleats,” unless you know you prefer the multi-release SH56 cleats. The SH51 cleats offer a more secure, predictable release, but sometimes shops may just hand you a bag of cleats and hardware. Check the model engraved on the cleat.
2) Also, if you have a use for more pedals on your other bikes, it’s often a better deal to just buy entry-level pedals for nearly the same price as cleats alone. With M520 SPD pedals selling for $25 or so, it’s almost like getting free pedals with the purchase of new cleats.
Good luck and happy cleat replacing.
Christian Parker of Menlo Velo Bicycles contributed to the steps in this article.
