These are Dura Ace pedals. One is from my road bike and it looks normal, but the other is from my gravel bike and is almost worn all the way through. I’ve never seen the front of a pedal body wear like this. I’m only showing the right pedal in the picture, but the left pedal is worn almost equally. With the right pedal, the wear got bad enough where the cleat wasn’t staying in if I pulled up at all during the 12:00ish spot of the pedal stroke.
Before these, I’ve always used 105 pedals and i’ve never seen wear like this on gravel or road, but maybe it’s because the bearings wear too quickly for me to wear the body out.
If this isn’t “normal” does anyone have ideas of what could have caused this? I had some cleats that could possibly have been fake shimano cleats. I wonder if that could be part of it, or if it’s just due to riding in some bad conditions.
I have experienced some cleat squeaks up until i noticed all this wear. I’d usually just lube the pedal and cleat and the squeak would go away for a bit. Maybe the squeaking was actually the pedal breaking down, or maybe the lube made the problem worse.
I already bought some replacement pedals and i’d like to prevent wearing down the new pedals like i did these.
“Normal” as in common, yes. Still not great, and yup… those are/were toast. Definitely time to replace.
This is often a sign that something is up with your cleat placement, and that you may want to look at your stance width and the angle of your foot/shoe/cleat as it hits the pedal. Wear to the outside of the toe bail like that typically means that your heel is driving towards a more medial position as you ride.
Ive had 3-4 sets of dura ace pedals last me less than a year (foot would move around in the pedal and would become very difficult to unclip). Shimano warrantied one set for me. I’ve never been able to figure out what the issue was. Ended up switching to speedplay. Hopefully you can find out what the issue is.
Ive had 3-4 sets of dura ace pedals last me less than a year (foot would move around in the pedal and would become very difficult to unclip). Shimano warrantied one set for me. I’ve never been able to figure out what the issue was.
I have this issue with one set of blue cleats. I always just assumed maybe I got a fake pair by accident. I bought them from a small LBS, and figured maybe the LBS got them on amazon because they weren’t in stock direct from Shimano. The problem of not being able to unclip solved itself when i switched back to my old cleats.
I got my first set of blue cleats a year or two ago and I prefer them. I had them on both pairs of my shoes for a while. Then I had the unclipping issue and put some yellows on one set of shoes because that was all I had.
The primary reason I went with DA pedals again was that it was the easiest way for me to get a genuine set of blue cleats.
That’s interesting, and good to know. I guess the last few months I did use yellows the majority of the time, because those are the shoes I typically train in.
The blues are on my shoes I typically race in, so I have less miles in those over the last few thousand miles.
These pedal bodies are carbon, correct? Because l believe all or most 105 pedal bodies (depending on the generation) are aluminum.
Carbon composite is soft compared to aluminum alloy. Add in the pumice, sand, and tiny stones from gravel riding, and it seems unsurprising that an area with constant cleat movement would wear fast.
Dumb question, but why not use an SPD pedal set up for gravel?
With that wear pattern either you’re trying to push your toe out, or you’re trying to pull your heel in… same action but different mechanisms behind them, and I’d want to get that figured out. Can be as simple as you need a wider stance width or a wedge to bring the pedals to where your feet want to be, or as complicated as something in the kinetic chain that’s eventually manifesting as m/l motion of your foot while pedaling.
With that wear pattern either you’re trying to push your toe out, or you’re trying to pull your heel in… same action but different mechanisms behind them, and I’d want to get that figured out. Can be as simple as you need a wider stance width or a wedge to bring the pedals to where your feet want to be, or as complicated as something in the kinetic chain that’s eventually manifesting as m/l motion of your foot while pedaling.
Thanks. I’ll process this a bit and do some experimenting. You’ve been a big help today. Thank you.
