Shimano SPD and Shimano SPD-SL are both clipless pedal systems, which are broadly aimed at off-road and road cyclists respectively. Although the SPD acronym – Shimano Pedalling Dynamics – originated from Shimano, it has become a generic term for similar pedals from other manufacturers, in the way that ‘Hoover’ largely usurped ‘vacuum cleaner’. There’s a look at other similar pedals later on.
Before clipless pedals, cyclists looking for the efficiency of a solid connection to their bike would usually race using flat cage-type pedals, with a springy metal toe clip on the front and a strap to fasten their foot within it. Shoes could have a slot, which located on the raised rear of the cage, and getting in and out of toeclips was a fiddly process. In the event of a crash, feet often remained stuck in the pedals.
Clipless pedals improve on this with a specific cleat bolted on to the shoe’s sole, which locates on the pedal body, and is held firmly by a sprung mechanism. Nowadays, all of the best road bike pedals are clipless, and it’s in this category that you’ll find SPD-SL pedals. Likewise, most of the best gravel bike pedals are clipless too, but more often in the SPD format, but what are the differences?
We’ve covered the pros and cons of SPD pedals in more depth, where we briefly touched on the differences between SPD and SPD-SL, but here we’ll dive deeper into that section.
Differences between SPD and SPD-SL
What are they, what do they look like, how do they attach?
Shimano Pedalling Dynamics – or SPD – pedals were introduced for off-road and leisure cycling, followed later by the road-oriented SPD-SL, where SL stands for Super Light. SPDs are still mostly used for off-road cycling, such as mountain biking, gravel cycling and cyclo-cross, but they make a lot of sense for other uses too.
Small, metal SPD cleats have a two-bolt fixing to keep them solidly attached to the shoe, whereas the larger, plastic SPD-SL cleats use a triangular three-bolt arrangement. Some shoes have both two- and three-bolt fixings on their soles, but many are designed specifically for one type or the other.
The SPD story
Although the term clipless pedal was coined by the French Look company in 1984, the first clipless pedal was invented in 1895. Cinelli manufactured a little-known clipless pedal, called the M71 in 1971, where an aluminium, and later, plastic cleat locked the shoe to a steel pedal body, with a hand-operated lever for fastening and release.
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