Did you know you can get off-road SPD cleats for 3-bolt road cycling shoes? I didn’t, but it turns out Chinese pedal brand Wellgo makes them.
I knew adaptors existed to enable you to fit 2-bolt SPD cleats to 3-bolt cycling shoes, but until recently, I didn’t realise anyone made cleats specifically for this purpose.
Priced at around £20 to £30, depending on where you shop, Wellgo's RC-8 cleats are a little pricier than standard cleats. They might save you from needing to buy a new set of shoes, though.
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It makes sense when you think about it – most road-style cycling shoes come with holes for 3-bolt cleats nowadays, but there’s a huge market out there for spin bikes (from brands such as Peloton), which often have pedals designed for 2-bolt SPD cleats.
Given this, there’s clearly also demand for adaptors to make 3-bolt cycling shoes compatible with spin bike pedals.
If you’re wondering why all of this is relevant, let me fill you in.
Last week, my colleague Warren wrote a deep dive on the subject of road pedals and the lack of innovation in that space recently.
Having just spent a week away at Bike Connection’s Spring 2025 road and gravel event, where I used a set of Shimano RX801 gravel shoes and Favero's Assioma PRO MX SPD power meter pedals for both on- and off-road riding, it begged the question, why do I bother with single-sided ‘road’ pedals at all?
Sure, they’re a little lighter, but it’s unlikely that makes any difference to my performance on the bike.
In my experience, SPD pedals also offer just as much ‘retention’ as road pedals, yet are much easier to clip into because they’re dual-sided.
Of course, one thing causing inertia to switching from 3- to 2-bolt cleats is that few of my cycling shoes will accommodate them (why all cycling shoes aren’t drilled for both kinds of cleats will forever be a mystery to me).
As noted, I could use adaptors (such as Shimano’s SM-SH41 Cleat Adapters), but their cheap plastic construction would feel out of place on high-end road shoes, such as my favourite Specialized S-Works 7 Lace.
These all-metal Wellgo cleats, on the other hand, look much slicker (although a quick read of some online reviews reveals they might not be as durable as you’d hope).
Because the cleats aren’t recessed, it appears they’d increase your shoe stack height somewhat, but perhaps that would be a worthwhile trade-off for the increased ease of use.
Will I be switching to SPD pedals for all my riding, then? Probably not – for better or worse, I’ve got too many sets of power meter pedals (a first-world problem if ever there was one), making a wholesale switch impractical.
Whether you should switch systems is another question, though – if you’re not heavily invested in expensive 3-bolt pedal systems, there doesn’t seem to be much to lose.
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