After years of riding mountain bike shoes exclusively, I am trying road shoes and pedals to see if the increased pedal platform is more comfortable. I'm a huge fan of Sidi shoes -- i think I am on my 5th pair -- so I bought a pair of Sidi Ergo 2's for this experiment. I also got a pair of new Ultegra PD-6620's which have a very large platform. I chose them as they have a replaceable steel plate under the cleat instead of the plastic plate of the previous model.
Any cyclist will tell you that changing shoe/pedal can be pretty traumatic. Other than seat height the foot/shoe/pedal connection is the most critical thing to a comfortable fit. Since I have been using the same shoe/pedal combo for 3+ years and 20k miles, this is a significant change.
So, this morning I installed the cleats -- typically done multiple time to achieve a good fit. The shoes, which have a carbon-fiber sole come with a small piece of grip-tape to allow the cleat to attach tothe sole without slipping. First time I have ever seen that.
For the first attempt I placed the cleats as far outboard as possible to achieve the minimum "Q Factor" and placed the pedal spindle about .5 cm behind the ball of my foot. This is pretty close to where my other shoes are. After a short ride I may reposition them a bit based on how they feel.
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