LOOK Cycle – Bicycle Pedals KEO 2 MAX XXX – Large Contact Surface 500 mm² – Total Power Transfer – Ultra-Light Pedals, XXXX Body – Adjustable Tension

Product Information

Cleat entry is fairly straight forward and intuitive as long as you have your foot hitting it near the right angle. Once you’re accustomed to it, it’s pretty easy since the tail of the pedal tends to drop down when you clip out. If you’re a fan of this style pedal, me thinks you’ll like it, too. I found a fairly new set of KEO 2 MAX on craigslist so tonight, I will take a look at them. After this Craiglist set wears out, it will be time to switch to Shimano. This isn’t something you notice when you’re just riding along, unless you concentrate hard on how your feet are moving or ride with a Kéo pedal on one side and an SPD-SL with yellow cleat on the other. I moved over from Shimano to Look. Miss the feel of Shimano - the blue cleats, especially. However, I now run Assioma power pedals, so it just makes sense to have one cleat/pedal setup on the turbo, etc. Now- I'm absolutely on board with the Look Pedals; the power transfer is great, the overall "feel" is positive and dependable. Burt agrees, adding: “I’d say if you can ride one or the other you can ride either bio mechanically speaking — it will just be personal preference.”

TYLER: Whereas Evan’s long been riding Look’s and similar style pedals, I’m a long-time (and current) Speedplay fan. But, in the interest of science, I tried these out. There’s definitely a noticeable gain in stability. It’s not that Speedplays aren’t stable, but when you add a massive platform to the pedal, you can tell a difference to be sure. So, stability and foot feel = really good. Johnhas been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.Speedplay is the notable exception, with its four-bolt pattern (but then the US company effectively reverses the entire system by mounting the clip mechanism onto your shoes, leaving the pedals to act as the cleats). The sole purpose of the sum of these improvements has been to guarantee you irreproachable reliability. According to Garmin, this is what justifies the name change from its outgoing Vector pedals. Otherwise, the two pedals are very similar when it comes to their clean looks and power functionality.

This comparison seems a little bias to me, but that's probably because I am a little bias the other way. Shimano also colour-code their cleats. Fixed cleats have red bits on them, cleats with blue trim have two degrees of float, and yellow-decorated cleats have six degrees of float. To try and get a handle on whether there were any important ergonomic differences between SPD-SL and Kéo pedals, I spoke to bike fit experts Phil Cavel of Cyclefit. Some cleats are ‘zero-float’, or fixed, which means they release your foot with only the slightest of movements. They need to be set up very carefully for the sake of your knees. Most cleats, however, offer something in the range of 3 to 9 degrees of float.

How we tested

Also agree with @Sjl wrt Shimano's reliability - I did zero servicing on mine, and they never let me down, whether bottom of-the-range, or flashy carbon jobbies The release tension can be adjusted with an Allen key and the pedals hang at a nice angle for easy clipping in. This is great for Shimano fans, but Garmin has gone one step further too. The pedal has changeable body options so it can be converted to a Shimano SPD pedal for off-road use on mountain and gravel bikes. The Keo 2 Max Carbon are supplied with Look’s gripper cleats, the difference being a rubber pad at the front and rear of the cleat. These provided a bit more grip than the standard cleat supplied with the Keo Blade Carbon Ceramic but the grip section was again very short-lived compared to the Shimano cleat. And after a single slip on a smooth surface, one of the grippers was cleanly removed from the cleat. The cleats supplied with the more expensive pedals have a harder wearing section on the retaining sections of the cleat so these fared better - wearwise - but were the worst on test for grip when walking. It seems Look customers must choose between cleat wear or grip, unfortunately, you can’t have both.

The KEO 2 MAX carbon pedals are in the 2 nd tier of Look’s road pedal lineup, the KEO BLADES being their top tier. Compared to Shimano, I would guess they are between the Ultegra and 105 pedals. See the table below. You can readjust the table to sort by price if you wish. MODEL LINEUP BY WEIGHTThe 12Nm spring fitted to the test pedals kept a vice-like grip on my cleats, even when climbing or sprinting. Releasing the pedal sometimes required quite a firm twisting motion but this will likely relax a little as the pedal and cleat wear together. Lighter riders will probably prefer the 8Nm spring option. The Tiagra R550 pedals are one rung up from Shimano’s cheapest entry-level pedals but have a design and performance that echoes the company’s top-end pedals. David Caudery / Immediate Media Look first came up with this three-point fastening and it’s become pretty much the standard for road pedals, with Shimano, Time, Mavic and others all using the same arrangement.

There are differences in the range of tension adjustment, float, and entry and exit feel between Look Kéo and SPD-SL pedals, but none of them are killer apps. How to choose? Like Shimano’s more premium pedals, these are wide, with stainless steel metal inserts offering plenty of support while aiding power transfer. I believe that Shimano provides a significantly better product compared to Look, with the differences being;

Redshift Arclight Bike Pedals

At this level, all Shimano SPD-SL pedals share the same body design, so you get many of the benefits of Shimano’s higher-tier Ultegra and Dura-Ace designs.