I wish there was more to say about pedal cleats, but they work well and do their thing. I'm a trainer/racer/commuter rider, and when I come and go from work, I have to use a loading dock ramp, which is coated with epoxy. In carbon-soled bike shoes, it's interesting in the wet, but I've noticed it's far easier to walk around with the grip cleats vs the all plastic ones.
It may be placebo, but I do feel that these stay more secure in the pedal once clipped in. They last longer for sure if you walk a lot, I get 6 months or so and I don't do any walking other than in and out of my house or work. Keep 'em lubed with some dry wax and they are good to go.
Catch a sale and stock up.
This is my go to cleat when replacing worn out cleats. The small pads really do help keeping me from 'ice skating ' when stepping off the bike. The pads did not interfere with clipping in/out. Give them a try'
For context, I bought these for a gravel bike used primarily on the road, wearing Shimano RX800 wide shoes with Silca SPD cleats, and am an old guy with sketchy knees. Have always used traditional XT/XTR pedals for this type application but wanted a more planted, road-like feel. So I pulled the trigger on a "race carbon" pair.
For me, these pedals are a huge improvement in that the shoe/cleat/pedal interface feels waaaay more planted and stable....much closer to a road feel. My sketchy knees have noticed the difference, too. Even clipping in seems easier for some reason...no more hit-and-miss (my same shoe/cleat combo). On the scale and in use, their weight and stack height are equal to or a little better than my old pedals. They are too new to judge their reliability, but so far the only downside is that I wish I'd have bought these back when they first came out.
I've been running these on my road/sometimes gravel bike since November. 2500mi and counting, no issues whatsoever. Rock solid, stable platform (bigger than most spd 2-bolt pedals) for everything from casual spins to sprinting to out of the saddle climbing. I wear Shimano RX8's with them and really like the set up - easy to put one foot down stopped at a traffic light, and I've been in a couple of situations where I had to walk for a bit and was thankful I was not running a normal road pedal/road shoe set-up. Also, imo, this set-up (carbon pedal body plus carbon shoes) make this 2-bolt style cleat set up comparable to most typical 3-bolt 'road' set-ups. I also dig the red accents at the end of the pedal axles - matches the red accents on my bike!!
