by kos on Sun Jan 19, 2014 5:18 pm
I've had mine for about two weeks now. IMO they look nicer than the first gen blades. Still, I'm not digging the clipping mechanism. With the old pedals, I could scrape my shoes down the front edge of the pedals until the cleat caught on the lip, then I'd put downward pressure until the cleat latched. That doesn't work with these pedals. They are shaped more like a cup, and you have to drop the cleat into that cup before you can clip in. And since the pedal doesn't rotate automatically into position, I spend a bit of time looking down to try to align stuff before clicking in.
It feels more like clipping into speedplays -- with the shoe coming straight down into the cleat before engaging, as opposed to the rasping motion I'm used to. There's obviously some muscle-memory issues at play, and so I may get used to it after a few more kms, but right now it's annoying me. I liked Keos because of the engagement mechanism, and that has now changed.
Don't look to these for weight savings either. Mine saved me 2 grams over my 1st gen blades. But the construction seems far more robust. I had to upgrade because a chunk of pedal broke off my last set (on the back side). They still seemed to work fine, but when it comes to contact points, I always feel better safe than sorry.