Shimano’s clipless road pedals took off when the embraced the three-hole mounting cleat and have been improving it every since. Their new Dura-Ace PD-9100 pedals cuts grams, while keeping everything else the same. That same is popular, and for good reason. Light, compact, durable, stable, easy to adjust cleats, easy to find cleats when you need them.

The pedals are 24.5g lighter than the previous iteration, or 224g for the set. A big part of the weight savings comes from utilizing a carbon-fiber pedal body and sculpting away all the unnecessary material. Even with the minimal body, they made sure it was durable by installing stainless steel wear plates in the places where the cleat meets the pedal. inside the pedal body are three sets of bearings, to make sure the pedal spins smoothly. The cleat is made from chromoly steel. to make sure the spindle is as strong as possible, Shimano skipped placing 15mm pedal wrench flats on the spindle. you install and remove the pedal via a 8mm Allen key on the backside of the crank.

A floating cleat, the blue SM-SH12 cleat comes with the pedal. This is the “blue” cleat. It has two degrees of float. You can also buy the SM-SH10 cleat, sometimes referred to as the “red” cleat, which features a fixed position, aka zero float. And there is the SM-SH11 cleat, the “yellow” cleat, which as six degrees of float. The spring-loaded plate at the back of the pedal body is adjustable via a 2.5mm Allen head tool.

The stack height is 13.7mm, which is low. the cornering clearance is 35-degrees, which allows you to lean the bike over pretty far while still pedaling.

The Shimano Dura-Ace PD-9100 Pedals are the kind of excellent you forget about once you click in.