Cheap SPuDs: are they any good?

5MV-98 – Cheap SPuDs: are they any good?
————————————–
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/fiveminutevelo

Yes a SPuD is the slang name for (Shimano) SPD pedals.

I replaced my old Shimano M525 SPD pedals (SpuDs) with a set of cheapish lesser-known branded SPD pedals that I bought from Aliexpress. The reasons I use SPD pedals on my road bikes are listed here:https://youtube.com/shorts/6PQqmYrKPsQ?si=CNLlYlNm7xhckWrC

The double-sided pedals I purchased were Zeray ZP108s. The pedals and a set of cleats cost about £16. In this video I review the pedals out of the box and after over 4000km of use during the UK winter.

Here is a search for the pedals on Aliexpress: https://www.aliexpress.com/w/wholesale-ZERAY-ZP%2525252d108S.html?spm=a2g0o.detail.search.0
I have no association with the manufacturer or seller other than as a paying customer.

==========================

About the 5MV channel
————————————–
My name is Terry and I love cycling. I have named my channel “Five Minute Velo” (5MV). I have called it 5MV because the videos I upload will (mostly) last no longer than five minutes. Each video will cover just one subject that is described in the title. Although the channel is mainly about cycling on the road, I will also cover some light (gravel) off road riding and cycle touring from time to time. No matter what, much of the advice will be pertinent to many branches of the sport/pastime.

I am new to posting videos on YouTube (May 2020) and I have much to learn, particularly in terms of presentation style and production quality. As such I welcome constructive comments that will help me improve the videos that I produce and upload.

There may be some dry humor in some of the videos, so dry it may not always be obvious :-).

====================

My strava profile can be found here:
https://www.strava.com/athletes/7723982

Cambridge Cycling Club website:
http://www.cambridge-cycling-club.org.uk/

Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/fiveminutevelo/

Photos of 2019 Tour of low countries:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/3ierczDfurM1gTGi7

Random cycling photos (will be updated from time to time):
https://photos.app.goo.gl/VZBhCWcQZtynsJF1A

====================

Terry

In the video linked above you’ll see the reasons why I use Shimano SPD style pedals on my road bikes for quite a number of years I’ve used these shanu m525 pedals they’ve reached the end of their life and it was time to replace them with a street price of about £ 35

The Shamano pedals are actually quite good value the only real downside is their weight at nearly 500 gram I could have gone with the safe shanu option but I decided to broaden the search practically all pedals are made in China so I decided to look on AliExpress the first option was a

Shimano m520 pedal although the price was not really much cheaper than buying from the UK also on AliExpress there’s always the chance that they are counterfeit items I decided to look at the more obscure Brands because these tend to be cheaper and give good value the cheapest option was this Z tto pedal

At only about £12 they’re very cheap and I’ve had some good experiences with ztto products they were still quite heavy however I searched for some lighter double-sided pedals and came across the zray zp 108s pedals at6 they were about half the price of the Shimano pedals and

That they were over 100 G lighter I purchased a set and they arrived about 10 days later the pedals came in a plain but perfectly adequate box in the Box were a pair of pedals some SPD cleats and a full set of instructions the pedals and cleats are compatible with Shimano

SPD on initial examination the quality of the pedal looks quite reasonable with an aluminium alloy body and Chrome plated steel axles and clip-in Parts when I rotated the axles the bearings feel quite smooth although a little stiff I suspected this was because of the seals the quality of the Machining and

The Finish is perfectly adequate although you wouldn’t mistake them for highend pedals the cleat that came with the z-ray pedals seen here on the right are almost identical to the Shimano ones I assessed the wear resistance of the metal by running a file over them they both seemed

Identical the measured weight of these pedals is 287 gam which is over 200 g less than my Shimano m525 pedals they are however about 80 g heavier than my lightweight tanium axled single sided pedals overall considering their double dou sided I think the weight of these Dray pedals is

Quite good if I compare this to a single sided SD pedal you can see that the cornering clearance is very similar there’s no loss in going to double-sided in this respect so far I’m quite happy with these pedals now I need to put them on the bike and see how well they clip

In and clip out in the longer term I’ll assess how they will last through a UK winter I tried the axle threads in two different crank sets in both the threads fitted just fine one slight inconvenience is that there are no spanner flaps on the axle so you’ll have

To tighten and loosen them using an allen key in the end of the axle this isn’t a great inconvenience but it would have been nice to have both options clicking in and out at first was a little more difficult than I expected but after use they freed up

The spring tension can be adjusted in order to make the clicking in harder or easier but I didn’t need to adjust that as these are double-sided pedals clicking in is a bit easier because you don’t have to flip over the pedal when starting overall I had no problems

Clicking in or clicking out as you can see here there’s a bit of float in the cleat system this was with my part War shanu cleats I changed the cleats over to the supplied cleats this reduced the float a bit but there was still some float the cleats clicked into the shanu

Pedals quite tightly that is there’s no float which suggests that the float is caused by the pedal and not the cleats I quite liked having the float however if you like your cleats to be tight then these pedals are not for you despite being used through the winter the Aesthetics of the pedals

Seems to have held up well a few minor rust spots have developed on the axles although by way of comparison as you can see here a set of much more expensive shanu pedals have rusted much more extensively after those 4,000 kilometers the cleats still click in and click out

Just fine and the float has not increased appreciably despite the float the pedals felt secure for my day-to-day use after a winter of use the bearings are still running smoothly but those seals have loosened up I can now feel the tiniest amount of movement in the bearings

Taking the end cap off the pedals reveals a nut the nut needs a special thin socket to remove it but I didn’t have one so I couldn’t get inside I suspect the main bearing is a plain bearing there is though a supplementary cartridge ball bearing on the end of the axle

This design is not unusual for low to medium price pedals and indeed it’s a good design choice for reliability that bearing movement is the bearing clearance and is to be expected the plain bearings will have slightly more friction than cartridge bearings so if you’re looking for high performance

Pedals these are probably not for you although the seals have freed up they still seem to create create a good dirt and moisture barrier overall I found these z-ray pedals to be low priced but not the cheapest on AliExpress overall the manufacturing quality seemed to be good enough the

Pedals function as well as my Shimano pedals one possible downside is that the pedal system has some foot float and there’s no option to remove that float after 4,000 kilm of use the durability looks good based on about 5 months of use a single winter and over 4,000 km of

Use I would expect these pedals to last quite a few years if you want a lowcost relatively lightweight durable pedal then I can recommend these erray pedals if you want something with proven durability and are willing to pay the extra both in terms of price and weight then go for Shimano

Pedals according to my YouTube statistics sticks about 90% of the people that watch my videos are not subscribed hence I would ask you if you haven’t already done so please hit the Subscribe button you can always unsubscribe later if you find my channel is not your liking as a taster here are

Some other videos that you may find interesting also a thumbs up would be a great reward for my effort in making this video I’ll be happy to receive comments or to answer questions that are left in the comment section from me until the next video it’s goodbye