Squeaking Pedals

I have owned a pair of LOOK Keo Sprint ped­als for about one year. Like all LOOK ped­als, they creak and squeak where the cleat con­tacts the pedal. The squeak comes from the tip of the cleat rub­bing against the wall of the pedal lip. It does get very, very annoying.

I have tried most of the usual “reme­dies” and have found what works for me. First, it should be pointed out that there is absolutely noth­ing wrong with LOOK ped­als — it is not the ped­als them­selves that creak, it is the inter­face between the cleat and the pedal that causes the prob­lem. LOOK claims that its newer teflon coated cleats do not squeak, but a quick trawl through the mes­sage boards shows this is not true. Inci­den­tally, I won­der how much Alberto Con­ta­dor annoyed the Parisians as he creaked his way up the Champs Ely­see on his spe­cial yel­low Keo 2 Max Car­bon Ped­als last month. 

If the cleats under the shoes get loose they will cause noise. Make sure to tighten them fully. You may want to use a mild grade of thread lock­ing com­pound (loc­tite) or grease on the bolts, but that’s not really the cause of most inci­dents of creak­ing. Some peo­ple, who I sus­pect  are LOOK rep­re­sen­ta­tives pos­ing as cus­tomers, claim that switch­ing to red cleats, or black cleats, or gray cleats, or upgrad­ing to teflon cleats solves the squeak­ing prob­lem. It makes no dif­fer­ence what color cleats you use. They ALL creak.

Some advo­cate spray­ing WD-​​40 or PAM cook­ing spray on the ped­als where they con­tact the cleats. Yes, oil­ing the sur­face of the cleat does stop the squeak­ing, but the fix is only tem­po­rary. I’ve read that some rid­ers spray Armor All or sil­i­con grease onto their cleats. Good luck with that —  be very care­ful when walk­ing or step­ping down, else you’ll go arse over teaket­tle and wish too late that you’d taken your neighbor’s advice and worn your hel­met. Cook­ing spray works well for three or four rides only and you’ll have a nice cov­er­ing of cook­ing oil all over the bot­toms of your shoes and on your cleats which you’ll be able to track onto your mother-in-law’s nice clean car­pet once you’ve skated your way over her hard­wood floor.

Other reme­dies include paraf­fin wax, can­dle wax and beeswax. All waxes will last longer than the oils, but that waxy residue will attract grit and dirt and stuff to your cleats and ped­als. The most extreme sug­ges­tion that I’ve seen involves pack­ing epoxy onto the pedal to com­pletely close up any gaps between cleat and pedal and to elim­i­nate the up-​​and-​​down play believed to cause all  the noise — a belief that I dis­agree with, as I can get the squeak­ing with no ver­ti­cal move­ment by twist­ing my foot from side-​​to-​​side over the range of the cleat’s play.

Many LOOK own­ers give up in frus­tra­tion and switch to other pedal sys­tems. As one rider says: “They actu­ally don’t make noise when they’re off my bike!”

So what is my solu­tion to creak­ing and squeak­ing ped­als? Baby pow­der. I sim­ply dust my cleats where they con­tact the ped­als with baby pow­der (tal­cum pow­der). Talc, a min­eral, is a dry lubri­cant that stops the squeak­ing with­out attract­ing grit or dirt. As tal­cum pow­der is not water sol­u­ble, it will stay on your cleats even in mod­er­ately wet con­di­tions. I find I can eas­ily go for a cou­ple of months before need­ing to give my cleats another dust­ing. This is the no mess, no slime, no grease, no dirty residue, eco­log­i­cally friendly, nat­ural solu­tion to the prob­lem of creak­ing LOOK pedals.

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