A hands-on guide to Shimano’s new SPD-SLR — Geek Warning

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Welcome back to Geek Warning. This week, Dave Rome and Ronan McLaughlin talk through Shimano’s new road pedal system, which will eventually supersede the now two-decade-old SPD-SL. Dave has been hands-on with the new pedals and offers insight into how nuanced the differences are.

Dave is then joined by Suvi Loponen to discuss the new Canyon Grail gravel bike along with a number of other standout bits of tech news from the week.

At the end of the episode, and for those listening via a member-only feed, we have an interview with Bill Alcorn of BikeFlights about how air freighting and door-to-door bike delivery have changed, and potentially how to mitigate those increased costs.

Timestamps:

02:00 - Shimano SPD-SLR, ridden and explained
18:00 - The potential performance gain of lower stack height
22:30 - Shimano’s three shoe widths, wide going wider.
25:00 - Suvi joins to discuss the new Canyon Grail gravel bike
37:00 - Scott’s interesting return to cable routing options
41:00 - Specialized goes internal routing with Future Shock
43:30 - Wolf Tooth gets into hubs
48:00 - Members-only section: Talking bike freight