Cleat Installation
Bolting cleats to a new pair of shoes takes about five minutes. Doing it in a way that will not chew up the soles takes about seven. This page is the extra two minutes.
Most of this comes straight from Lake's own installation guidance, because they are specific about it and because one line in there is worth your attention before you touch a wrench.
The part nobody mentions: Lake states that failing to check cleat clearance on mountain shoes will void warranty coverage for sole damage and separation at the cleat pocket. Not the whole shoe, but the exact damage that bad clearance causes. Five minutes of checking protects the part of the warranty you would actually need.
Mountain and gravel shoes: clearance comes first
Two bolt mountain cleats sit down in a pocket, surrounded by rubber lugs. The cleat needs to sit slightly proud of those lugs so the pedal grabs the cleat and not the rubber. Get that wrong and every clip in grinds the sole against the pedal mechanism.
Lake's target is a gap of 0.25 mm to 1 mm between the bottom of the cleat and the ground.
Two ways to get there
Use cleat spacers. Most pedal brands supply them, and you can buy them separately. Stack until the cleat sits proud of the lugs by that quarter to one millimetre.
Or trim the lugs. If no spacer is available, carefully trim the rubber lugs around the pocket to open up the same gap. Take material off slowly. You cannot put it back.
Spring binder pedals need a shield. Some pedals rest their tension binder directly on the shoe sole. Crank Brothers, Look, Time and HT all make pedals that work this way. Those need the shoe shield or shim the pedal maker supplies, otherwise the binder wears a groove in the sole until it breaks through.
Road shoes: three bolt
Three bolt road cleats sit flat on a smooth sole, so clearance is not the issue. Torque is.
Grease the bolt threads, then run all three bolts finger tight before you tighten anything. Once they are all started, alternate between them and bring them up to spec together. Tightening one bolt all the way first pulls the cleat out of position.
Road shoes: four bolt and Speedplay
Speedplay uses an adapter plate between the shoe and the cleat, so there are two torque figures and they are not the same. The adapter goes to the sole at one spec, the cleat goes to the adapter at a lower one. Using the higher number on both is how people strip the cleat hardware.
Torque specs
These are the figures Lake publishes for common pedal brands. Your pedal manufacturer's current instructions always win if the two disagree, so check the sheet in the pedal box.
| Pedal system | Torque | In pound inches |
|---|---|---|
| Shimano SPD (2 bolt mountain) | 5 to 6 N-m | 43 to 52 in-lbs |
| Crank Brothers | 4 N-m | 35.4 in-lbs |
| Time ATAC | 5 N-m | 44.25 in-lbs |
| Shimano 3 hole road | 5 to 6 N-m | 43 to 52 in-lbs |
| Time ICLIC | 4.5 N-m | 39.83 in-lbs |
| Speedplay, adapter to sole | 4 N-m | 35 in-lbs |
| Speedplay, cleat to adapter | 3 N-m | 25 in-lbs |
Grease the threads
Put a little grease on the cleat bolt threads before they go in. The bolts sit under the shoe, in the weather, in road salt and grit, for as long as you own the shoes. Greased threads come back out when you need to move a cleat or replace a worn one. Dry threads corrode into the nut and then you are drilling a bolt out of a shoe you like.
Bring them by and we will set them up
If you would rather not fight with shims on your kitchen floor, bring the shoes and the pedals to the lab. We will check the clearance, set the cleats, and torque everything properly. It takes us a few minutes and it protects your warranty.