Quote Originally Posted by Cello View Post
I have been riding with clipless pedals since 2002 and had bought only 2 pairs of cycling shoes until about a month ago when it became necessary to buy a new pair of cycling shoes. In all that time, I have used only Shimano SPD cleats. My worn out pair of shoes are Sidi mountain shoes. It was only when I bought my new shoes that I found out that most road shoes do not accommodate SPD cleats! Was I ever surprised!

I ended up buying the mountain version of this Shimano shoe:
http://www.teamestrogen.com/prodSN_WR40.html

The above shoe is the only road shoe I am aware of that accommodates SPD cleats.

I have 3 bikes, a Litespeed Bella road bike, a Gunnar cyclocross bike which I use primarily for commuting, and a Trek mountain bike. All of them have Shimano pedals and I wear the same shoes on all of them. No one has ever made fun of me for riding my road bike with mountain shoes!

I had originally planned when I bought new shoes to buy road shoes instead of mountain shoes. One of the primary reasons I did not pursue this was that I did not want to research and purchase a new pedal system for my road bike.
Actually, Specialized makes a bunch of road shoes that accomodate SPD cleats. Two that come to mind, are the Spirita and the BG Torch. I think Lake makes some, as well.

Back on topic...I used SPD cleats on my Trek 2100 for my first full season of riding. For the most part, they served me well. I even did 2 triathlons using the SPD cleats and a pair of Specialized MTB shoes. Was able to jog through the transitions wearing the MTB shoes, with no problems. I did, eventually, start to suffer from the dreaded "hot spot" issue...and ended up swapping out the SPD pedals with a set of Time road pedals. The road pedals have a much larger contact surface, which distributes the weight more evenly across the balls of your feet. But if you don't have the "hot spot" problem, then I'm sure the MTB pedals will do fine for you.