Ritchey Pro Micro V4 Road Pedals

The Ritchey Pro Micro Road Pedal is a lightweight, sleek pedal for SPD-cleat users. It's a cracker.

Weighing 210g, the Pro Micro Roads are at the lighter end of heavy, a whole 50g lighter than the £150 PD-6700 carbon Ultegra SPD-SL pedals, for example – Sisyphean arguments around cleat and fixing hardware weight not withstanding.

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The logical competitor to the Pro Micro Road is the Shimano PD-A600 SPD Touring Pedal. Both have an RRP of around £70, both can be found for £20 less online, and both are single-sided entry. At 286g the Shimano are a whopping one-and-a-half bottle cages heavier than the Ritcheys, assuming you accept the 50g Elite Ciussi Inox steel cage as the weight currency du jour. Plus, the Shimanos look enormous with the frankly pointless alloy body-surround-platform-thing. In comparison, the Ritcheys look the business - like little arrowheads you lock your feet on to go really fast.

The Ritchey finish is a curious mix of exquisite machining on the spindle and dimpled forging on the stainless steel body, but overall they look very good. Certainly they scrub up consistently prettier than an SPD-SL pedal with its much larger surface area to pick up scratches.

You are restricted to an 8mm hex for fitting, but there aren't many higher-end pedals featuring 15mm flats these days anyhow, and you want to keep your cranks scratch-free.

Ritchey says they are Shimano SPD cleat-compatible, but trying three different pairs of SPD cleats ranging from near-new to decade-old, I couldn't find any that worked in the Pro Road pedals. The Ritchey cleats clicked into various Shimano pedals with a bit more force than normal, so it's a mixed bag. If you want to mix'n'match Ritchey pedals and cleated shoes with the big S you may strike issues, and wider internet reports bear this out. This is their Achilles heel; if Shimano cleats worked, they would probably double or triple their market.

The cleat tension is adjusted using a 3mm Allen key, with five gradients showing where you are at. I found midway to be fine for secure hold under all-out efforts, and over the test period never had an unexpected clipout.

Once clicked in they feel just as good as any other high-end SPD-style pedal, with a decent amount of float, no fore-aft slop and clean entry/exit even with grime underfoot. Being single-sided you have to look a bit, and without the SPD-SL's large rear end they don't hang ready to clip into. I didn't find flipping them over to engage to be any hassle, the compactness meaning they didn't want to spin all the way over under their own gravity. Double-sided SPD's might be a boon off-road where you are clipping in-out frequently, but for even moderately-experienced road users the single-sidedness of the Ritcheys shouldn't be an issue.

The Pro Micros are fully serviceable, with kits available for £9 through your LBS, via the distributor Paligap. The service kit consists of 18 tiny bearings to do both pedals, plus other bits. The end cap unscrews with a 6mm Allen (check direction and don't overtorque), and be sure to pay attention to the order bits come out in. Cleaning it all up, regreasing and replacing bearings is the work of a few minutes. Ritchey have clearly thought this through.

The result of the chosen bushing/bearing design is that some grease will exit the inboard seal as you pedal, so the occasional wipe with a rag keeps the spindle neat.

Overall the Ritchey Pro Micro Road Pedal is a good choice for those wanting to be able to walk into cafés like a sensible person, whilst not adorning their bike with heavy mud-plugging foot hardware.

Verdict

Excellent lightweight, sleek pedal for SPD-cleat users