Looking for pedals for my new cross bike. I'm a road racer, so plenty of experience in pedal technology, for the road anyway! What does everyone use out there? I hear Time ATAC and crank brothers are good options, but I've decided to conduct a field poll with the experts. Thanks for any input!

Time or Crank Bros, just not SPD. I have Crank Bros Candy's, which require a lube job every season, but it's easy to do. Time have less maintenance, but I get a factory deal on CB, so... Either one of these sheds mud, SPD's can clog on bad days.

All day long!!!

are a world arpart form the old in regards to performance in mud. I had switched away from the first and second generation SPD (737 and 747) and went to Time and then to Egg Beaters and then back to Time, always looking for the perfect pedal. Iswitched back to Shimanos last year in the spring because I as sick of my cleat rocking to the outside and tiny cartridge bearings needing to be replaced. I have been nothing but impressed with every facet of the 959 and 970's performance. They shed mud as well as any other pedal I have used, the entry and release are positive and sure, and the loose conical bearings and polished races have provided the utmost in bearing smoothness and still not a hint of play or roughness. I live and race in the PNW, so I need a pedal that works in mud. The pedals not only work for me, they seem to do just fine for Northwest honch Erik Tonkin and all world honch Sven Nys. I don't think yo can go wrong with either Crank Bros or Time pedals, I just don't think the Shimanos get the respect they deserve.

L-O-N-G time ATAC user myself.

Was looking for something new recently, after much research I decided on the Shimano's. They have the best bearings in the business, seem to clear mud well (much better than the older SPD's), and are built to last. I looked hard at the CB's but I've seen to many of them come apart during races. Bearings seem to need replacement ever year or so, etc, so I decided on the Shimano's...

CB pedals are cool, but I have probably bought my last pair. I've bought half a dozen sets in the last 5 years and never had a really big complaint. But now I have a set of Candy SLs with an axle that quietly bent so badly that the plastic around it is cracked to heck, and a pair of shoes that have been gouged out so thouroughly by Eggbeater SLs that it is no longer safe to ride the combination.

There always seems to be an ongoing MTBR thread about the design deficiencies of CB products. True, the consensus is that CB will replace broken product fairly promptly, but their product seems to break much more frequently than anything else out there.

I have run Candys and Eggs for Cross racing for two years and honesly, I am not impressed by their performance. The Candy's pack up with mud pretty easily IME, and both Candys and especially Eggbeaters are slippery as heck and eager to roll out from under your shoe.

I have always been under the impression that the eggbeaters use a bushing rather than a ball bearing in the spindle--is this correct? They seem to need very frequent greasing.

I like the pedals, but they are not very robust, especially if you compare with something like a Time, they are really night and day.

I've been perfectly happy with Shimano SPDs of some generation or another. I had one be a little balky on one dismount one time because of some bark mulch jammed in the cleat. Not even bad enough to make me stumble on a leg through dismount. That's it, otherwise perfect. They keep working.

Ron