is stack height between spd and spd-sl roughly the same?
 

i'm considering finally pulling the trigger on some winter cycling shoes, and obviously need to decide if i want to go road or mtb shoes.

i figure if i go the mtb shoe route, i can just swap out the road pedals on my road bike for spd's and go.

are the stack heights similar enough that i dont have to worry about monkeying around with saddle height while doing the swap? my knees seem to be pretty sensitive to nailing saddle height...

Not sure on the cleat stack height and/or differences, but isn't a 'winter' mtb shoe going to typically add some amount of sole/tread depth to what you might have for a non-winter road shoe?

That's a good point. I may need to re-think this.

Spd cleat up higher than mtb treads. So you walk on meat oc tread, but stack not crazt either, cleat recessed a bit..

Just watch shoe weights if that bothers you, it does me if longer ride times, or trying to haul it rolling..

I have some lakes i use little, weight unreal.

I regularly go between dura ace spd sl and xtr pedals on the same bike and notice no difference.

this was the answer i wanted to read. thanks!

If you want exact measurements, the information actually seems hard to find. One source reports that the XT XC pedals have a stack height of 18mm.

https://mtbgearbox.com/shimano-xt-vs-xtr-pedals/

That’s versus 13.7mm for Ultegra. XTR and DA are lower.

Then you’d need to consider the stack height of the shoe, e.g. the sole thickness.

Then, after all that, you might consider if the stack height difference is noticeable. Between my gravel and road bikes, I think I have the total saddle height set at about the same (actually, the gravel bike now has shorter cranks than the road bike, so the gravel bike’s saddle is actually a touch higher). I don’t feel a major difference between the two, although I spend the majority of my miles on the road bike.

Basically, you may find the difference ignorable. You might not. Don’t know until you try. You could figure on raising the saddle about 5mm with the XC pedals and winter boots? Or you could leave it at the same height and see how it goes?

Nine months ago, I swapped out spd-sl pedals with spds , giro road shoes to mtb shoes on a bike that I took to California for a bike tour. I had to make adjustments to my saddle. Can't remember exactly what I did but it was not a one-to-one swap that's for sure.

After I got back, I like the setup so much , I didn't bother to switch back, and I even went ahead and swapped out the other road bike that I ride regularly. Obviously, there is no change to my gravel bike because it's on spd from the get go. To a large extent, I attribute my decision to the mtb shoes that I acquired here from a forum pal, Giro Ventana, which I really like and seem to work well enough for dedicated road rides as well as gravel. I don't do mtb.

I haven't decided what I am going to do with the 200+ pairs of spd-sl pedals, cleats, road shoes that seem to be obsolete now with the change in my usage... :D

If you get the higher stack shoes/cleats/pedals, you could do a few wraps of masking tape around the seatpost against the post clamp so you know where to set the saddle height when you eventually change back to the non-winter setup.

This reminds me of one of the "BikeFitJames" videos where he said something like "bike fit is a matter on inches, not millimeters. The industry has been hiding behind this fact for a long time". He was essentially saying humans are very adaptable and very small changes in fit a lost in our ability to adapt.

Found it: start at 6:19 for the comments I was referring to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJDeVD5YTo0

Tim