Wellgo R096B clipless pedals

Wellgo's RO96B clipless road pedals might not set pulses racing, or Lycra ablaze but their pleasing build quality and plentiful spares make them an excellent alternative to the real McCoy, especially for Audax, club and winter builds.

Compatible with Look's Kéo pedal designm the RO96 is in fact a family of three. Ours were the midrange, B model with higher quality sealed needle roller bearings (as opposed to ball bearing. They share powder coated aluminium alloy bodies and chromoly axles with their lowlier namesakes. The more exotic model gats include titanium axles and magnesium bodies for lighter riders with deeper pockets and/or bikes on strict calorie controlled diets.

My fascination with lookie-likie components means I've run a fair few Wellgo pedals over the years, so I was surprised to find the right hand feeling mildly arthritic. Stripping both units and introducing a liberal dollop of space age polymer grease proved a simple, satisfying cure. Some people suggest that Wellgo bearings tire faster than premium brands' but replacements are inexpensive and in my experience, unnecessary for some time unless you subject them to jet washing or similar abuse.

Talking of wet stuff, you adjust the release tension with a 3mm Allen bolt under the pedal body, right in the firing line of spray, silt and other undesirables. It'll need periodic squirts of Teflon based maintenance spray (or ultra-light, dirt phobic chain lube) to ward off thread disharmony.

Knee friendly red cleats come as standard, offering 9.5 degrees of float, though seasoned riders with good joints may find this overly generous. Genuine Look Kéo cleats and rival pattern fare behave impeccably too but I deliberately ran these with the stock cleats for two hundred miles. While the high degree of rotational freedom felt decidedly alien for the first seven miles or so, I never experienced any hesitancy when releasing and engaging, even in stop-start traffic.

Fixers with 175mm cranks can leave ground clearance in cat's whisker territory but haring through secluded lanes with unpredictable cambers, carving hard at roundabouts and around similar urban obstacles proved uneventful, suggesting they'd be shrewd choice for criterium bikes too.

Cantering along the climbs, turning an eighty-one inch gear with my full weight dancing on their bodies hasn't provoked phantom squeaks or power robbing flex either. Finish seems decidedly better than many clones with only superficial swirling creeping in around their mid-sections, though only fussy sorts like yours truly would think of blasting them clean, let alone repainting after a few seasons' service.

Verdict

Surprisingly refined Kéo clones, particularly suited to newbies, returnees and winter/training builds.