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As with most things Ultegra, the Shimano Ultegra R8000 pedals provide a more affordable alternative to the money-no-object Dura-Ace, providing much the same functionality with a price tag that’s more realistic for the amateur rider.
Whereas a set of Dura-Ace pedals has a price tag of £235, Ultegra pedals cost £160 at full retail price and you can find them for around £100.
They’re a bit squeezed by Shimano 105 pedals though, which have a similar carbon composite body and are priced at £125.
The finish of the Ultegra pedals is a bit smarter looking than 105, with a shiny steel axle in place of the 105 pedal’s matt finish.
There are three steel plates on the top of the Ultegra pedal to help prevent wear to the pedal body from cleats, rather than the two on the 105 pedal, and they’re bonded to the platform rather than being screwed on.
There’s not much difference in weight between Ultegra and 105 pedals either, with Ultegra weighing 248g a pair (my weighed pair coinciding exactly with Shimano’s claimed weight) versus a claimed 265g a pair for 105.
Dura-Ace pedals have a claimed weight of 228g a pair, so again there’s not a lot of weight to be saved here.
All Shimano’s pedals use the same sprung rear clip with hex key-adjustable tension, so you can have clip-in as light or as firm as you like.
There’s a little tension indicator window built in that lets you see how tight you have the release and ensure that the release tension is roughly the same for both pedals, although backing off the screws then counting clicks as you tighten them with the hex key is more accurate.
The release system is low maintenance, just needing the occasional squirt of WD40 to keep it working sweetly.
Pedal body durability is excellent; apart from a bit of scuffing, you can expect the pedals to show minimal wear.
In fact, the whole Shimano Ultegra pedal doesn’t need much upkeep. In theory you should unscrew the pedal’s inboard bolt, remove the body from the spindle and load its internals with grease periodically.
Cyclist website editor Matthew Loveridge swears it’s the most satisfying bike maintenance job you can do, but I’ve always just treated Shimano pedals as fit-and-forget.
After thousands of miles they still turn smoothly on their cartridge bearings and there’s no tendency to develop play.
It’s testament to the design of the Shimano Ultegra R8000 pedals that they’re among the components that Shimano hasn’t updated with the upgrade to the latest Ultegra R8100 12-speed groupset, as are the equivalent Dura-Ace pedals.
All Shimano’s pedals use the same plastic cleat design. It’s quite wide, which gives plenty of binding area with the pedals, but does look a bit ungainly as, unlike Look’s narrower cleats, it usually protrudes slightly to either side of a svelte road shoe.
There are three cleat float options: yellow cleats give you 6 degrees of float, blue give 2 degrees, which is centred around the forward cleat anchor, and red cleats zero float, so to some extent you can fine-tune your float to meet your preferences.
A set of cleats and bolts adds 74g to the overall pedal plus cleat package weight.
It’s not as versatile a design as the Wahoo Speedplay pedal, where inward and outward float are independently and continuously adjustable up to a maximum of 15 degrees.
Like Shimano’s cleats, Look cleats offer three fixed float options, although theirs run from zero to 9 degrees.
One area where Shimano does score over its competitors is that it’s the only road pedal system to offer different axle lengths, since Wahoo has stopped making Speedplay pedals with different length options.
In the case of Shimano Ultegra and Dura-Ace pedals, you can opt for 4mm longer axles if that’s better for your stance width, augmenting the small amount of inboard/outboard adjustability in the cleat fixings.
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