Gravel pedals are sold on weight and chosen on release.The specification that matters on a loose climb is how far your heel has to rotate before your foot comes free — and, secondarily, how much your foot can move while it is still attached. Both are published, both are decided by the cleat rather than the pedal, and both are cheap to change after purchase.
Shimano publishes a 13° clip-out angle for its SPD cleats and sells two behaviors: the SM-SH51, which releases only when the heel moves outward, and the SM-SH56, which releases by twisting in any direction. Crankbrothers publishes 10° release for its Easy Release cleats and 15° for Standard Release, each available with 0° or 6° of float. That is more comparable data than most gravel components offer, and it is the right basis for a decision.
Mud clearance is the gravel-specific requirement
Road pedals have a large platform and a wide cleat because the ground is clean. Gravel and cyclocross pedals are small and open because the ground is not: mud packs into a recessed mechanism and stops the cleat engaging entirely, which is how riders end up running a cyclocross climb with a foot skating off the pedal.
The Eggbeater is the extreme of this design — four wire springs and almost no surfaces for mud to sit on. The trade is support: with no platform, the load path runs entirely through your shoe’s sole, which is why sole stiffness matters more with these pedals than with any other. Our road versus gravel shoes comparison covers what to look for in the sole, and the cycling shoe roundup covers what each maker publishes about it.
Two-bolt cleats, and why gravel shoes have them
Every clipless pedal here uses a recessed two-bolt cleat — SPD or a variant — rather than the three-bolt road standard. The reason is walking. A two-bolt cleat sits inside a lugged sole, so you can push a bike up a bank or walk into a shop without skating across the floor on a plastic wedge. On a gravel bike, where getting off and walking is part of the format, that is not a small thing.
Check your shoes before you buy pedals: if the sole has two threaded holes in a recess, any pedal on this page except the Time will work with the appropriate cleat. Time’s ATAC uses its own cleat, which still bolts to the same two-hole pattern but is not interchangeable with SPD.
Float: comfort, not performance
Float is how far your foot can rotate while clipped in. Zero float locks your foot at one angle; six degrees lets it find its own. The pedaling-efficiency argument for either is thin, and the knee argument is not: a foot held at an angle its owner’s anatomy dislikes, thousands of times an hour, is a well-known route to knee pain.
The practical advice is unglamorous. Start with float, not without it. Crankbrothers sells both 0° and 6° cleats for the same pedals; Shimano’s SPD system has float built into the cleat design; Time’s ATAC is known for the most generous float in the category. If you have never had knee trouble and want a locked-in feel, zero float is available — but it is a preference to grow into rather than start with.
Spring tension is the adjustment nobody uses
Most SPD-pattern pedals have a small hex screw on each side that adjusts release tension. Wound out, the pedal releases with noticeably less force. This is the setting that turns a frightening first month into an ordinary one, and it is the first thing to adjust if you are nervous about being clipped in on technical ground.
Set it soft, ride until clipping out is automatic, and firm it up over a season. The pedals that ship at factory tension have caught out more new riders than any other component adjustment on a bike.
What we could not check
We have not ridden these pedals, measured release forces or timed mud shedding. The release and float figures above are Shimano’s and Crankbrothers’ own published numbers, read on 18 August 2026, and everything marked “Listing:” comes from the live Amazon listing. Where a manufacturer publishes no float figure — which is true of the Time and Look listings here — the table says so rather than repeating a number from a forum.
