The luxury of tinkering with my bikes and making sure they are clean, well lubed, and perfectly tuned escapes me due to the lack of a trust fund – or something.

That said, I and the people I ride with are sensitive like squirrels when it comes to creaks and squeaks. My Look style pedals were making everyone crazy.

After tightening the pedal, it got worse. Lubed the spring and it went away, for a ride. I swore it was the pleather on the shoe. Would have put money on it and wasn’t sure how to lube synthetic leather – found no suggestions online except Armor All.

Then it got way way worse and I finally had the bright idea of looking at the cleat itself. As you can almost see in the blurry shot below, it was worn down to the screws and there were CHUNKS missing from the cleat itself! Further inspection of the pedal revealed wear marks from the screw heads.

Replaced the cleat.

Silence and engagement I have not experienced since I bought the bike.

Probably should have been replacing the cleats every season. Will do so in the future. This is all pretty boring, but wanted to share the experience for anyone else looking up squeaky bike shoes with Look style cleats. Now do your work, internet.