The one thing that Speedplay had against it, and I hesitate to make a huge deal out of it, but it was the cleats. Particularly the installation on the shoe. It requires a certain amount of ‘intelligence’ to get it installed correctly.
I say this tongue in check, slightly.
Many of the riders on a group I was riding with at the time had changed to Speedplay, and this one rider did as well. We all advised him to have the cleats installed by someone at the local bike shop (LBS), or ‘someone who knew what they were doing’, and he stubbornly insisted that he could handle it. He apparently failed. He had issues popping out of the cleats at ‘inopportune moments’, with one resulted in a ‘horrific crash’ (according to onlookers) and damage to he and his bike. Having installed, by then nearly a half dozen cleats on my various shoes, I offered to do it for ‘a beer’. I think those injuries ended his biking career sadly. (Someone at one of the LBS’ that looked at his handiwork after he was complaining about the pedals, remarked that the cleats weren’t installed properly and offered to redo them but he still refused. That was before the crash. They think he was using lubrication to try to ‘fix’ them)
I also should say that the rusted out Speedplay cleats were from me riding them indoors and sweating like it was the sole purpose of riding. I actually had to use an impact driver to remove one of the screws, it was so badly rusted. Have their cleats gotten better? Can anyone take a look at their cleats and see if they still rust out quickly? My last NOS Speedplay aluminum cleats had the aluminum ‘C’ fracture, surprisingly. Who thought that simple pressed steel would be a perfect fit for the bottom of a bike shoe.
I really liked the Speedplay pedal system. I have had knee issues over time and the adjustable degree of float was wonderful. I think most people that are complaining about using them have either not adjusted them (they are ridiculous for release angle) or have over adjusted them and hit the stops all the time and potentially prematurely release.
But, now that Speedplay has a power meter, would they be better off spun off, or sold to another company? It might be the division with the highest price to sell to save Wahoo for a while.