P. Lynn Miller wrote:
> I am looking for a set of those leather TA
> cleats that Charlie Young referred me too, if not to buy, at
> least a series of very good photos and some measurement if
> possible to make a set or two for myself.
Well I'm not going to take mine out of the factory-sealed (by hermits!)
bag to photograph - my photos would be bad anyway. But here's Joel
Metz's pictures of them:
http://www.blackbirdsf.org/
And here are some measurements:
Leather is about 4 mm thick at the slot, tapering a bit thinner to the front and back. Mine don't taper down near as thin as the drawing indicates, so don't believe everything you see in advertising. (This may not be a new concept to you.) I hope I kept my receipt, I might try to get my money back. Though the fact that the shop has been out of business for 20 years might be an obstacle... ANYWAY... The taper to the front helps while inserting foot into toeclip but you could live with constant thickness leather if tapering the thickness is too difficult. If you started with thicker leather they would last longer, but getting your feet in and out would be a bit harder until they wore in. Leather that thick and durable might be hard to find, I don't know.
Width is 58 mm at the slot, 42 mm at front and back
Slot is 4.5 mm wide, maybe a tad more (remember I'm measuring them in the bag) but definitely not 5.0 mm.
Overall length is 66 mm.
The little piece of thin steel that both pieces of leather are stapled to could be left off. Then the pedal cage would bear directly on the sole, maybe wearing the sole out prematurely? Not much faster than the people who don't use cleats at all though, I suppose, but I haven't tried it. I suspect the main advantage of it is to maintain the width of the slot while nailing it on. Without that piece of metal you'd nail one half on, then maintain the right spacing while nailing the second half . If you want to fab a piece of steel to match the TAs, it's 0.5 mm thick, close to full-width (55 mm), and 19 mm long front-to-back.
They are symmetrical front-back (i.e. there is no proper front, either cleat can face either way).
If you make yourself some, let us know how they turn out.
Mark Bulgier
Seattle WA USA