SIDI Heel Pads Too Far Gone?

With all the miles I've been racking up I failed to notice that the bottoms of my SIDI shoes were getting very ratty, and the left heel pad, the foot I always disengage when stopping, was worn through in spots, and more dire, the attaching Phillips screw was so badly worn I couldn't unscrew the pad to replace it.

What to do? Well, I did a nice ~ 55 mile ride yesterday, so I decided to take a little mid-day Siesta and sleep on it. Sure enough, the answer came to me. My 1st take was to use a Dremel cut-off wheel to deepen the + of the Phillips, but that seemed unlikely to succeed, so my **brilliant** idea was to cut a single groove in what was left of the screw-head and use a standard screwdriver to unscrew the pad.

That worked, although a steady hand and some cold water are needed, in addition to a very pristine screwdriver. The 2" stubby I had seemed to work best, and probably had never been used before (stubbies are in a class of tools that are rarely needed, but BADLY needed when they are). Using a grinding wheel on hard stainless steel generates a lot of heat - enough to melt the plastic the "nut" is anchored in, so I did my grinding on the wife's vanity and ran cold water over the screw head immediately after cutting the groove.

You do need to move the grinding wheel side to side to get a nice groove all the way across the screw head, and this requires a steady hand, so try to have a stable perch for the shoe. The edge of the sink seemed to work quite nicely for me, and tile is durable enough you don't have to worry about the sparks pitting the finish.

This little trick can save you from having to buy a new pair of shoes, and those are getting quite expensive these days, so a nice cheat if you need it.

BTW, these heel pads come in two varieties, both made by SIDI. This one is the "Anti-Slip" version, which probably wears out faster as there is about 1/2 as much rubber meeting the road. I chose the  full-bodied "Universal Heel Pad" for $2 less. Both come with a bit of LockTite on the threads, so no need to run out and buy that.