The standard 8.5mm bolts that ship with SPD-SL cleats work fine until you add a shim, switch to a shoe with a recessed cleat mount, or find yourself with a stack of washers under the cleat body — at which point the threads bottom out before the cleat pulls tight. Shimano's SPD-SL Long Cleat Fixing Bolt Set is the fix. Six M5 x 13.5mm bolts, the same thread pitch and head profile as the bolts that came with your cleats, just 5mm longer to reach the threaded inserts once you've raised the cleat stack.

Shimano lists this bolt set as an "A" match — meaning identical material, finish, and head geometry to the standard hardware — across essentially every SPD-SL pedal Shimano has made. That covers the current Dura-Ace PD-R9100, Ultegra PD-R8000, and 105 PD-R7000, as well as the RS500, R550, R540, and every previous-generation Dura-Ace, Ultegra, and 105 pedal going back through the PD-7800 era. If you're running SPD-SL cleats of any vintage, these bolts thread into them.

The set includes six bolts, which is enough hardware for one pair of cleats with the standard three-bolt SPD-SL pattern. Torque spec matches the standard bolts at 5-6 Nm. Anti-seize on the threads is a good idea, especially if the shoe's threaded inserts are steel and the sole sees a lot of wet weather — cleat bolts are one of the more common seized-fastener problems on road shoes.... Read More