The Crank Bros come with shims to place between the cleat and the sole, which can help if the shoe tread interferes with the small pedal platform and restricts entry. Without the shims, we found entry and exit a tough and unpredictable affair with all the shoes we tried.

Most of the testers felt the release, while never difficult, didn’t have a distinct threshold of resistance before exit. The pressure remained constant, and there was little in the way of an audible click, meaning we unwittingly released more than once over technical ground.

Float felt a little sluggish initially, until the cleats wore in, but the release angle — either 15° or 20° depending on which way you mount them — and 6° float makes the Candy 2 pretty impressive when riding in muddy conditions, as you can grind out any impacted dirt by twisting your foot from side-to-side. Performance fell between Shimano and the excellent Mavic and Look pedals.

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The Candy 2 spins on a simple bushing and we’ve found this can suffer from premature wear. But, Crank Bros has recently made a running change to the bearings in all of its pedals and the Candy now feature a better quality IGUS bushing and Enduro cartridge bearing.