Toe clips versus clipless

grayo59

OK - I only have a "normal" pedal bike and am picking up my new road bike on saturday which has what I call old fashioned toe clips.

What will clipless give me that toe clips won't and what will toe clips give me that my normal pedals didn't? (If that makes sense!)

redddraggon

clipless are quicker and easier to get in and out of and still provide a good connection between foot and pedal

Steve I

Clipless pedals won't squash your feet like toe clips and straps do. I always had cold feet in winter due to restricted circulation using toe clips.

geoff_ss

I used toe clips and straps for years and there's no way I'd ever go back. I use normal SPD pedals and shoe plates and they're such an improvement for all the reasons already mentioned by Steve and Reddragon.

Geoff

Smokin Joe

Clipless actually have very little advantage over toe clips and straps when used as intended. They provided no less drive than clipless. Roach won the TdF using them when all his main rivals were on clipless, and kelly won his last two classics when he was probably the only pro still using the old method. Before clipless pedals came about, serious cyclists used to have a shoeplate attached to the sole of the shoe which slotted over the rear pedal cage and when the strap was pulled tight the foot was fixed in the pedal just as securely as with clipless. The plate was attached so there was no contact between the toes and the front of the clip. Some trackies still use this method, although with double straps for extra security.

The downside of toe clips was that after flipping the pedal over and sliding your foot in you had to bend down and pull the strap tight, and your foot could not be removed again till you had reached down and flicked the QR on the strap open (and you think clipless moments were something to worry about!)

So the only real advantage of clipless is convenience, but as modern cyclists would go white at the thought of riding with shoeplates, clipless has to be the way to go.

geoff_ss

Smokin' Joe is right, strictly speaking. Though I often didn't bother tightening the straps except when actually racing.

However, as a (mostly) touring/utility/commuting cyclist I rarely rode with shoe plates because I wanted to walk occasionally (like up 6 double flights of stairs every morning). I had a couple of pairs of Sidi touring shoes which had built-in grooves in the soles, but nailing aluminium plates onto leather shoes wasn't something I usually bothered with. The huge advantage of the SPD system is that you get both secure pedal attachment and easy walking. That does it for me.

I'm wearing out (infinitely slowly) my old racing shoes with toe clips and straps on my turbo bike

Geoff

doyler78

Smokin Joe wrote:

So the only real advantage of clipless is convenience, but as modern cyclists would go white at the thought of riding with shoeplates, clipless has to be the way to go.

As someone who uses neither I will give you the speil that I had heard and to me the thing that stood out as the most important advantage was actually when you were involved in an accident that clipless pedals tended to release thereby in many cases saving the cyclist from serious knee and foot damage as the clipped in pedal wouldn't release at all and the knee and foot would twist very easily in an accident possibly causing serious injury which would take much longer to recover from than a few scrapes or a slight twist as you unclipped.

I'm sure if this is wrong I will be told and will thus be better informed

oldwelshman

doyler78 wrote:

Smokin Joe wrote:

So the only real advantage of clipless is convenience, but as modern cyclists would go white at the thought of riding with shoeplates, clipless has to be the way to go.

As someone who uses neither I will give you the speil that I had heard and to me the thing that stood out as the most important advantage was actually when you were involved in an accident that clipless pedals tended to release thereby in many cases saving the cyclist from serious knee and foot damage as the clipped in pedal wouldn't release at all and the knee and foot would twist very easily in an accident possibly causing serious injury which would take much longer to recover from than a few scrapes or a slight twist as you unclipped.

I'm sure if this is wrong I will be told and will thus be better informed

Well I used to race years ago and had no problem getting in and out of clips. Never bent down, just did it at top of pedal stroke.
With respect to knee damage when crashing, in muy opinion thats rubbis.
I crashed on ice last week and ,y left leg did not release at all.
In fact I would go as far as to say clipless are worse for knees.
The reason being you have to rotate your leg to release and if any of you have had medial cartlidge problems, you will know the movement required to release is stress on the cartlidge.
Still I have them on my bikes though

dennisn

I still have an older bike (70's) with toe clips and straps. I even still have a pair of wood soled shoes. Once in awhile I take it out for a spin and it gets it's share of strange looks.
Especially the wood soled shoes. I just tell the younger riders that it's the latest in high
tech, carbon fiber impregnated wood. Very pricey, ultra cool. They just laugh. Hmmmmm?

dennis noward

pw1brown

You need cycling shoes to go with clipless pedals, but can wear most ordinary shoes with toeclips. Then again, cycling shoes, with their stiff soles, really do give you more power whatever kind of pedals you use.

Also, take care where you walk with cleats on the bottom of your shoes, as your host/employer/wife might not like gouge marks on their polished wooden floors.

I've just changed from toeclips to SPDs and I'm not regretting it so far. For us average bike-users, I do think we get more power using clipless than toeclips. And much more power with toeclips than with no binding at all.

stevec205gti

In an emergency - ie an unplanned stop - you'll keel over with toe clips if they're used properly as in nice and tight with plates (unless you can track stand!), simply because you don't have time to bend over and flick them undone. With clip in shoes in an emergency you can quickly unclip and put your foot down to stop you falling.

oldwelshman

stevec205gti wrote:

In an emergency - ie an unplanned stop - you'll keel over with toe clips if they're used properly as in nice and tight with plates (unless you can track stand!), simply because you don't have time to bend over and flick them undone. With clip in shoes in an emergency you can quickly unclip and put your foot down to stop you falling.

Sorry don't agree
If its an emergency and that fast you wont unclip form either, if its just braking for traffic and junctions its the same effort for both, either twist of a leg of release of a clip.
I suppose you could say some people do not like riding with one hand to release toe clip.

stevec205gti

So let me get this right - a child jumps out in front of you and you screech to a stop. With cliplees pedals whilst the bike stationary but upright you can flick either leg out and a majority of the time you can get a foot out and down before you and the bike topple over. Are you suggesting that in the same amount of time you can stay upright but not moving, reach down, undo your toe strap, then lift your foot up and out to clear the shoe plate, then down on the ground to remain upright???

tatanab

I think an awful lot of people who post about toeclips and straps have little if any experience of using them.

I used them exclusively from 1966 to about 1996 when I started to change to clipless. For most riding I would not go back, but for trundling around town I still use them with normal civilian shoes.

The ONLY time a rider was likely to be strapped up tight is when racing. Equally, most people only used shoe plates when racing. Those are the circumstances when you would have to unstrap to put your foot down.

For most riding the strap is set so that it is a snug fit around the shoe. Combined with a metal toeclip (plastic is too flexible) this allows you to pull up against the strap with your foot in the same way as you do when riding clipless. The shoe for general use would have no shoe plate (cleat) and a smooth sole. This means that the foot can be quickly and easily engaged or disengaged from the pedal. You might tighten the straps for a severe climb or if on fixed for a severe descent.

Given that I could argue it is quicker to touch down with clips than with clipless, but I will not because it is a futile argument and pointless.

Moving off from a standstill, it was always a matter of pride that the free foot would rotate the pedal and get into the clip in the first half a revolution of the crank without freewheeling. Lots of people cannot do that even with clipless.

This is my experience of club riding, racing and touring with half a dozen different clubs over the years. And as I wrote earlier, I don't think I'd go back any more than I would go back to front derailleurs with inbuilt levers.

stevec205gti

I'd like to point out that my life from the age of about 6 up to about 18 involved the use of toe clips with proper shoes with plates - as was the norm for most of the members of cycling club. I thought it fair as we were comparing them wtih clipless pedals to assume they'd be done up in order to reap the same benefits of being able pull up and back with the pedal as well as just push down. I agree, that in some circumstances there was no point doing them both up as you knew you'd have to keep stopping - and indeed, there was a great art in flicking your foot in first time!