Flat or clip in pedals?

Soul Boy

tiny_pens wrote:

Interesting.

I must be a lot worse at riding than most of you. I'm just converting over to SPDs now because I am tired of my feet sliding off the pedals on the downhill bits but nobody seems to be mentioning this as a benefit.

Note to self. Practice more!

Interesting. Probably a technique thing, especially on downhill sectons. There are some good tutorials on this site, but legs bent, heels down is the way to go. Grippy pedals (I have Wellgo MG-1s) and a decent shoe (I have Marzzochi 5-10's) should help. SPD's will indeed hide this, but its worth getting the basics right.

janwal

Try these powergrip straps
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Mode ... elID=28933
No unclipping hassle.You can wear any shoe.Can power uphill as with clips.Have used them a couple of years on MTB and can climb better than my clipped in friends.Now have them on my new road bike.Will fit any metal framed pedal,just replace your present straps with them.And a lot cheaper!!Also never got stuck in them and fallen off,something i did many times when I tried using clips just cloudn't get used to them, spent more time thinking about unclipping than riding and it spoilt the enjoyment for me.They won't break the bank if you don't like them either.

Biffz0id

I love my clipless shoes. They're great for a good cross country ride. Esspecially when it's not so techincal and there are some killer climbs. But, for trail centers and technical rides I go for my fivetens everytime. You can just have so much fun and they're so grippy you can still climb half decent too .

m_cozzy

If you use spd's you will fall off lots, have no confidence over the tricky bits & get hurt when you fall off.
If you use flats you will have a much more enjoyable ride.

For a road bike I can see spd's making sense, for a mtb being used in anger they are an insane choice.

omegas

m_cozzy wrote:

If you use spd's you will fall off lots, have no confidence over the tricky bits & get hurt when you fall off.
If you use flats you will have a much more enjoyable ride.

Voted one of the most ridiculous most ill-informed posts ever on Bike Radar.

Northwind

I tried SPD pedals tonight, bloody awful they were, no grip on them at all and they're so small they hurt my feet. I was only wearing my Vans though, maybe they'd work better with my AM40s.

m_cozzy wrote:

If you use spd's you will fall off lots, have no confidence over the tricky bits & get hurt when you fall off.
If you use flats you will have a much more enjoyable ride.

For a road bike I can see spd's making sense, for a mtb being used in anger they are an insane choice.

Yes, that Steve Peat's an idiot.

Seriously, I like my flats but this is either really well concealed sarcasm, total idiocy or the worst troll ever.

WhiteHawk

Get some DMR V12 pedals and a pair of Five Tens on your feet (go for the ones that have the velcro cover over the laces) and your set, tons of grip, so much so you have to lift up your foot to adjust it on the pedal but at the same time real quick to put your feet on the floor in a flash.

Never trusted clipping my foot onto the pedals in an off road situation and never will, for the same reason you have come off 5 times and hurt yourself.

And as someone already mentioned get yourself some knee, shin and elbow protection, it's worth it.

unixnerd

I'd been using spd's on my road bike for years. The thing that finally drove me to put spd pedals on my mountain bike was winter weather. I found that when the pedals were wet my feet slipped on them and it was getting dangerous.

If I come to something particularly technical I'll unclip first, other than that I'd hate to go back to flats pedals.

Dirtydog11

tiny_pens wrote:

Interesting.

I must be a lot worse at riding than most of you. I'm just converting over to SPDs now because I am tired of my feet sliding off the pedals on the downhill bits but nobody seems to be mentioning this as a benefit.

Note to self. Practice more!

Its probably because they ride full sus, either that or they're not going fast enough!


On Sunday I went back to SPDs after 12-18 months of using flats (MG1s).

I ride a hardtail and for me it has nothing to do with efficiency its all to do with the extra speed I can carry into and through rough sections.

My SPDs allow me to pedal through sections at speeds that would normally have me clinging on by my toes.

Technique has its limits, there are plenty of world class riders that use clipless, you certainly couldn't describe them as technically lacking.

When I hear people asking flats or clipless you have to ask the question Full Suss or Hardtail as IMO full suss riders don't benefit to the same extent.

Atz

Well that's not true. A full sus isn't like you're floating down a hillside sitting on a couch you know. Sure, you can, and do, go faster because you're not being bucked off, but feet come off pedals just as much for me as generally you're able to take lines and speed that you wouldn't on a HT.

Dirtydog11

Atz wrote:

Well that's not true. A full sus isn't like you're floating down a hillside sitting on a couch you know. Sure, you can, and do, go faster because you're not being bucked off, but feet come off pedals just as much for me as generally you're able to take lines and speed that you wouldn't on a HT.

Don't agree, it is and they don't!

switchback18

I'm another one that used SPD's for a good while (toe clips before that) then changed to flats. It's kind of been said earlier, but to summarise:

SPD's - Good for pedalling efficiency.

Flats - Good for learning correct technique & good for some people's riding style. I prefer them also for learning new stuff or pushing my skills forward. Reason being is that if I'm trying something that's towards my limits skills wise I want to be 100% focused on what I'm doing & not have to focus on being ready to unclip if it goes pear shaped. In 4 years I never got fast enough at unclipping to be sure that I'd not have any disasters!

SPD's are not a good solution to feet slipping off the pedals. Although it seems like an answer, if this is happening with flats it's due to imperfect technique. The faults in technique will just cause different problems if you're clipped in. If your technique is good you'll hardly ever slip of a pair of flats.

...great how these flats/SPD's threads re-appear so often!

Northwind

Dirtydog11 wrote:

When I hear people asking flats or clipless you have to ask the question Full Suss or Hardtail as IMO full suss riders don't benefit to the same extent.

Don't agree with any of this tbh, the footwork to stay planted on a full suss is identical to on a HT with flats, absolutely identical. Never been bounced off either since I learned to ride.

Oxygen Thief

I've never tried SPDs but I can see no benefit of them at all for XC. Road maybe but offroad I'm not having it.

Atz

So you've never tried them, but the people who use them are wrong? Okay.

Personally I have, and use, both types of pedal depending on type of riding, where I'm going etc and see a place for both.

Oxygen Thief

I've not seen anything from the people that use them to convince me to even try them.

NDawn

I love my SPDs. Have been using them on my bikes for 10 years or so and can unclip almost instantly, it's second nature now, I don't do massive DH technical sections but I've had plenty of crashes where my feet have been unclipped before I've hit the ground.
I agree at first they are awkward but once you get used to them they are great!

Northwind

NDawn wrote:

I've had plenty of crashes where my feet have been unclipped before I've hit the ground.

What I like about this... A while back me and a couple of mates were riding at glentress, on a cheeky trail... One of the others slipped the front end on a root and did a really stylish jumping-over-the bars dismount into a tree. The other one said "Bet you were glad you weren't clipped in"- but he was, he just unclipped so fast it made no difference.

Jedi

it doesnt matter what pedal system you use. its correct technique

bails87

Jedi wrote:

it doesnt matter what pedal system you use. its correct technique

This.

I've just got some SPD shoes to use with the pedals that came with my bike, and have been sitting unused for 18 months. After a few spins up and down the road I went for a local ride on fairly 'tame' XC. The kind of thing where I never need to 'dab' a foot down. And they were fine, felt slightly better up hills, but it was more in the acceleration that I could feel a difference.

However, for more technical rides, like the Monkey at Cannock Chase, I thought I was better to go back to flats, and I'm glad I did. I had a similar crash to Northwind's mate, I jumped over the handlebars as the bike fell, and managed to keep running, with the bike abandoned on the tree stump I'd ridden into! I'm sure with practise I could unclip 'instantly', but as an SPD noob, I'm not confident enough.

But I'll keep using them and keep practising and I reckon I'll start using them for all my rides. I had one almost 'SPD moment' when I first tried them, where I started to tip over, panicked, and just yanked both my feet up instinctively, not thinking about twisting, and that was enough to unclip, thankfully!

Dirtydog11

Northwind wrote:

Dirtydog11 wrote:

When I hear people asking flats or clipless you have to ask the question Full Suss or Hardtail as IMO full suss riders don't benefit to the same extent.

Don't agree with any of this tbh, the footwork to stay planted on a full suss is identical to on a HT with flats, absolutely identical. Never been bounced off either since I learned to ride.

The method is the same Hardtail or FS ............agreed, I never said wasn't.

I stand by what I said because the said method will not have the same influence as it does on a full suss due to the way full suss smooths out the trail.

Unless of you course you have acquired perfect technique, in which case I agree it wouldn't matter, but unlike you not everyone has learned to 'Ride' their bikes yet.

Northwind

OK, fair play, I didn't answer that very well. But still disagree, you get pinged off a full suss just as fast as a hardtail. Suss can smooth the trail but it can also cause different movements in the bike (rebounding over crests etc) so it balances out to some extent. And of course people tend to use the smoothing effect of a good full suss to go faster.