Can you ride short distances with normal shoes with SPD and

S0rin

Can you ride short distances with normal shoes with SPD and or SPD-SL pedals?

I want a road bike for longer rides, but I still want to be able to pop around town. So, can you ride short distances (e.g. < 5 miles) with normal shoes with SPD and or SPD-SL pedals? Or do you have to buy combination pedals?

vorsprung

You can, I do this all the time

It's slightly annoying but works fit. With thin flexible soles might not be so great, I always wear hiking boots when doing this. I think I will probably get some pedals that are flat one side and clip in the other. I use shimano SPD MTB-type cleats

markhewitt1978

I would say no. For 100 metres maybe. Not 5 miles.

anthdci

spd-sl work better, as its a biggest surface area to give you grip. spd's are too small and will end up hurting your feet very quickly. Ive done it with both. Wouldn't like to do more than 3 miles with spd-sl on a regular basis.

Anonymous

I have SPD-SL and I use trainers or other shoes with them all the time. I'm a (bad) reasonable cyclist and even on the commute I can hold my own (7 miles each way) and still get my speed up to high 20s. This weekend I must have covered in the region of 30 miles in casual shoes on them, not a problem at all

If you want to go down the SPD (mountain bike style) route, you can always get the single sided ones, which have flats on the other side (A520, I think).

One thing you may notice is that due to the cleat adding about 1cm to your height, you may find your saddle is a bit high, but if you are just doing short trips around 5 miles, it probably won't matter

RDW

S0rin wrote:

Can you ride short distances with normal shoes with SPD and or SPD-SL pedals?

I want a road bike for longer rides, but I still want to be able to pop around town. So, can you ride short distances (e.g. < 5 miles) with normal shoes with SPD and or SPD-SL pedals? Or do you have to buy combination pedals?

I wouldn't want to ride 5 miles this way. The SPD won't feel secure and the mechanism will dig into your sole. If you switch between normal and SPD shoes regularly, the Shimano A530 is a pretty good solution:

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/shimano-a530-sp ... ng-pedals/

For occasional use, your LBS might have some of those plastic inserts that temporarily convert an SPD into a bad platform pedal. Otherwise, invest in two sets of pedals and a decent pedal wrench.

iPete

S0rin wrote:

Can you ride short distances with normal shoes with SPD and or SPD-SL pedals?

I want a road bike for longer rides, but I still want to be able to pop around town. So, can you ride short distances (e.g. < 5 miles) with normal shoes with SPD and or SPD-SL pedals? Or do you have to buy combination pedals?

SPD are less comfy with trainers where SPD-SL have a nice big platform.

Alternatively go SPD + SPD casual shoes.

If these go intro production, could solve your problem:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/15 ... al-adapter

Anonymous

I would not recommend it personally.
Once you are used to being clipped in it will feel odd not to be.

It can be dangerous too. Part of the reason you clip in is so your foot does not slip off the pedal.
If you are used to being attached to the bike I would have thought sometimes not being attached to it makes that all the more likely.

People on here will poo poo that, but I know of a guy who put flats on his road bike for one ride (not sure why).
Much better grip for trainers than SPD's/SL's and he still managed to put his foot in his his front wheel and fcuk himself and his bike really badly.

Anonymous

With all due respect, that sounds like cobblers to me. I've been riding clipless for 3 years and am fine when I just use trainers. Sounds like your friend had an accident to me.

BobScarle

A530s do work with out cleats as I found out when I lost a bolt from one of my shoes. Clipped in one side using the flat on the other. Not sure I would use it permanently but it got me home. They are a good compromise.

simon_masterson

It depends on which you have.

My main bike (which gets used for pretty much everything currently) has SPD M545 pedals on at the moment, which are chunky double sided monstrosities designed for off road. They're double sided and have a big platform, so they're great for commuting. They work pretty well with regular shoes - it's not the best, but it's far from the worst.

w00dster

As other guys suggest it's entirely possible. I wouldn't fancy doing it with a small spd pedal, but it's fine with my Look Keo pedals (spd-sl type platform).
I do this going to the train station, gym, shops etc. Probably 10 mile round trip for each, not quite daily but not far off. I clip in for my "proper" rides, never had any problems with remembering to unclip (well not since being a clip in newbie).
With regards to footwear, I just use my converse or my gym shoes, nice and easy, doesn't even slip off in the wet.

rolf_f

Yes - of course you can. Even with SPDs - it just isn't very comfortable. I manage to break the cleat plate off a shoe the other day. Rode home 10 miles. It was fine. Except that it was my right foot that was missing the cleat so when I stopped I couldn't automatically get the pedals in the right orientation to push off. This was mildly irritating but not something to make a fuss about.

Dear me - some folk on here had better hope never to end up stranded on an uninhabited desert island. They'd die of starvation because they couldn't find the kitchen. Just because something is designed to be used in a particular way doesn't mean it is impossible for it to be used in another way........

chrisaonabike

coriordan wrote:

With all due respect, that sounds like cobblers to me.

Not to me. I rode for years and years when I was a lot younger, just on a hybrid with flat pedals, but my feet never slipped off. Never. No matter how wet it was, standing, sitting, anything.

Fast-forward to the present day, and for a while after I'd got used to clipless on my road bike, I used pedals with SPD one side and flat the other, and occasionally would go out short distances in trainers using the flat side.

I noticed that my feet would slip off the pedals quite frequently.

People are different, maybe some wouldn't experience this, but I think with me it's either a loss of proprioception that I no longer need with feet attached to the pedals, or possibly the fact that I'm used to exerting less force on the non-drive pedal when clipped in, so it slips more easily when taking up the drive.

Either way, when I was mixing flats with clipless, I had more foot slips than I liked. I clip in all the time now, even for short rides.

Schoie81

Carbonator wrote:

I would not recommend it personally.
Once you are used to being clipped in it will feel odd not to be.

It can be dangerous too. Part of the reason you clip in is so your foot does not slip off the pedal.
If you are used to being attached to the bike I would have thought sometimes not being attached to it makes that all the more likely.

People on here will poo poo that, but I know of a guy who put flats on his road bike for one ride (not sure why).
Much better grip for trainers than SPD's/SL's and he still managed to put his foot in his his front wheel and fcuk himself and his bike really badly.

Couple of weeks ago I was off out with some friends and had no car so whipped my clipless pedals off the bike and put my old flats back on so I could cycle to their house (about 4miles) in the shoes I was going out in and it felt really weird cycling without being clipped in - but didn't really have any problems. I guess if you're doing this regularly not being clipped in would seem less 'weird' for you. If your 'short distance' is pretty flat and you're happy tootling along I don't think it'd be a big problem - my boss rides in to town at lunch time (about 2miles round trip) with his normal shows on SPD pedals and doesn't have a problem - but I don't think I'd like to be tackling anything remotely resembling a hill or trying to set a PR on Strava on clipless pedals with normal shoes.

I guess if the worst happened and you did have an accident, PC Plod might not be too happy about it....