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Old 11-19-21, 10:19 AM
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livedarklions
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Originally Posted by cyclezen
OMG! another lesson learned !
so, I haven't really ridden with flat pedals in quite some years (decades ??? ). Yeah, sure, I have fooled around for a short bit on bikes with flats on them, but not really for an actual 'ride'.
Spend most of my time on my roadies, but also have done a reasonable amount of time MTB, no DH, just allround riding on some local open spaces and our very extensive Los Padres Forest/backcountry. I am a conservative offroad rider, so careful and mostly slow, with some speed on routes I have confidence on.
So, on EVERY ride I'm always clipping into my 'clipless' pedals - most often some version of eggbeaters - this includes MTB...
For reasons of 'balance' due to health issues, I haven't ridden much in last 3 yrs, until this Apr, and NO mtb...
Wanted to get back into mtb, so went out to some Los Padres Firebreaks/Forest roads, wider single trac on Wed, solo... Decided I wanted to be 'safe', so I decide to ride the 'flat' side of some duel sided pedals I put onto my mtb...
Boy ! What a lesson. I was choppy on strokes, feet floating all over the pedals, and even sometimes slipping off ! Felt like total beginner !!!!
I had become completely reliant on being clipped in! Flats on roads for short sections seems not as 'telling' - on mtb/offroad, pedaling skills are really challenged !
I've decided to ride MTB at least once a week - and using FLATS !!! get some skills back!
Any suggestions/links/comments for things I should do, try or consider in getting some good Flat Pedal Skills back?
All comments/snarky or otherwise, are welcome on the topic ! LOL !
'Danny Mac, I am not... LOL!
Ride On (and keep learning...)
Yuri

General comment as I have never ridden clipless and don't MTB much, so advice would be worthless.

We had one of those "flats vs. clipless" threads a few years back, and I responded truthfully "I do that all the time" to the various "you can't ____ on flats" posts. After it became obvious that the posters were really saying "I can't ___ on flats" and also claiming that I only could because I lacked the skill to ride clipless, I finally said that they had convinced me that riding flats is actually a skill they lacked and that I have. This, of course, caused some indignation on their part.

So this is interesting to me, can you follow up in a while as to whether your flat riding improves with practice?

BTW, I freely admit that riding clipless is a skill I lack. I have a mechanical issue with my ankle that makes restraints of any kind very painful, so that's not going to change.
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