Bogey Speedwell

Ok, so as a newbie just getting into serious cycling, I was thinking my tight arse would be just fine with flat pedals.

In my travels today for work, stopped by a bike shop I had never been to. The guy asked if I needed help, and I said I was just looking. He was relentless with helpfulness, soooo I asked about clipless, realizing if I were ever to go that direction I needed to try the shoes on in person to find the best fit. Well 300 later ended up with a set of Shimano SPD pedals and Bontrager Foray’s. After I installed them it was like freaking heaven. Unfortunately I can’t ride a ton due to work but rode 10-15 miles per day the last few days in a row, so tonight’s ride analysis was based on real recent feel from flats. Just felt power delivery was more efficient and lifting reduce fatigue as well.

So if your like me and been hesitant to spend the money, but curious about them you don’t have to be stubborn like me, you’ll feel the difference.

koala logs

Clipless are the best in efficiency but if you didn't learn to lift while you're still using flat pedals without any straps / foot retention, you are bound to learn some poor technique (pulling/lifting excessively) on clipless.

Studies were made that some riders are actually more efficient in flat pedals than clipless even though the clipless felt easier. Likely from pulling excessively. If you learned the lifting technique with flat pedals without any straps / foot retention, you'll be doing it properly - simply unweighing the pedals with the right muscles (hip flexors / quads) with modest effort.

Bogey Speedwell

i actually haven’t learned any lifting method, never used straps except in my spin bike, I suppose lust the slight unweighting of one pedal actually would be a slight form of lifting.

Not truly pulling up but just a slight lift I suppose. Thinking my hamstrings would notice if I was truly pulling upwards more than normal. Had no discomfort there.

wolfchild

I don't care if clipless pedals are more efficient ..I have absolutely no interest in clipless pedals.

Bogey Speedwell

best thing about ‘Merica…..no one’s making you. Lol

i wanted to try them and it seemed to work out for me at least in the early stages. Glad they exceeded my expectations. Will probably get SPD’s for my trek as well.

gpburdell

I had a similar experience moving to SPD clipless when I got my roadbike. I found I also felt more "secure" when standing up climbing a hill.

Not sure what style your trek is, but for my hybrid I put Shimano PD-EH500 on it. SPD one side, flat on the other. While they seem to often be wrong-side up I like the flexibility of using the flats for toodling around / errand running and SPD side when riding forest service roads with a group. .

timdow

Glad you found something that works for you. Different for me... I rode clipless for years... now I ride flats. I use my bike for commuting and touring, and find that I really like just one pair of shoes.

KerryIrons

Back in the day both toe clips/straps and clipless pedals were touted as "allowing you to pull up" and therefore deliver more power. Then power pedals were developed and repeated studies showed that no pro cyclist ever pulls up. I pull up once in a great while to relieve pressure on a foot but NEVER as part of regular pedaling. Some people work to pull up but they are wasting their time.

burnthesheep

We already have the first "I'll never use clipless" response to the topic..........now, let's see if we can get a "I'll only wear cotton t-shirts" and a "cargo shorts no bike shorts" posts also to get the tri-fecta.

J_Chickles

What about people with $5000 bikes who sashay around all kitted up? i hate those people

gamu

Sometimes I wear my bib shorts under cargo shorts and a cotton t-shirt... With my dual-sided flats/SPD pedals and my street shoes with cleats...

prj71

Well that was a worthless contribution to this thread.

79pmooney

My journey in better bike efficiency and power was marked by going to toestraps, then pulling the straps tight and pulling up hard to get up the 100' hill to our house, then buying cycling shoes and finally installing cleats. Shortly after, I discovered I had all I needed to race. Just had to buy shorts and a jersey and didn't even have those for my first one.

One of the first things the vets of my club told me was to "spin circles". Power all the way through. What a gift! I still do. And the benefits? I could use the "big muscles" far less for the many meaningless miles in races. When crunch time came and it was all about power (after 4 hours of riding), those big muscles sill could do it. (I an sure I wasted calories, etc pedaling "inefficiently" but no one takes stock of energy used. They just score who comes over the finish line first.)

To this day, I can "delete" any portion of the pedaling circle to not aggravate an injury, nurse tired or pulled muscles, etc and keep riding. And I love pulling up hard; for hills, for accelerations at lights or just to change pace. I have always stood a lot on hills, doing a lot of pulling as I do so. Yes, I gear down and sit for long hills on geared bikes but going so easy on the pulling that I am not lifting my foot? That means wearing out those big guys. I might want them later.

My real love and where I completely come alive is riding fix gears. And the "pretty pedaling" of don't lift your foot off simple doesn't apply there! Not if the road tips up at all

70sSanO

Clipless pedals were always intended as a replacement for the traditional toe clip, strap, and cleat setup that was used for many years. It is hard to imagine in any circumstance where someone would prefer a correctly tighten clip/strap setup over clipless. It is a remarkable system and few, if any, who oppose clipless ride the traditional clip/strap/cleat today. That is the context of the system.

The fact that it is been adopted by the mtb community is remarkable as few could have envisioned being clipped onto pedals when the sport was in its infancy.

One thing I’ve noticed is how few threads there are on BF about clipless systems failing. It has to be one of the best component designs out there.

John

79pmooney

There is one place where traditional toeclips, straps and the old aluminum slotted cleats still rule. On fix gears going down big hills. If you are geared such that you can actually ride that hill, you will be either spinning very fast or braking to limit your RPM. Over 200 RPM is easy to do. (a 42-17 goes 20 mph at 100 RPM on 700c wheels. So 40 mph is 200 RPM. In my crazy years I used to ride down Oakland's Juaquim Miller without touching the brakes. No car ever passed me.

At those RPMs you have no clue how straight you are keeping your foot. Un-cleating happens. And un-cleating with clipless at that RPM is something I don't want to do in this lifetime or the next! With those ancient toeclips and straps pulled tight, my foot's still on the pedal. All I have to do is touch the brakes, slide that foot forward and the cleat back on and swallow the heart that's been lodged in my mouth. Going up steep hills, those toeclips might save me again. Pulling a clipless off the pedal going that hard (straining to muscle the bike over an 18% pitch say) and slamming my knee in to the bars - trust me, not fun. With toestraps that strap might prevent or at least ease the impact.

If you go to the velodrome, you will still see very strong riders using toeclips and straps or at least straps as insurance over their clipless.

rsbob 

As my dear mother always says, “Consider the source”.

koala logs

I tried to do it as a newbie for one year. So I gave it lots of chance. But eventually, I found a better technique which is different.

Not sure if "powering the circle" would actually rest the main muscles. Hip flexion would still use the quads. Knee flexion would use the hamstrings. You would also engage the hamstrings on the downstroke depending on your pedaling technique but you certainly engage them when pedaling out of the saddle. If you're using your glutes, they'd be rested over half of the pedal circle anyway even if you didn't pull.

When GCN did a test on this it did proved that the powering the circle reduced the perceived effort which is a good thing. However, lactic build up was slightly higher (this actually implies the muscles are resting less) and efficiency was a bit lower than if the rider didn't powered the whole circle because of using flat pedals on another set of tests.

It's probably mostly about the perceived effort (feel) and the fact you're already strong to begin with. The reduced perceived effort can provide an effective stimulant to improve performance so I'm not downplaying it.

Here is actually a chart that I superimposed on top of each other, those shaded lines from data Terrymorse shared from another thread. The shaded lines are the actual muscular effort on different leg muscle groups both extension and flexion 360 degrees of the pedaling circle. Those blue chart I got from another source from torque curve along the pedal circle gathered from competitive and recreational cyclists.

What this shows is that pulling have very little contribution to the overall effort despite considerable muscular effort (red shaded lines). The red shaded areas only show you're actually wasting effort trying to pull up the pedals. Very poor returns for the effort invested. The gray shaded lines on the other hand shows you're getting far better returns for the effort invested It's only okay to unweigh the legs on the way up but not pull more than that.

Your success in an otherwise suboptimal technique could be the result of other factors because actual data shows otherwise.

Yan 

Studs prevent your feet from sliding forward and backwards. I've yet to see any studs that prevent your feet from lifting up. That would be magic.

If you're talking about tipping your feet forward to engage the studs to allow you to pull upward, that's bad technique. You can do that for jumps in mountain biking. If you do that all day in road riding or god forbid long distance touring, you're going to have some serious achilles problems.

Unweighing the pedals is not the same is lifting. Lifting means you're actually contributing force to the pedals during the upwards part of the rotation. On the rare occasion I borrow someone else's bike with flat pedals, my feet will fly off the top of the pedals until I get used to it. That's real lifting force. I've never had a problem with excessive lifting. If you have a link to that study I'd be curious to read it.

Yan 

If says in your profile that you ride fixed gear bikes. You don't use clipless riding fixed? What do you use, cages?

koala logs

Yes, but studies where participants thought they were "lifting" the pedals showed, they weren't actually contributing significant force on the upstroke either. But they were contributing a tiny amount of force on the upstroke which means they are using foot retention in the studies. Participants are a mix of competitive and recreational cyclists.

I have posted a chart a few posts up (re-posting below). Those are actually multiple charts I stacked on top of each other to show how the invested muscular effort looks like throughout the pedal circle against actual returns.

Sources for the charts:

https://www.researchgate.net/publica...during_cycling

I used these charts below and stacked them together:




The stacked charts + the chart in the linked study (the shaded lines are leg muscular activity, the one in red is at the upstroke quadrant, considerable muscular investment for little return that's why I colored it red):

Note these charts isn't meant to prove clipless is worse but rather pulling hard is a bad technique. Like I've said clipless is still best for efficiency but only with the right technique!




Segment from GCN showing Simon was slightly more efficient on flat pedals even though he rode on clipless most of his life!! Clipless isn't to blame here but the due to the fact Simon is probably pulling too hard on the upstroke.

livedarklions

Why bother? I know you knee-jerk types will post it for me anyway.

hayden52

Tell that to the sprinters.....

70sSanO

I would guess that sprinters would employ this over the last 50/100 meters.

I would be skeptical if they use it over the previous 150kms.

John

Yan 

Very interesting, thank you. I'm not really sure how to interpret the charts, but I did watch the video. It shows that clipless had lower felt effort, lower heart rate, but more oxygen consumption for the same speed. It's a bit perplexing how clipless can have both a lower heart rate and a higher oxygen consumption. Does this mean clipless allows the body to burn more energy at lower heart rate? To me that sounds like a massive advantage, but I'm not an exercise scientist. They also point out that the experiment was on a constant speed treadmill, where as in real cycling you're constantly accelerating and decelerating, so the pulling is needed more.

Also I should point out that everyone uses clipless in pro cycling. This is big money sport with big funding for science research. If flat pedals were even 0.1% more efficient than clipless, they'd all be riding flats. But they are not. Based on this alone the question is settled as far as I'm concerned. Is there a conspiracy to push clipless in pro cycling to sell products? No, because if clipless didn't exist they could make just as much money marketing high end carbon whatever flat pedals with carbon whatever shoes. It's all the same bling bling BS no matter what form of technology.

livedarklions

I agree that the pro racing universiality is a pretty damn good indicator that it's the superior technology for racing, but I'm not sure it's clear why. There could easily be some subtle ways in which the clipping in improves certain aspects of riding in ways that were difficult if not impossible to duplicate in a lab setting--transitions between positions, bike handling issues, etc.

I think it's also quite possible that any of these advantages might not be significant in a non-racing setting.