Originally Posted by harlot
I won't waste my time getting blue in the face, but I want to emphasize that another reason track racers use clips or clipless pedals is for safety reasons. When you're going > 25 mph and pedaling at over 100 rpms in a paceline or in a pack of people with no brakes, finesse is the defining line between finishing safely and having a crash. When you're going at that speed, you cannot possibly afford to have your foot come off the pedal. There is no way you can recover the pedal at that speed and you will end up flailing as you try to recover your balance, swerving around, and causing the people around you great peril. This happened the other week at our velodrome (someone came out of their clipless pedal) and the other riders in the paceline were not happy about it, as it could have ended quite badly.
I had started a post about the benefits of clipless, but thought better. There are a myriad of reasons why clipless is better and the analogy you drew about it being cheating is quite naive and ignorant. You're making judgement on something you've never tried. Anyhow, harlot summed it up right.
Hope you keep learning and do try clips or clipless at some point -- it'll be a world of difference, but then again, you're not going to listen are you?
