General Cycling Discussion - Impossible to practice pedaling form without cleats?

So I was watching some pedaling technique videos on youtube and I realized that it would be impossible to pedal "correctly" without having clip in pedals and cleats. Am I correct?

Not completely true. While there are advantages to riding with cycling shoes and clipless systems to attach your feet, there are aspects you can learn without them. For example, keeping cadence high can be practiced with or without being attached to the bike.

Also, toe clips are a lower cost alternative that worked for years before the advent of clipless pedals. If budget is an issue, they are still an alternative that will allow proper pedaling techniques.

Quite right, you can ride a bike with toe clips and shoes with cleats made for rat trap pedals. It is a less expensive system. Proper pedalling technique evolved with this equipment. Clipless pedals have been around for only about 25 years.

toe straps ratcheted down will do fine. all clipless provides is a more comfortable
foot and not binding the circulation. but you can crank down toestraps and be
as secure as clipless just dandy

with no cleat no straps, then the best you can do is a pointy (sharp) bmx pedal with sneakers,
and get 85%....maybe

There's no reason NOT to use clipless if you like them, but I've tried several systems over the years on many different bikes, and at least for me there's no advantage. I've done the same 25-mile commute 75-100 times a year since 1979, plus thousands of other rides, and there's no difference at all in my average times with platform pedals (no clips), with toe clips and straps or among any of the three clipless systems I've tried. My fastest time home from work (500 foot gain in 12.4 miles) came on an old Trek touring bike, with rat-trap pedals, toe clips and loose straps, on 700x35 tires at 80psi. It was just a good day, I was in decent shape and hammered all the way home. That mattered more than the bike, pedals or tires.

Contrary to popular belief, studies have shown that almost nobody pulls up consistently on the pedals, or truly pedals "in a circle," as experts often recommend. They can measure pedal force with strain gauges, and it just doesn't happen except for a few strokes during sprints. A lot of what you hear and read is unsubstantiated by evidence. Grant Petersen at Rivendell claims to be just as fast with BMX pedals as he is clipped in, and I believe it.

So I was watching some pedaling technique videos on youtube and I realized that it would be impossible to pedal "correctly" without having clip in pedals and cleats. Am I correct?

For some bicyclists, there is more to cycling than using the "correct" cycling technique approved or promoted by alleged bicycling/fashion "experts." Not all of us are practicing to be something else.

So I was watching some pedaling technique videos on youtube and I realized that it would be impossible to pedal "correctly" without having clip in pedals and cleats. Am I correct?


I think you could turn this around and say that it is impossible to pedal "wrongly" under those circumstances, as you are likely pedaling exactly the way the equipment was intended to be used.

I think by the same reasoning, you could say that without a recumbent, it's impossible to sit correctly on a bicycle. But, in fact, the majority of cyclists are perfectly content to sit more or less upright, even if it is theoretically slower, and the same holds true with the pedaling system.