Road Cycling - Big Feet! Big Pedals?

I picked up my new Surly Cross-check last Friday. It's my first real road bike with drop handlebars and derailleur-type gears. As I become accustomed to it I'm enjoying it more but the necessity of certain "tweaks" is becoming apparent.

The biggest problem is the pedals. It came without any and the LBS put on generic $15 platforms with plastic toe clips. I have a lot of trouble getting my size 13 EEE feet into them. I really don’t want to get involved with clipless pedals and shoes at this point.

My question is: would wider touring pedals be dangerous when cornering due to reduced clearance? I like the look of the MKS pedals pictured below. They protrude 115 mm from the crank. MKS also makes XL sized steel toe clips that fit these pedals. My current pedals are about 100 mm and I have had a couple of minor sneaker rubs in corners.

Any comments/advice/recommendations would be appreciated.

Obviously, your feet have to fit into the clips on your pedals. Pedal size will not matter if you remember to keep the inside pedal up when cornering.

I really don’t want to get involved with clipless pedals and shoes at this point.


Why not?
I wear 16B Diadoras (I forget the metric equivalent) and after over twenty-five years
of toeclips, clipless is fantastic, so much better control and comfort.

I'd think that wide feet would fare much better with clipless.

I'm always amazed when I am about to post a question, and then find pretty much the same question already posted the same day.

I don't have size 13 feet (11.5), but my current toe clips are too small. Any recommendations / links for decent clips. standard pedals, just cant get my feet far enough into the clip and end up cycling on my toes for the entire trip.

Joat

Any recommendations / links for decent clips. standard pedals, Joat

I'm thinking of trying the MKS Sylvan Tour Wide Pedals & XL Steel Toe Clips shown on the attached link. If I get them I'll let you know how they work out.

http://www.yellowjersey.org/toeclip.html

Great, let me know. The ones I have, must go.

I remember some strtchy neoprene (sp?) ones that you kind of twisted into. Those would be good toe clips for big feet.

Don't worry about cornering. I've tried to hit for many years, and can't. When I am turing that hard, I stop pedaling for other reasons...

Clipless are great, and they can be much better for your knees than toe clips. The clips can lock you into a bad position. Clipless with "float" saved me (and many others) a lot of knee pain. The pedal platfors will be very small and intimidating at first. Stiff shoes make them feel big. With stiff shoes and Speedplays, I can't tell they are small.

You may want to give PowerGrip pedals a whirl. Any foot will fit and much easier to get into than traditional toe clips (have them on my commuter)

Think I will try those power grips. I just took off my too small clips, and what a blessed relief. Didn't realize just how much I was standing on tiptoe to pedal.

As far as clipless go, I would love to use those, but it's just not practical for how I commute and use my bike currently. I'm considering getting a pair and swapping them out when I do day trips instead of my commute.

Joat

FWIW, I tried power grips a long time ago when I started mountain biking and found that while the idea was good, they were simply too narrow to fit my medium width size 14 mtb shoes into. They would never really fully fit into the strap. So you might want to check that out. Ended up going clipless and have never looked back; just 2¢ of course...