VCSL2015

Contemplating Cycling Shoes- How long did it take you to take the switch from regular sneakers to road shoes? Did you experience any falls?

Cyril 

Took me a couple of rides.
Yes, I fell.

randallr

My wife made this switch pretty easily by getting Shimano light action SPD Click-R pedals (easy in and out) and some Pearl Izumi Fuel shoes. She has never fallen since this switch a couple of years ago.



They don't have enough pullout resistance for me, however. I use Speedplay so I can reef on my pedals as hard as I want

gjhsu

I learned the chops on mountain cleats, and fell a couple times, before making the jump to full road cleats. No spills yet on them (knock on wood).

TrojanHorse

I fell once, about 17 years ago. My wife has fallen several times in the last two years. How are your bike handling skills? If it's all very natural to you, cleats should pose no significant problem. They only trouble usually occurs during a panic stop when you forget you need to unclip, and then you frantically yank at your feet in the wrong direction.

jeneralist 

I did better with cleats than I did with the old-style "clips" (aka, cages for your feet). Fell the first day I was using the clips: needed to put my feet down quickly, and the only way out of the cage is to pull your foot backwards -- not an intuitive motion! Cleats -- I started with SPD, then moved to Crank Brothers "egg beater" style -- give you a lot more ways to get your foot off the pedal and on to the ground.

Of course, I also developed the habit of riding with one foot un-attached if I see traffic ahead.

DrIsotope

Got used to being clipped in within minutes. Have never fallen. Now I can't even ride flats-- I instinctively try to pull up on the pedal and my legs jerk around like I don't know what I'm doing. Completely worth the change.

VCSL2015

I love this feedback. Thank you!

VCSL2015

Huh. didnt know this was an option. This is definitely something i will read about. Im not worried about clipping IN. Its Clipping out im having a freak out about.

Was at the store on Black Friday. Tried on what they had available. I received amazing service with one of the personnel. It was awesome to hear he had road bike experience and could put some of my questions to rest with fitting. I couldn't understand why he was so helpful. (American type customer service is hard to find in my area). I almost had to push him off me. When he peeled himself away from my presence it became clear. The shoes were 3000kr- roughly 450- . Well the shoes did fit amazing LOL and Im certainly sold on the Dial closure. Awwww-sumeeee. All in all a good trip to the store. Came home more knowledgable , and without shoes. But did more research. =) I just love helpful people.

bo31210

You will more than likely fall (you will be the anomaly if you dont) What I would suggest is get the pedals installed and head to a local high school football/soccer field or a large grassy area and practice to your heart's content. That way when you do fall, it wont be as bad. I love clipless pedals and have been using them since the late 80s when the only ones you could find were Looks. Wish I had still had those!

VCSL2015

"Obviously, this style of pedals is thusly called the “clipless pedal”. Such a seemingly counter-intuitive name owes itself to the history of the pedals which preceded it."


STUPID! Some S* just needs to Change! and its not me. Every sport should lend itself to less confusion not more.

VCSL2015

Im afraid ill scratch my bike lacquer. Ill see if i cant wrap my bike in foam first.

bo31210

Hence riding on grass to learn If you go your whole cycling career worrying that you will scratch your bike you will miss all the fun. And seriously, you would wrap the bike in foam? If you do, please post pictures

Fly2High

I learned to clip in and out on my turbo trainer. No chance of falling when the bike is attached to it. SO far I have had times where I started to fall but was able to disengage and caught myself just before hitting the ground. I have Shimano SPD-SL cleats and like that they are larger and the front hooks into the pedal and then I step down to lock it. I find I am one of the quicker ones to engage. A little kick out of the heel and I am disengaged. Also, SPD-SL pedals are rear weighted so that the front is up and able to receive the cleat. I find it easy.

My recommendation is find the cleat system that speaks to you and you find easy. Some like regular SPD, LOOk or one of the other systems. They all work and all have their fan base. Get the ones that work for you. You wnat to be able to do it without looking.

Also, my pedals do have tension adjustment which I turned all the way to the weakest setting. At first this was fine and made it easy to unclip. After a while as I got more confident and pedaled harder, I once unclipped during a harder effort and now have the tension set a little closer to the middle. Haveing tension adjustment is nice.

Finally, some cleats have what is called float. this allows the foot to rotate a bit without unclipping. I like this. ON the SL cleat I have, it is the cleat that determines the amount of rotation needed before it unclips. You can buy zero, 6 deg. and at least one other degree of rotation cleat to satisfy how your feet work and amount you want before unclipping. Some systems have this setting instead of via the cleat, it is built into the pedal (I think). this is nice to have.

Best of luck and I am sure you will be fine.

Hermes1

Been there and done that but so worth the switch. Since my early trial and tribulations several years ago when I made the switch, I have learned to anticipate stops so I can un-clip, but there is the unexpected where a very quick stop is required and you may not have the time to un-clip and over you go. Fortunately it has only happened a couple times in the several years I have been clipping in.

1nterceptor

Tried toe clips & straps on my first roadbike(red Ross) 20 years ago; fell once or twice.
Fast forward about 7/8 years ago. I started cycling again. After a year or two; I started
putting clipless pedals on any bike that I bought. Hybrid, folder, roadbike. Haven't fallen
because of my pedals yet after 7 years. Have slipped on some wet metal plates; but the
type of pedals I was using wouldn't have made a difference.

Current set-up; Xpedo titanium SPD compatible pedals with Scoot Tour shoes on my folder:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fh5V...IoDLA&index=10

Speedplay X/2 pedals and Sidi Dominator shoes on my roadbike:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-rQ...6zPoymgKaIoDLA

ptempel

+1

I commute with Look style road pedals daily so they can be not as easy to click in as other systems. But it shows that you can use just about any pedal system, really. Some things I learned the hard way:

- I place my foot flat on the ground when stopping. This reduces wear and tear on the front part of the plastic cleat.
- I usually put my butt in the saddle first when starting out (before clipping in the other foot). I had a spectacular fall earlier this year being out of the saddle and trying to clip in and missing. Nothing hurt except for my pride.
- Make sure cleat bolts are secure and don't use grease on them. Check new bolts (and cleats) every once in a while. I've lost a bolt or two in the past from not checking.
- Might be only for Look, but I prefer the cleats with the rubber pads on them. They help when I need to walk a short distance in the shoes by preventing me from slipping.
- Try furniture polish (like Pledge) on cleat and pedal surface to reduce squeaks. Think I read this in another thread here on BF.

DarkShot

Moved to SPDs this past Summer, was enticed by the concept of it. Ended up with some cheap Mavic MTB shoes and a set of M520s. Promptly fell within a week, but at least it took the whole week. Laughed it off and kept going. I now exclusively ride clipless; roadie rides with the Mavics, general street/commuting/errands with a set of DZR Mamba combination street/clipless shoes.

I set the pedal tension to the lowest setting and used the SH56 multi-release cleats just to learn. The first day I spent a good 15-20 minutes against a wall practice the clip-unclip motion. The following 20 was noodling up and down the street with one foot clipped in and practice the same thing. Slowly but surely, it's become almost second nature.

I switched over to the standard release SH51s a couple weeks later when I found the multi-release cleats too easy to pop out from pulling every now and then, even with the pedal tension set relatively high. Over time, I've upped the tension on the pedals so there's a very solid feel in the release and actually feel way more comfortable riding clipless than platform. Riding with flat pedals feels so foreign now.

VCSL2015

Thank you Frank. Very comprehensive post.

VCSL2015

^âwesome posts. All these posts are helpful

VCSL2015

Who unclips both feet when they stop?

DrIsotope

Not I. I will routinely do a 2+ hour ride and never unclip one foot. I've no idea why it's this way: I only unclip my right foot. I've tried unclipping the left at stops and I feel like I'm out of control. Unclipping both feet is for getting off the bike.

burntorange08

I learned on and still use crank bros candys which work well for me on a road bike and a touring bike. When learning I fell twice on grass while making slow circles clipping and unclipping and doing panic stops and quickly unclipping.

My suggestion and what I did to remember to unclip is to put a 3m sticky note sticky tab on the handle bars to remind you to unclip every time you look down. I had a bright pink one stuck to my stem for a month until unclipping became second nature and never had a fall other than the first day circling in the grass.

burntorange08

I only unclip my left foot ever unless I'm getting off the bike. Leaving one foot stuck to the pedal helps with quickly getting going again.

Fly2High

I also only unclip one foot to help get restarted again. having to clip both makes it rather difficult to get going for me. Having one in, even if I miss a clip, I can still get through the intersection using one foot clipped in.

I prefer to unclip the left leg. Most people, including myslef, will tend to fall over onto the clipped in side. For me , my thinking was do I want to fall into traffic or away from is should I go down. I feel I am less likely to fall on an unclipped foot than a clipped in one so I got into the habit of undoing the left. Just make sure you leave enough room when next so someone else when you stop since you will be leaning over to one side a bit and if you are next to someone who does the opposite, you could cause each other to fall.