We had a thread yesterday, the OP was asking about toe clips, toward the end myself and a few others sort of derailed it to a rally in favor of going clipless. More that one person seemed to have some strong opinions away from clipless.

I'd like to open a story thread dealing with you're success or lack of---using clipless pedals.

My story is, I was being told by everyone I was riding with that it was the way to go, you will never look back.
Unsure I order pedals and shoes from nashbar, got the house brand combo deal. I show up at the trail parking lot, my friend that was also a LBS wrench, put them on the bike and got the cleats on the shoes. I ride around the soccer field, very cool locked into the bike ride up to the group-smile beaming and fall over. I should mention the continuous laughing for a least 5 minutes.

Welcome to clipless. That first day I must have hit the ground 10 times easy, as we pull back into the parking lot 2 hours later I remember to twist my foot and just like that I was starting to get it.

Fast forward to the following weekend, I was heading upstate with a friend. It's different there.

Long Island is well an island, flat and we got sand---lots of it.
Upstate is mountains, steep climbs and rocks---lots of rocks. It was a first for me and I was only a week on the clipless setup.

It was the best dam time and it was where I learned how being able to push/pull (pedal in circles) gave me a lot of power on the climbs, bunny hopping over nasty stuff no problem.

That's my story---next.