Hello People

I'm in the process of buying new pedals for my 2011 GF Mamba. I know that for thousand of reasons clip pedals are what 99% of MTBers use...

Being new to the sport I don't really know how to categorized the difficulty of trails that I'm doing but I can tell that some of those trails I go very VERY fast in narrow places/corners and small jumps. I said this cause all of these trails I ride I've done them with my platform pedals. Maybe with new pedals I'll risk just a little bit more. Now that I'm going to change pedals my indesicion comes cause I really don't like clip shoes. They look horrible and feel very unconfortable, at least the 2 or 3 I've sized.

I'm not going to go competitive here, I use my bike also to go out with my family and do a little bit of road for exercise during the week. So my question is: Will I really feel the difference between strap pedals and clip pedals for the type of biking I'll be doing?

The thing is that I like strap pedals cause they give me the liberty to use my skate shoes but if clip pedals are going to make a REALLY big difference then I will not hesitate to go that way.

Any comment or adviced will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you all in advanced