Originally Posted by bragi

The whole pedal question is like religion: no one's going to change anyone else's mind. You just need to try it yourself for a while to see how you like it. Some people really like clipless, and believe that it's madness not to use them. Others do just fine with platforms. Some people (inexplicably, IMO), even like toe clips. Your own experience, not persuasion, will tell you what works.

I tried clipless for a few months, and really liked them. They do improve efficiency a little bit and are easy to learn how to use. However, I ultimately went back to platforms, because I ride in a heavily urban, high-traffic environment, get on and off the bike several times a day, and decided that, for myself, it's just a lot easier to use platforms; the small performance advantage of clipless wasn't worth the hassles to me. But that's just me. You may come to a totally different conclusion.