I ride in a pair of skate style "non-slip-grip" work shoes. They grip fairly well now on cheapo pedals that are the plastic in the middle and thin metal plate around the outside kind. Hopefully these nicer pedals will grip better than those and I won't slip off and bash my shins too much. As for the shins, I haven't had any serious incidents yet. If I start bashing and scraping myself up then I'll invest in some shin guards. If I do screw up it won't be anything terribly new to me. I used to skateboard and BMX dirt jump in highschool. Neither of those are particularly shin friendly. And I'll probably pick up some bike shoes sometime in the somewhat near future, but for now it's not in the budget. I'm still working on building up a bike that will stand up to hard riding with some jumps and hucking without spending too much.