the article is saying that toe straps were the sht until clip in pedals came along. It's saying that everyone who went from regular shoes and toe straps to stiff soles and clipless pedals are chumps. He obviously doesn't use clipless whatsoever. Take those away, and what does that leave you? Do you actually buy into his argument that the whole clip in concept is there only to make sure the shoes don't slip in wet conditions, or that as long as the pedal doesn't flex there's no loss in energy? I wasn't even talking about spd vs sl, I was talking about why stiff soles (compared to regular shoes) isn't as worthless as he makes it out to be.

and for the record. because spd cleats cover less than a third of the shoe area as sl's, there is more than 3x the pressure exerted on the sole. Unless there's a platform to support the rest of the shoe surrounding the cleat, that small area is going to flex more. The mtb shoes are stiffer because they have thicker soles around that region (from what I've seen), but is that enough to overcome that much more pressure concentrated in a much smaller cleat? Granted, this is a bigger deal during sprints and races, where the force exerted is a lot higher, but I can't help but to question what that means for a long distance tour. That was pretty much the point I asked the question in the first place. And evidently, the response is mixed.