Originally Posted by
cyccommute
You don't seem to understand your quote on reaction time. The time it takes to assess the situation and react to it is lengthened due to situations but the movement time isn't. The movement time in that quote is the time it takes for a driver to move their foot from the accelerator to the brake. The movement needed to unclip from a clipless pedal is even less than that movement and can be accomplished in a shorter time span.
Agreed the movement time remains quite the same whatever the situation (though i doubt the reaction of unclipping is faster than braking for a driver). But the reaction time is what matter in the end. It is the whole process vs just a part of it.
I believe you can probably react with clipless pedals as fast as with platform pedals as long as you use only that so that the action of doing it has become a reflex. I doubt it is the case with hybrid pedals since you don't act the same depending on which side you're putting your feet on
Now regarding the movement of putting the foot on the ground from the pedal. Won't consider the fact that muscles involved in putting the foot on the ground from a platform pedal are not exactly the same as those involved in the unclipping process. Let's say that the physiological speed limit of muscle contraction is nearly the same in both cases and that twisting the foot (clipless) is as fast as moving up the foot (platform).
A potential advantage at first of clipless pedals here is that unclipping seems at first faster at removing the foot from a platform though shoes with clips don't usually have as much grip on the ground than normal shoes. Unclipping requires to move the heel horizontally away from the bike then moving the foot down.
Removing the foot from a platform requires to move the foot up diagonally then down from higher so the foot has to move on a bigger distance than when unclipping. But unclipping voluntarily requires more accuracy since you must reproduce more or less the same movement to be able (when you're not into crashing mode as in this case it unclips in any direction). On platform once your foot have left the pedal it is free to move in all directions so you can adapt to most if not all situations. When your heel start moving during the unclipping process your foot is still tiep up to the pedal you can't move up nor rearward you have to move your heel away from the bike first. Unless it is in crashing mode.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLZbijqcjtw
Furthermore, during motion while unclipping, your feet are slow down by the unclipping process. On platform pedals nothing prevent your feet from keeping moving.
Originally Posted by
Rider_1
So you take an extremely rare and unlikely scenario and extrapolate it to a point where you argue against clipless. You would have been more screwed if you were in toe clips, and clipless prevent far more accidents than the rare occasions that they (you seem to think) contribute to them. It's like that saying about motorcycle riders: There are two kinds - those who have crashed, and those who are going to crash. It is much better to use clipless and risk the possible anomaly than not wear clipless and face the inevitable accident that is going to come from not wearing them. So you had an exceptional experience. It's not the norm, and no reason to rail so strongly against them.
Risk isn't just about probability but damage and exposure as well. The probability is low but the damage when being run over by a 2-ton car is ultimate=dead. It is the reason why we're not even bothering with the 0mph fall inherent to clipless pedals for which the probability of occurrence is certainly higher but the damage is pretty low unless a car is coming from behind or other high damage risks. Plane hijack is very unlikely when compared to the number of planes that fly everyday, why so much security then when going by plane? Remember, unless you can escape from it, only one accident like mine is all it takes.
Secondly, the probability of this accident happening to me isn't extremely low but 100%, the probability of this occurring again hasn't changed and is still pretty low and is probably quite the same for everybody here. A human bias is to increase the probability of a future event when a similar one already happened. Not the case here. Random events requiring actions not compatible with clipless pedals and leading to extreme damages are unknown but can adds up to each other leading to higher probability. There are pro and cons for each solution. I'm sure there are cases where platform pedals are less secure.
Other examples i can think of where clipless pedals are not an advantage :
-brake cable that fail while braking, gravels, wet road that prevent efficient braking during an unexpected event, missing a turn which lead to going toward a ravine for instance (requires to jump from the bike)
-a very likely scenario: car leaving a parking lot that was hidden by a bush and appears suddenly in front of you for which you don't have enough distance to stop nor avoid. Usually we have enough time to avoid collision though. In this case, you would anticipate that something may potentially appear from behind the bush and unclip. If you don't have enough distance to avoid collision and haven't unclipped what you will probably do is to put your hand or feet in front of you to protect yourself (putting your feet in front of you isn't an option here since your feet are perhaps still tied up to the clipless pedals). You could also fall on the ground but then the risk is to be run over by the car moving that you try to avoid.