Originally Posted by Phantoj
The downside of clipless is that you always have to wear the fancy shoes when you want to ride. So you can't just hop on and ride a mile or two to the library or whereever. Or Starbucks, ha ha. But road bikes aren't ideal for that kind of utility riding, and you can buy inserts for your clipless pedals if that's important.
Look at the clearance stuff in Nashbar, and you can get a pair of shoes and some basic pedals for a lot less than $150.
However, IMO, better shoes (Sidis) are worth it if you ride a lot.
Some Candy C pedals will let you use road or mtn shoes. You can even pedal them in sneakers too.
They are super fast to clip into also. In fact, I've clipped in accidently more than once when I was planning on coming to a stop.