Originally Posted by antimonysarah

Yeah. I think people are weirdly obsessed with bashing city riders who really, really want to avoid it for understandable reasons -- a wobble in Boston traffic means cars doing SO MANY weird things around you, even if you hold your line pretty well. And one is often going a lot slower, even if a strong rider, possibly in poor shoe choices. (Especially if one is female. Riding in slick-soled high-heeled shoes in heavy traffic trying to arrive completely unsweaty is very different than roadie riding, and some people only have one bike that has to do it all.) Neither of my city bikes have overlap (one is an old slack-angled rigid MTB, the other is a Brompton, which only overlaps my toes when folded at my feet on a subway train).

As for my roadie -- 50cm (ish, it's a custom), fenders, no toe overlap even with the fenders on and an endurance-y cleat position. But also size 39 feet. The frame is actually spec'ed as having overlap (custom, they asked if I cared, I said no), but it doesn't for me.

I do occasionally smack my right foot into the front wheel starting at stops while turning left, if I'm too busy paying attention to traffic to clip in while turning hard and have the center of my foot resting on the pedal. (I'm a right-foot-downer.) But I don't ride it in heavy traffic much.