All I can answer to this is that it contradicts my objective experience, having biked in running shoes for two years before I bought my stiff old Nikes, and immediately benefitted from the difference. It also contradicts anatomy. Your foot is designed to give when it meets resistance, and it does. I don't remember how many bones a human foot has, but it's more than one.

People can still pedal perfectly well in street shoes, of course, and if the greater effort and lost range are no matter, there's no reason for them not to. But I find that the difference between clips and soft shoes and clips and stiff ones is greater than the difference between clips and cleats, especially at distance.

There are some other points in the article that indicate a black-and-white attitude unsupported by multicoloured fact, such as the writer's insistence that nobody pedals on the up-stroke. He's right that the incidence of up-stroke pedaling is grossly exaggerated by the racer-wannabe crowd; recreational riders do very little full-cycle pedaling. Among other things, it requires physical conditioning you don't have unless you're Laurent Fignon.

However, clipped riders do actively return (lift) the unloaded crank with the inactive foot. It's especially obvious those times when you coast for a bit, and then prepare to pedal again; it's the lower foot that lifts the pedal to begin. It does the same thing in active pedaling, though it's less obvious then. You don't feel it much while it's happening, but over hundreds of revolutions, there's a clear economy of effort. I've been riding flat these last few weeks, and the difference is stark and annoying. I'm always wanting to _lift_ a pedal, and I can't.

And then there's that moment when the cement truck is bearing down on you and you actually do that Lance Armstrong full-cycle schtick to get the hell out of the way.

My point is, the writer is correct that recreational riders shouldn't ape racers, because we don't have the same needs or abilities. (Or desires, for that matter.) And in practical terms, every rider has to decide what he or she needs most and compromise accordingly. (Says the cleat-hating retro-grouch.) But the suggestion that "everything is crap" isn't supported by experience.