It probably depends on both your shoes and your riding style. I have pinned pedals and generally wear a pair of shoes with a stiff sole and fairly hard rubber bottoms with a robust tread pattern with several distinct indentations. I've torn some pretty good chunks out of them, and I think my feet may rotate some when I stand to pedal. Hasn't made the shoes unusable, but there are pieces missing that would be there but for the pins. Have a pair of duck boots that I wear for rain, and knowing what the pins did to my shoes, make sure to smoothly spin rather than jerk the bike around when using those. So far, so good with the spinning.