Originally Posted by
79pmooney
But, if you are riding the street (and hills) fix gear, those Shimanos have real value especially because of their toestraps . Point by point:
- For getting your foot out in a emergency it's worse than either clipless or flats - pedaling 200 rpm and having one foot come off the pedal and getting your ankle struck from behind by that pedal is an emergency that dwarfs the consequences of going down strapped in. I haven't done it yet but that remains one of my nightmares and keeps me on toeclips with quality straps.
- Getting in and out of the pedal every time your stop is a pain as you have to flip the pedal right side up. - yeah, but you get over it.
- For convenience you can't beat flats - see the 1st response, Theat lifelong injury wouldn't be "convenient".
- The "look"...well...it just sortalost it's "cool" appeal when they stopped using it in racing if you want the racer look it's clipless - they are still considered a good track pedal and still show up at velodromes.
I don't have those pedals for their looks. I put big steel tabs on them for quick pickup, then add heavy washers to the toeclip bolts to pull the toe down, offset the tab weight and add a touch of inertia to the pedal rotation. All this makes for an easy pickup.
I'd literally be copying and pasting my previous post. Like I said, if your priority is convenience than they're far less convenient than flats. If you don't don't care about convenience and care about the above points (not a lot of people are pedalling at 200rpm) then clipless does it better, keeping your foot more firmly attached, while also letting you get out of the pedal faster and easier. Use whatever you want but one see why they stopped putting serious development effort into straps after clipless came out.