Originally Posted by
KraneXL
While the debate rages on to whether they're more efficient or not (see out-of-saddle climbing), the one thing they do for sure is take your mind away from foot placement on the pedal. At least that much -- which means a lot over the distance -- is incontrovertible.
This is true! When I ditched clipless, I faced a new dilemma, where to put my feet? But I got over it, and consider it a bonus to be able to move my feet around. The darkside of the fixed-position you get from clipless is, if you can't figure out what the 'perfect' position is, you could hurt yourself from repetitve strain over time. And in order to find/test the perfect cleat positioning, you have to get off the bike and apply a wrench.
Another benefit of typical clipless systems is the shoes have stiff soles and spread the pressure to the entire sole. But this isn't a problem for pinned platforms, which are wide enough to not apply pressure in a small area in the first place, plus your foot naturally moves around a little bit to shift the pressure and keep the circulation going. (This is well covered in the "shoes ruse" article from rivendell)