I climb a 14% hill on my regular trip home from the coffee shop. I find the SPDs keep me in the correct position over the pedals and may prevent a sudden lurch off the edge if I lose concentration when it gets steep. That said, I enjoy riding around town on the platform side with ordinary shoes/sandals. Yes, my double sided steel pedals are heavy but I've lost the weight battle already with my 17# ebike retro-fit! (gravity of descending pedal lifts the ascending pedal??) :^) The ones mentioned by veganbikes are a bit lighter.