Originally Posted by
owenboen
I ride clipless in Look road pedals. I had SPD mountain pedals for a while, but I didn't like them. Here's my two cents.
Road clipless is so much nicer to ride in, but the shoes suck to walk in. Mountain clipless (SPD, eggbeaters, etc.) are still nice, but if you plan on doing any major backpedaling or skidding, expect to have them randomly eject your foot occasionally. If you don't do any of that, go for it, cause the shoes are easier to walk in.
I have owned and ridden both road and mtn style clipless pedals. With mountain pedals, I have run no fewer than four different kinds of pedals.
Except when I was running insanely worn-down cleats on old, worn-down pedals. I have never had my foot "ejected" unexpectedly. Never. And when I was running the stupid, unsafe setup for a week, the times my foot did come out were at times when it would be rather expected, and not remotely at random.
Point here is that if you're going to run clipless pedals of any kind, maintain your ****. Inspect your cleats and pedals periodically, replace/repair/adjust as necessary.
I didn't find road clipless any nicer to ride in. In fact, I found them more of a pain in the ass on all levels. Far more difficult to get properly adjusted, harder to get in/out quickly (relevant in traffic), and walking in road shoes with road cleats is pretty much impractical past six feet.
I like MTN pedals. I like my float. I like my easy in/out. I like that they're easier on my knees. I like that I can walk easily in my clipless shoes (<3 Sidi). And I like that they're still as secure as I could possibly want.
I'm not saying road pedals are bad or pointless or anything, but for my purposes they just don't make sense and I don't like them. Someday I'll build a really nice road bike, and for that I'll have some nice Time road pedals. For city fixed riding, though, it's Time ATAC all the way.