I don't know what to tell ya? Clipless pedals are everyday superior to clips and straps, all day long, literally . I was like King, Sean Kelley, refuse to change over in the mid to late 80s. Finally I did and never looked back. It was all we had back then, raced, trained, and the straps were tighten whenever my feet were in that pedal. It didn't matter if it was city riding in heavy traffic. Give the pedal or quill a little kick and insert foot in pedal in with the foot and pull up on the strap. I can't ride without my foot not attached to the pedal, so immediately I give it a yank and tighten the strap and go.

Tel me after a long hard 60-70 miles on the road, but we get used to it. Cycling is not about comfort, its about pain and suffering but one has to try to reduce that. It will take me a week to get used to it again. The only hard pulling I do is when I get off the saddle. Other then that, lifting my heel to complete the pedal stroke is all the pulling I do. It natural, I don't even noticed it when I lift. I did my pedals like a track rider does unless I dm pushing a huge gear.

One more thing, most people who don't know jam their foot right up into the tor clip. There should be a space there. your foot should never touch the clip. Never. no more hot spot, the cleat does all the work. Oh, I still ride fixed cleat with my clipless pedals, track stand at lights with another friend and try and get close nudge each other with our elbows. Fun times.

Have you sorted out which shoes you will use?

For an event such as Eroica, depending on the gearing you choose, you may end up walking a little on the route. (Though, knowing you get by in and around Portland with old-school gearing, you may not need to walk up any hills.) But you may also spend some time socializing before/after the ride, walking around at the rest stops. And if you ride to the swap meet and bike show the day beforehand, you'll definitely want to walk around some.

So, I think there are really two routes to take:
1) slotted cleats when you don't plan to spend much time off the bike
2) touring style shoes, ideally with some form of slots built into the sole of the shoe.

Slotted cleats are the better option for days when you plan to be on your feet nearly the whole time. Personally, I think touring style shoes *with slots* are a great option for rides like Eroica. I wore my old style Avocet 30 (touring) shoes and they were perfect. I didn't need to walk on the course (36x26 gearing), but I enjoyed not having to walk around the rest stops and swap meet/staging area in cleats. There's not much on the market in terms of shoes like the Avocet 30s, but I've heard (and read in this forum) of people carving slots into their soles.

I did see a set of broken slotted cleats on the side of the trail up Kiler Canyon, and felt bad for whoever had to ride the rest of the way with one cleat.

FTW:

Slotted cleats are not really a big deal once you develop the automatic motions you need to do when coming to a stop. Releasing a tight strap isn't hard at all with just a quick push down with your forefinger and thumb on the buckle tab, and you only have to release one shoe from the pedal at every stop,......... unless you're good at doing trackstands, till the light turns green....
Like already mentioned, you get so used to doing it that you end up looking for the buckle tab to release your foot, even when you are riding clipless pedals....

Feeling like a total dinosaur.... I'm still using the same leather shoes and nail on TA cleats from the 70's.

Never tried clip-less and have all my bikes.... including a Lemond CF..... equipped with Campy Record, Pro Ace, and other similar quill type pedals.

Rarely tighten the straps. My only recommendations are toe strap buttons and those add-on MKS tabs for some pedals. Good luck

You must be using the short TA cleats. The Anquetil cleats with the long steel plate, meant to increase the stiffness of the sole, tended to break.

Yep, but I have an older pair of shoes with the long plates that are still intact as well. I use them in cold weather as the shoes are a bit larger and have no ventilation holes. Custom made for me by REW Reynolds.

A bit off the main topic, but who has used this style clip without straps?



Do they work, and are they difficult to use? Do your feet stay put when you are moving, and is there any difficulty getting out of them at stops?

I bought them on impulse and plan to try them for no particular reason.

They prevent your foot from sliding forward off the pedal, but that's about all. The learning curve is less, but the benefit is minimal compared to clipless or toeclips with slotted cleats. If the learning curve concerns you, just use toeclips with loose straps until you get accustomed to them, and that learning curve is only minimally steeper than you would have for the strapless toeclips you asked about. Then, if you want, start tightening the straps or even eventually move up to slotted cleats with toeclips and straps.

Same here, but I do have a couple bikes with Look-style clipless pedals. I don't have a problem going back and forth between them.

Two of my toeclip equipped bikes are fixed gear, and I always tighten the straps on those because if your foot comes off the pedal on a fixed gear bike, you have to slow almost to a stop before you can get it back on. The strap buttons are particularly nice with a fixed gear, as you only get one opportunity per pedal revolution to tighten the straps, and the button makes it much easier to grab and pull the strap. On a freewheel bike they're not as important, as you can simply stop pedaling with the pedal at the top of the stroke and fumble around until you find the strap and can pull it.

I raced in the '70s. Rode a 105 mile race with the straps pulled tight enough for the 12 mile stretch of hills late that I knew would blow the race apart. Never thought about my feet. Didn't even loosen my laces 'till several hours after finishing and still had zero foot discomfort. (They were very comfortable shoes.) Rode 130 miles fixed a couple of years ago with comfortable feet. All told, I have have about 30k miles on clipless pedals and almost 3 times that on toeclips. Yes, racing is pain. I no longer race in part because I now do not see that as fun, but foot pain was not a part of it. (Well, it was at times, but only until I corrected the problem.)

Now velcro strapped shoes work with toeclips, usually, but going back to laces has been a big step up. (Those old timers knew something.)

Ben

Hi Ben, we talked a lot at Velocirque. I brought the Team Professional on Saturday and the project Bianchi with dual headlights on Sunday.

I need to get new shoes. All I own are MTB clipless shoes. I assume someone makes cleats for two bolt shoes?

I had you confused with gugie. I was thinking this was the project he was working on with his friend and was surprised to see "him". Thanks!

Ben

Yeah, I only have two bolt shoes at present also. You would think somebody would make slot cleats for two bolt but no, apparently. Yellow jersey and Vittoria sell one for 3 bolt shoes. I was considering making some home brew leather tourist cleats if i decide to go, and nailing them to some old dress shoes. Shoes are the main reason I am leaning against L'eroica. Been there, done that. It'd be nice if I had kept a pair of my old cleats in the closet, but I didn't.

I agree with Look171, clipless was a huge improvement. There were times my feet bled from the straps being tight enough to hold my feet.

Hmm. Some searching is turning up no suitable shoe/cleat.

I'm looking for cycling shoes : leather with laces : that can take an old style cleat for toe clips : and don't cost a fortune.

Even hunted eBay for used shoes but all the old time cyclists had tiny feet.

I cut the straps off a pair of Lakes, installed grommets and laces and converted a pair of shoes that were giving my feet real problems to one of my most comfortable ever. LOOK bolt pattern, Exustar cleats. The conversion cost me $12. (Lake uses a last which matches my feet really well. The 2-piece brass grommets work well and look classy. I just got a lead on Oregon Leather having them.

Ben

I would tempted to make an alum or steel plate, mount that to your shimano mtb cleat holes and mount the two bolt plastic slotted cleat to the metal plate.

If your foot is pulling out while spinning or mashing on reasonably smooth roads, work on your pedaling technique first. Your foot shouldn't lose contact with the pedal on smooth roads, including platform pedals without any retention device. The toe clip is mostly to minimize foot bouncing on rougher roads and to encourage smooth pedaling technique, not to provide leverage for pulling up.

If you're pulling up with your feet... don't do that. Bad for the knees.

The classic toe clip shoes of ye olden dayes were Detto Pietros and similar shoes, with thin leather uppers that conformed to the foot but didn't stretch much, and steel shank or similarly rigid soles with cleats nailed or screwed into the soles. The shop would usually add metal, plastic or thick leather taps or protectors to the toe and heel tips. They were efficient while riding and ridiculous to walk in, making the wearer walk like a noisy ballerina with a limp.

Don't get cleated shoes like that just before a big ride. They take time to get adjusted to, and if the cleats aren't set correctly for your feet, knees, etc., you may experience strain and injuries. The old Conventional Wisdom was to set the cleats so the ball of the foot was perfectly centered over the pedal axle. That caused knee strain for me. I preferred the foot slightly farther forward. But I have long, skinny feet with high arches and lifelong arch strain. (Nowadays I prefer platform pedals and center the arch across the pedal axle.)

If you're riding regular shoes without cleats, get something with hard soles, relatively thin, without grippy rubbery sides that can stick to the cages while trying to pull out the foot. That pretty much rules out most running, hiking and athletic shoes. You can cinch down the strap enough to minimize foot bouncing on rough roads, and still yank out your foot in a panic stop.

I totally disagree. Being able to pull up and pedal completely through the pedal stroke is the entire point of shoes with cleats. You might not do it all the time, but it provides more torque when needed for climbing and sprinting. It also allows you to shift the work load around to different muscle groups, a bit like climbing out of the saddle.

You can pedal however you want of course.

Budget option: go to the thrift store, find an old pair of wing tips with leather soles, drill and add t-nuts.

These don't work for you?
EPS-T : E-C101AL

[QUOTE=Salamandrine;19192733]I totally disagree. Being able to pull up and pedal completely through the pedal stroke is the entire point of shoes with cleats. You might not do it all the time, but it provides more torque when needed for climbing and sprinting. It also allows you to shift the work load around to different muscle groups, a bit like climbing out of the saddle.

You can pedal however you want of course.[/QUOT

I have to disagree. You are suppose to spin through the pedal stroke. Lift the heel a little is all young on the up store and that should be second nature. The only time you should feel yourself actually pulling on it is during a sprint or of the saddle riding while throwing the bike around for efficient power transfer. I have never heard of actually pulling up on the pedal while in the saddle. wEll,maybe a little?

In the old days, we always talked about form. Part of efficient pedaling is that, form. One look at a rider, we should be able to see if he's an experience rider or not by the way he pedals. There should be no upper body movement (if you pull up that much, there will be rocking body motion).

The main point of retention is to ensure that contact is confident and consistent.

Using more muscle groups doesn't improve efficiency, it takes energy and oxygen away from the muscle groups that are good at pedaling, and the imbalanced stroke can increase the prevalence of things like knee and lower back pain.
It does provide increased peak torque, but this is relevant far less often than sometimes claimed. You have to be wildly overgeared for the upstroke to be necessary; even 60rpm mash-cruising is something that a no-pulling stroke can handle entirely smoothly.

(Similarly, the need for retention at high RPM is also very overstated. On a bike with a freewheel I'd go as far as to say it's completely irrelevant. I regularly see people saying things like "you simply wouldn't be able spin 120rpm on platforms", but I've never noticed any difficulties doing such things.)

Yep, you'll need cleats to complete the ensemble! They are considered by many to be the invention of a sadistic madman and by others as the best foot locking pedal device of all time. "Back in the day" I went from one to the other depending on the outcome. I will tell you this, you only forget that you're wearing cleats ONE TIME! Just once. If you really had the straps locked down tight, getting out was not an easy feat in an emergency situation.

I had aluminum cleats on my old pair of Detto bike shoes. I took them to the shoe shop to get the cleats attached proper-like...after I wore the groove into the leather sole to locate the natural position of the cleat slot. A lot of fuss for just a shoe...kinda like sew-up tires, er, tubulars. A lot of fuss for a tire.


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When climbing in the saddle, I pull up on the upstroke. Not all the time, but when your quads are limp and burning, you can do 15 or 20 pedal strokes using the hams to pull up, and rest the quads a little bit.

Yeah, that's pretty normal. I'm surprised it is so controversial. Normally I am spinning all the way through the pedaling stroke, but for hills and sprints applying a bit more pressure on the on the upstroke. Back when 42/52 and 13-21 was the norm, that was really the only way to get up 20%+ grades. Sometimes, I pull up on the handlebars too...

BTW, my upper body is dead quiet and my cadence is generally 90-100+.