Today since my pedals died at the axles again I went to the LBS and saw a cheap set of clips and straps. Yes.... clipless is cool but right now I want to play with clips and straps. Anyhow, I'm a bit stumped as to how one gets going. Its easy enough to put one foot in, but when you start moving its trickier to get the other foot in. I figured if anyone knows about such old tech it would be the folks in classic.

Some people just use the toe clip (and you can get half depth toe clips) and not the straps - I guess that makes it easier.

For me, although I like the retro look, it's one part of the bike where newer is best.

Just sit on the bike, stationary, and practice. Put your foot on the inverted pedal, then pull back, rolling the pedal backwards from inverted to rightsideup, with toe slipping into the clip as the pedal turns. Straps loose.

Makes sense. Thanks. If you leave the straps just loose enough to give you an exit if you need it will it make much difference to the actual power transferred to the pedal? I've been doing one pedal drills on the stationary bike and its kind of fun. I'd bet you could do the same on a real bike as well and break up a 6-10 hour ride a bit. It seems every man and his dog rides clipless, but I like being able to wear whatever shoes I need for the day and still ride my bike. I usually use bmx/studded pedals and they stick really nicely, but I figured I'd try something different and see what (if any) difference it makes.

Kind of depends on your footwear too. Some shoes slip in easily. Others don't.

Army boots with zips and fairly smooth soles are my footwear of choice for winter commuting. In the summer I either wear hiking sandels or light weight running shoes.

Then you might want to try them before you buy. Your boots might not even fit into clips and straps.

at $10 they are an experiment. I'm pretty sure the boots will fit in ok, they are smoother than my running shoes which fit fine. I'm betting the sandels will be ok as well. Besides at that price if they last 2 months before the bearings fail I'll be surprised. My bikes are my only form of transport and my pedals don't last more than 3000-5000km at best before the bearings fail and I LOATH wobbly pedals.

My method (and it could be very wrong):

Start with a foot in at the top of the stroke. Push down, as your empty pedal comes around to about 10 o'clock, use your toe to start flipping the pedal over. By the time the pedal reaches 12 o'clock, you should be sliding your foot forward on the now, upright pedal. This forward action will then turn into your next pedal stroke. Tighten the strap on the next pass. Practice makes perfect.

Good blow by blow 20 grit. Sounds like how I do it too. Flipping the empty pedal with the toe of a boot might be a little tricky, but with practice you'll probably get it.

On the bearing failure issue, that sounds like very few miles before failure. What kind of pedals? Seems to me they should last longer than that.

Nobody mentioned it (or if they did I messed it) but there's nothing wrong with pedaling on the bottom of the pedal for a few strokes until you gain enough speed to coast while you're struggling with that last recalcitrant pedal. The clip may scrape the ground but that's okay.

ITried cheap magnesium body/cro moly axle pedals and they gave me about 6000km befire the bearings started to lose it. They were around 50 dollars. Then I tried a slightly cheaper model of the same style that gave me around 4000km. Lately on my 2 beaters I run alloy/plastic el cheapos since they are going to fail anyway

. I think there must be a bmx style pedal with replaceable bearings. Sadly my lbs doesn't stock such a thing, just lots of clipless pedals and shoes. None of which are any use to me since Koreans have small feet anc getting a 290mm bike shoe is impossible.

My Campy NR pedals are 40 years old, with probably at least 10k miles on them, maybe 20k, and show no signs of failing. Many pedals have a tab on the back side to assist with flipping them up to put your foot in. I would look for some used vintage pedals (Suntour, MKS, Shimano, etc.). Here on bikeforums is a great place to pick some up. Seems like many modern components are designed to fail and are not rebuildable

When I ride clips/straps, I usually do not tighten the straps much at all anymore, and don't have a problem with my feet coming out unintentionally. YMMV.

+1

This is the story with most of my footwear, not just my boots. With being 8-1/2EEEE and having a high arch that needs good support for walking nothing I own really works well for clips & straps. I've got a bunch of cool retro pedals but can't really use them with anything that I care to wear except for a pair of old worn-out bowling shoes.

The MKS deep clips might work.

I want to love the XT platform pedals, but my favorite pedals actually are some Mongoose BMX pedals that came on my Stumpjumper.

And some have bigger tabs than others:



This is particularly nice with a fixed gear, where you don't have the option of holding the pedal still whilst attempting to insert your shoe.

It will be much easier (and second nature) after a few weeks. Don't over think it in the mean time!

I blame this thread, after reading it this morning I had a pain in the ass time getting my feet back in the clips about halfway through the ride...

^^ I like those look very easy to get into and the way they look to be built I'd bet they won't break for a long time.

Thank you. Finally figured it out. Use hands to get one before starting, get moving fast enough so the bike is balanced and in a safe place, lock foot down at its lowest and use the other foot to flip over the pedal and jam it in before the thing flips back over. The placement has to be perfect, but I leaned the bike against a wall and just kept at it until I could do it by feel. I kind of like the way they feel going up a hill, not sure if they are actually helpful, but it does FEEL like I'm using a few more muscle groups. Still, I may see if I can find some shoes large enough and try clipless... it is kind of nice to have the pedals follow your feet and not the other way round.

Unfortunately, those are no longer made. But Mikashima recently brought out a clone of that design they call the "Urban Platform:"