Originally Posted by Wittyname (Post 18164084)

I've been using Crank Bros Eggbeaters all year, no issues yet. If you're already comfortable with the shoes/pedals you have, keep them, just keep a pair of 'work shoes' at work, and maybe throw a pair of flip-flops in your bag to walk inside in

Originally Posted by CrankyOne (Post 18166089)

This is a good point that I hadn't thought of. When I was racing we spent considerable time analyzing pedal stroke for power and efficiency and a gob of time training to use that info and develop good strokes. So for an average person (and I'd include me today) there may be little or no benefit.

Perhaps the best benefit is that the cleats force you to place your foot in the proper place on the pedal but that's easily done with flats as well.

Originally Posted by PatrickGSR94 (Post 18166196)

I don't have too much trouble flipping between the flat or clip-in sides of my pedals. Most often the clip-in side faces up, which is good because I wear my SPD shoes most of the time (even for grocery shopping, easier to pull heavy loads when clipped in). But if I'm just wearing flip flops or my office shoes to lunch or something, it's no big deal to push down on one pedal's clip-in side for a couple revolutions then flip it over after I get moving.

Originally Posted by ThermionicScott (Post 18166125)

I'm of the mind that it's better to commit to SPD or platforms for a particular bike for commuting. If a pedal has SPD on one side and a flat surface on the other, you often have to deal with flipping a pedal to the correct side when taking off from a stop, and that's especially frustrating if you're new to the attachment system and there are impatient cars behind you waiting for you to get it together and go. With dedicated pedals (flat or clips on both sides), you just put your foot down, and it will work without having to look down or think about which side is up. :)

Originally Posted by CrankyOne (Post 18166089)

Perhaps the best benefit is that the cleats force you to place your foot in the proper place on the pedal but that's easily done with flats as well.

Originally Posted by PatrickGSR94 (Post 18163412)

I have double-duty SPD pedals on both my road bike and my utility bike. Shimano PD-A530's on the road bike and M324's on the utility bike. That way I can use regular shoes or SPD bike shoes, whatever I feel like. But I commute with Bontrager SSR SPD shoes. They look like normal shoes pretty much.

Originally Posted by ThermionicScott (Post 18166125)

I'm of the mind that it's better to commit to SPD or platforms for a particular bike for commuting. If a pedal has SPD on one side and a flat surface on the other, you often have to deal with flipping a pedal to the correct side when taking off from a stop, and that's especially frustrating if you're new to the attachment system and there are impatient cars behind you waiting for you to get it together and go. With dedicated pedals (flat or clips on both sides), you just put your foot down, and it will work without having to look down or think about which side is up. :)

Originally Posted by PaulRivers (Post 18167532)

Yeah, it's a series of tradeoffs though. The thing is that with flats, if you are overusing something in your leg your foot will move around a millimeter or whatever so that it doesn't cause you a problem. With clipless your foot can't move, so if you're rubbing something wrong inside your leg you're stuck.

It's easier to set someone up from a fit with clipless, but more difficult to get them properly fitted to begin with. Clipless can cause people issues that don't have issues with flats. Like personally, 2 fitters and 3 pairs of shoes did not cure my knee pain with clipless (that I did not get with flats). I happened to start doing barbell squats and when I got the form right, that actually fixed it, but but the problem was more than just a fitting issue.

Originally Posted by jfowler85 (Post 18168800)

If I miss the binding on takeoff, not difficult to do when the traffic line gets moving, I just plant my shoe on the pedal and start pushing. When pedaling like this, the key is to let your clipped side do most of the work. When you get going, flip that thang over and turn the afterburners on.

Originally Posted by ThermionicScott (Post 18168848)

Yeah, it's not the end of the world if you can't get your feet placed in the first two pedal strokes (well, it can be if your foot slips off and you fall in front of a moving car :lol:) -- I was mostly getting at how this could make things even tougher for a clipless newbie. I'm actually considering a move to single-sided pedals on one bike.

Originally Posted by noglider (Post 18169207)

You mean cleated on one side? I use those and like them a lot. They are slower to get into because I have to flip the pedal before engaging, but it's worth it for me because I can wear plain shoes when I want to. Two-sided engagement allows for quicker engagement without looking.

Originally Posted by ThermionicScott (Post 18169432)

Right. I think there are two general trains of thought in this thread... most people would agree that one-sided pedals are no big deal once you have some experience and confidence in them. However, my posts thus far have been in response to the OP, who expressed a concern about being stuck in his pedals at intersections, and I think that kind of thing is *more* likely when a person has to deal with two ways to interface with the pedals than just one. For those of us who have been riding a while and are comfortable with any kind of pedal system, that concern can be a little harder to appreciate.

Originally Posted by Wilfred Laurier (Post 18168830)

The potential damage caused by clipless pedals was much greater ~20 years ago. Since then all* clipless pedals are designed to allow the foot to float and find its own alignment. This still doesn't work for some people, but for most it does.

Originally Posted by Wilfred Laurier (Post 18168830)

A colleague recently went for a professional fitting to alleviate knee problems, and the fitter recommended he get clipless as flats, which he was accustomed to, have no way of ensuring your knees don't go into a damaging position. Of course, an improperly positioned cleat can ensure your knees never leave the damaging position until you can no longer ride. *maybe not all, but I cannot be sure. Clipless pedals with float are somewhere between 'the vast majority' to 'all'.

Originally Posted by rmfnla (Post 18169486)

Egg Beaters are four-sided; easy to get into...

Originally Posted by PaulRivers (Post 18170006)

Float makes clipless better, but the ball of your foot still can not move left or right, it's locked into spot. Float helps let you rotate the back left and right, but the front is still always in the same spot.



These seem like they're part of a process where something sounds unusual and is unusual, so it gets repeated a lot, to the point where sometimes people start to think it's the norm, rather than the rare exception.

There's also the question of what motivates the fitter to recommend something - do they work at a bike shop so the shop makes more money if you buy clipless shoes? Is the training they go through funded by the bike industry which tries to steer them towards buying their special bike shoes? Maybe it's simply that for a pro fitter it's easier to make sure the foot stays in the same position with clipless. Maybe for certain people with certain issues clipless happens to help for that specific issue.

If you took average people, did not involve a specialized fitter, and randomly had half the group use clipless and half use flats, I'm sure that the clipless group would have a lot more foot and knee issues to try to get rid of than the flats group.

Originally Posted by rolandk (Post 18169949)

I have the platform on one side/cleat on the other pedals and found an easy system for flipping them over. Move the pedal you want to flip to the bottom of the rotation. Take your foot off that pedal and move the other pedal to the bottom. The one you wanted to flip is now on top and flipped over. Repeat for the other side if needed. I can do each in about a second.

Originally Posted by PaulRivers (Post 18170006)

If you took average people, did not involve a specialized fitter, and randomly had half the group use clipless and half use flats, I'm sure that the clipless group would have a lot more foot and knee issues to try to get rid of than the flats group.