Yes, I forgot about this part of the double-edged clipless sword. I generally have at least one scab on a shin at all times

P.S. Here's another flats vs clipless experiment I ran across:
https://www.roadbikereview.com/revie...ls-on-the-road

The debate reminds me of the manual transmission vs automatic transmission debates with cars. Some people find extra effort with extra complexity rewarding. They feel more directly connected to the car/bike. But others prefer the simpler and more brainless automatic transmission. I prefer the auto transmission as I just want to get where I'm going with minimum extra work. I like biking, but the less work needed to go biking the better for me. With flats because I feel like I'm a person separate from the bike, I get on the bike to get where I'm going, then I get off it and walk directly inside. With clipless I'm like "well I biked here, so let's take a minute at each end to change shoes, etc".

I do like the improvements that better flat shoes/pedals have made in keeping a solid grip on the pedal. You've probably seen them but Five Ten makes an office-fashion pair of shoes:
https://www.adidasoutdoor.com/five-ten-district-flats-mountain-bike-shoe/FT86.html?dwvar_FT86_color=Black&cgid=fiveten-men-bike-shoes
https://www.adidasoutdoor.com/dw/ima...m=fit&sfrm=jpg

They make some more casual shoes to:
https://www.adidasoutdoor.com/five-ten-sleuth-mountain-bike-shoe/FT29.html?dwvar_FT29_color=Black&cgid=fiveten-men-bike-shoes
https://www.adidasoutdoor.com/dw/ima...m=fit&sfrm=jpg

In early 2019 they're adding another style:
https://enduro-mtb.com/en/five-ten-k...oa-sleuth-dlx/
https://cdn.bikemag.com/uploads/2018...-1-970x546.jpg

https://s14761.pcdn.co/wp-content/up...17-810x540.jpg

That's an interesting analogy, but really that's more like mechanical shifting vs Di2, or perhaps brifters vs downtube or indexed vs friction.

I have always preferred manual, not necessarily to "feel more directly connected", but to have a significantly simpler/lighter shifting system that saves gas (partly through less weight, but more significantly through making it easier to 'hypermile' by coasting 50+% of the time)

As for 5tens, my wife has a pair and loves them. I'm sure they are great, I know they're very popular among mountain bikers, but I've heard they run narrow, so I'm not going to even bother. (I did hear though that Adidas bought 5ten and used their stealth rubber compound on shoes for some other sport, and they might come in wide, that would be worth investigating)

Sure, there's multiple reasons one might go with one system vs another.

I would disagree with that opinion. I have to go with a "wide" size to be comfortable in most regular shoes and my five tens that are 1/2 size larger than I usually go are very comfortable for me. I recently had to order 2 pairs of sandals from 2 different brands bought the same size for both - one brand fits my widish feet fine, the other is to narrow.

If you have really wide feet, yeah, they might not be wide enough. My dad does and it's annoying they don't offer "wide" sizes for him. If there's an REI near you I believe they sell five tens you could try in person before buying.

My personal experience is that the freeriders do not run narrow, they run average-to-widish.

Good to know. Yes I do have very wide feet. I was excited to read multiple reviews on Amazon of Keen Newport H2 sandals ("our widest sandal") of guys like me who wear a 10.5 extra wide, and found size 11 to be perfect. I tried 11 and they were so tight they constricted my blood flow and left marks on my skin. I returned them for 12, and although I could get my feet in, and I really wanted to love them, the anatomical footbed was made from a narrower anatomy than mine, and I couldn't wear them for more than half an hour or so without my feet getting sore.

Note searching the adidas website for "stealth" turns up a lot of shoes. They don't seem to offer wide sizes though.

Ah, yeah, if you have particularly wide feet that is a problem. I believe adidas/five ten sometimes let others use their material for the shoes but I'm not familiar with anything specific.

I know for wide shoes New Balance is usually the way to go. They sell 2E, 4E, 6E wide shoes. But in a quick look through their website I didn't see anything bike-specific.

My dad uses some sort of bike-specific sandals for his clipless to...but I thought they were Keen's so that's probably not helpful...

Yup. New Balance 10.5 4E I can order off the web and they fit perfect.

It's never been an issue for me. Even with high speed crashes, my feet are out of the pedals before I even think about it. Stalling out while climbing is another place where my feet are out of the pedals before I think about it. The key is to set the pedal tension low.

Unlike most people (I think), I put my right foot on second and take it off first. That pedal has the tension set very low. The left one has it a little higher, though it doesn't really need to be. I have had a couple of panic stops when I pulled my feet out vertically rather than twisting them out. So it works when you pull really hard (and the tension is sufficiently low). I didn't even do it consciously.

I've had one near fall and one fall. The near fall was in 1991 when I was new to clipless and had been using toe clips since 1975. I came to a stop and couldn't get out, but I was right next to a dumpster which was shoulder high. I grabbed the dumpster and unclipped. No problem.

The other was in about 2008. I was goofing around on the grass at low speed and came to an incline I couldn't climb in the gear I was in. I fell onto the grass gently and burst out laughing at my clumsiness. My wife thought it was a stunt and asked me why I did it. She didn't know it was an accident.

So again, clipless is not for everyone, but the required skill is achievable for many of us.

I'm not super experienced at riding off road, so on those occasions, I will unclip in anticipating needing to put my foot down. Still, no problem.

I use clipless for all of my riding. I too like the sensation of being clipped in, and just the comfort of knowing my feet are on the right spot on the pedal. When I ride platforms, my goofy ocd mind goes nuts trying to put my foot in the exact right spot. By the time I get where I'm going, I'm a basket case.

Yep, clipless are my preferred mode of pedaling, but I would never be so bold as to say its 100% a benefit. I've been over terrain (wet clay) where its too unstable even for the second it takes to unclip. Exception # 2. ^^

Too many active forces for the brain to process. Even for a near reflex.

[MENTION=152773]noglider[/MENTION] are you right or left handed? I think the Paceline talked about it in one of their podcasts... Pre Michael Hotten and Fat Cyclist's departure. aka when it was good.

[MENTION=134924]RidingMatthew[/MENTION], I'm right handed, but I guess I mount and dismount a bike left-handedly. I think I also start up a flight of stairs with my left foot.

That's an interesting quote because I see the understanding totally differently.

The manual transaxle is the less complex option as it costs less to build and maintain and is much less hassle to use. The automatic transaxle is often more expensive and requires additional hassle in the form of additional maintenance that isn't required on a manual transaxle.

To drill deeper ... a manual transaxle is like my daily worn shoes and standard pedals. Nothing else is needed. The automatic transaxle requires additional shoes and pedals just like the extra components of an automatic transaxle including a torque converter, extra cooling systems and additional fluid pumps/electronics.

In fact, one can argue that they can "select a specific gear" with an automatic transaxle just like they can ride on the inverse side of the pedal but both are really half-assed solutions.

To me, the automatic transaxle results in worse real-world performance (fuel economy and acceleration) while making something more complex than it needs to be, when directly compared to a manual transaxle.

i'm the same.

i'm definitively right-handed (my left hand is a mostly useless appendage), but for bike riding, my left foot is always my starting foot.

my left foot gets locked onto the pedal at the start of a ride and doesn't get unlocked until the end of the ride. i believe this is because, just as with my hands, my right foot is ~8 billion times more dexterous than my left foot, so getting in and out of my SPD's is more easily done with my right foot. the left foot becomes a "set it and forget it" thing, while the right foot does the work of getting in and out of the pedal along the way.

not that i keep track of such things, but i could probably count on one hand the number of times i've ever unlocked with my left foot first in my entire cycling career. that's how rarely it happens. it's always my right foot. ALWAYS.

I'm right-handed, kick with my left foot, and always, always unclip the right foot when coming to a stop. Unclipping the left feels genuinely unnatural... to me. I've tried starting off with the right foot clipped in, and it's as if I've forgotten how to ride a bicycle.

That said, most people I see unclip the left foot at a stop. Which is weird to me here in the land of driving-on-the-right. With my right foot unclipped I can stand on the curb and stay in the saddle at stoplights.

I recently had two examples on the same ride that reinforced my decision to use flat pedals, rather than clipless. It was 35 degrees and runoff from a storm from the previous day had created a number of puddles, some six inches deep on the asphalt trail. On two occasions, while riding very slowly, (I didn't want to get sprayed) the rear wheel slipped out from me. Very rapidly. I think the runoff had deposited a very thin layer of very slippery mud/silt. It was only ability to put that leg down quickly that stopped me from falling in that puddle. Being soaking wet on a windy, 35 degree day ain't fun....I was 15 miles from home.

p.s. I've had a physics class or two.

I've used clipless for over five years now, but am seriously thinking about going back to either toe clips or powerstraps. I'm finding that no combination of cleat adjustment or even different shows prevent me from developing hot foot on longer rides. Additionally, now that it getting colder, my feet just don't tolerate the heat sink from shoe through the cleat to the pedal, despite the attempts I have made to insulate. I'm also looking at pedal mods for my recumbent trike. Preventing foot suck makes it necessary to positively fix your feet to the pedals. I currently run SPD pedals, but am exploring a number of different devices like heel straps.

I'm one of those unclipping my left foot. My reasoning is that most of the time when I stop there's not a convenient curb, but the crown of the road sometimes means it's a long ways down to the gutter on the right.

Do you say po-tay-to or po-tah-to?

I live in Southern California. If there's no curb, there's probably no stoplight either. It also doesn't rain here, so our roads don't have enough crown to offer up a foot preference.

I've also watched people get on their bikes-- with few exceptions, the leg they swing over is the "not unclip" foot. I get on my bikes from the right, so my left leg (the one I don't unclip) goes over the top tube. I've tried getting on the other way. Hips don't work right. :P

I don't think that's accurate though...automatic transmissions are easier for the driver to use, that's their whole purpose. The driver doesn't have to pay attention to what gear they're in or reach down and shift gears. They also don't have those "rolling backwards" issues on hills that manual transmissions have or have to shift constantly in stop and go traffic. Automatic transmissions are expensive. And I believe it used to be that automatic transmissions had reliability issues. By "used to be" I mean 10-20 years ago, but it seems like they're pretty reliable for the lifetime of the vehicle now, though you personal experience is limited to one car.

The closest analogy pretty close to friction shifters (I think that's the term) vs index shifters. Friction shifters require taking your hand off the bar and paying a bit more attention, but they continue working after cable stretch and don't really need any shop adjustment, you just adjust how much you're shifting them after changing the chain/cassette. The more commonly sold indexed shifters don't require taking a hand off the bar to shift but they require a lot of readjustments - first when you buy the bike when the cables initially stretch. Then if the cable stretch more later or if you replace the chain or cassette. Also I don't think they sell friction shifters for today's 9/10/11/12 speed cassettes.

I'd put that as a closer analogy. But with a car an automatic transmission is less hassle to use, that's the whole point of it isn't it?

Yes I have and they are a good improvement. The problem is that they make my shoes even tighter, which leads to other issues. I routinely shift to toe clips in Winter on my commuting bike, just so I can wear shoes that keep me toasty down to single digits (F), but have up to now retained the clipless pedals on my recreational bikes. Since I retired last August, I am putting most of my miles on recreational bikes hence the pondering over reverting.

I still prefer a manual transmission, but I won't delude myself into believing they are still superior. Automatics are more fuel efficient and allow for better acceleration than manuals do, thanks to computer control. My wife's car is a 2004 Honda Element, hardly a high tech car, and I like the automatic. It shifts exactly when I would, which is good, because it's a big vehicle with a 4-cylinder engine. I imagine manuals are still better for traction in snow, but maybe not, now that there is computerized traction control. Hey, I even had a manual car that had that.

Really? I had always heard that automatics were less fuel efficient, mainly because of the extra weight.

I've owned a Saab in OH, I totally believe that computerized traction control is effective, and better than human drivers (unless you're on the pro rally circuit or something)

When the thermometer dips below 20F, I switch from a mountain bike shoe with a neoprene cover and aerogel footbed to clipless winter biking boots. I have Lake MXZ 303 boots, my coworker has 45NRTH. Aerogel footbeds come pretty much standard with this gear class.