It looks like 90% of the cyclists out there use clipless pedals. Does this mean that I am gona jump on the bandwagon and follow the crowd ?? Absolutly no ! I've always used platforms with pins for both off road and urban city riding, and that's what I like. Yes even on my fixie I've been riding with platforms ( let the flame war begin). I do have another set of pedals with toe clips but I only use them sometimes.

Each aisle in the supermarket has 100s of things that I'll never buy, but there's a green eyeshade guy somewhere ensuring the revenue per linear foot of shelf space stays high. Someone is buying it. It works for someone.

For me, personally, I'm not buying:

• that clips with tightened straps are easier to get out of than clipless (on an absolute scale, presuming you've made an equal effort to learn both systems; relative differences for an individual may abound)
• that a secure connection from foot to pedal is not more efficient than platforms
• that those little orphaned strapless clips do anything other than say "put foot here". Do they also say "left" and "right"?
• that learning to do wheelies (manuals) in clips is a good idea
• that anything works for everybody all the time

Vive le diference

Fascinating thread!

Please consider this statement: Cycling accessories, such as foot retention systems, signal membership to a certain group of cyclists, and people chose them / avoid them more for this reason than for reasons of pragmatism.

If you're having trouble shifting on the hill, consider an internally geared hub. The advantages are many, the disadvantages are few.

Foot retention systems offer many advantages, and if you actually take advantage from them, you might want them. I gave up on them about three years ago, after which I went through a period of withdrawal during which I missed the ability to bunny hop over things... but I soon realized/rationalized my bunnyhopping was more stunt than necessity.

There is one other SMALL detail about clip-less systems, everyone seems to be missing. Power transfer, are there any normal shoe that is as stiff as the least stiff clip-less shoe?

I do agree how ever it is not for everyone. I just want more people to ride bikes, use whatever pedal system you like.

I've commuted for 18 years, and in the middle there were 3 or 4 years where I rode clipless and developed enough skill and confidence to use them relatively effortlessly and fearlessly. The pedals give you a zen like feeling of connectedness to the bike, and unclipping becomes second nature after a while. However, I went back to flat pedals when both sets of clipless (winter and summer bike) wore out and I don't miss them in the least. No need for special shoes, no trouble walking from the bike to the office or into the house (even mountain bike shoes clack after a few wearings), no constantly clipping in and out at every stop light. Despite some claims to the contrary, they offer negligible efficiency benefits in utility riding. I often time my ride home and there is zero difference in my times with and without clipless. It took a couple of days to lose the tendency for my foot to float off the pedal at the top of the stroke, and to relearn the habit of swinging the pedal to the correct start position when I stopped, but that was it.

There is no doubt clipless pedals are an advantage in intense riding, like racing, but for me, flat pedals are by far the better choice.

+1. This is a really good point that I haven't seen mentioned yet.

I have three bikes. The roadie has clipless and my commuters have BMX-style flats. They both work pretty well, so forget about the image or what other people think and just ride what's comfortable for you.

I love SPD's. I've been using toe clips and straps since 1975, and I prefer using some sort of foot retention over none at all. My favorite is SPD's. I have five bikes I ride regularly. If I could afford to, I would put SPD's on all of them. I'm doing it gradually. I love the kind that are plain on one side and have an SPD interface on the other. I'd like to put toe clips and straps on the plain side, but they would drag on the ground, so that won't work. I'm thinking of putting PowerGrips on the plain side. I figure if they rub the ground, that should be OK, unless they snag on something, but that doesn't seem likely.

Um...older internal geared hubs won't shift at all under pressure. They won't jam up, but they simply won't shift until you stop pedaling for a second so they can shift. The newer/better ones will shift under pressure, but it's not their forte.

Upon thinking about who likes foot retention and who doesn't, I think one key difference is how well once balances on a bike. I can't do a track stand, but I can nearly do it. I can also ride no hands and turn and look completely backwards without veering. I guess the skill is about isolating what one part of the body is doing from other parts of the body. I can clip in and out in nearly any situation. And I can also shift while climbing an insanely steep hill. My technique is to pedal really, really hard for a second, reduce pressure for a fraction of a second, and shift with that reduced pressure. I've tried to teach it but not succeeded.

I think you are over complicating it. Try this out for size: whatever gear your body happens to have you in as you approach your long, varied, climb, drop it down one gear lower. Then as you approach those sections where you may have to shift even lower, do so earlier. Finally, if the climb levels off, but you know it will shortly increase again, resist the urge to shift into a higher gear and spin easy into the next steep section, and if you know you will need to shift lower (based on your experience on that hill), again, do so earlier.

I'm sorry, I had assumed you were an experienced rider...no worries, over time all of this will come more naturally to you. In the meantime, don't be afraid to experiment a bit (not necessarily when the traffic is heavy). Best way to get good at climbing is to climb.

Yes, this is perfectly true, but I think people exaggerate it a bit. I've never found it to be a problem.

Tom makes an excellent point about balance. I like clipless, and part of that is that I'm not afraid of the low speed tip-over, since my balance is good. My balance got good partly with practice on platforms, trying to not put a foot down for as long as possible. Eventually I started working on my trackstands, also with platforms. Now, I'm no trackstand pro, but I usually don't even unclip unless I'm stopped for more than a few seconds. Plus, it just seems like a really unlikely type of fall to cause serious injury. Much scarier to me is having my foot fly off the pedal... I've done that before; putting your foot into your spokes is a great way to get airborne.

I agree that many cyclists feel a degree of devotion or attachment to their accessories that can't be adequately explained if we look only at the justifying arguments they give. So we need to cite other psychological factors. Group identification may, as you say, be a motive for many people. Deference to other authority figures, such as salespeople in bike shops, is important too. I remember, as I was getting into cycling, the subtle but relentless message I got from the folks at my LBS: "There's nothing wrong with street clothes/sneakers/these stock flat pedals; but when you're ready to take your riding to another level, you'll want padded shorts/dedicated cycling shoes/clipless pedals." Wow, was I ready to work hard on my new bike in order to earn the right to these enhancements! And for a long time after I started dropping the cash for all that new stuff, I convinced myself that they were unambiguous improvements, and that there could be no good reason to "go back."

We are very good at constructing ex post facto rationalizations of our decisions. I remember riding my road bike down to the shop for repairs. I was wearing street clothes, and I was saying to myself, "Does anyone actually like wearing street clothes on a bike? If only those poor saps saw the light." It was only when I started carting my daughter around that I considered ditching the racing gear. At this point I have a hard time re-imagining all the fuss. Perhaps that's why I've found this thread so interesting. We've seen a lot of salesmanship here, but rather less of folks like Tom (noglider), who's happy to say nothing more than that he loves his SPDs. No implication that his reasons ought to be your reasons; he just loves 'em.

I've been considering trying clipless for my commute (or maybe the straps). I'm starting to see areas where I wish I had better engagement on the pedal- either long up-grades or shorter, steeper uphills. I have both on my commute, both ways (I cross a river so the low point is about halfway and the rest of the commute is a climb). Also, my commute is longer than it used be- 17 miles each way- and I could use some increased effeciency somewhere. As I'm pedaling I've been paying attention to how the bike is working and it's darn-near flawless, so maybe the clips are the thing to try.

I've been using clipless most of my riding life and they're very second nature to me. I did have the ocassional problem with the old Look/Time style of shoe where it had a huge cleat and it was more difficult to get out of. I find SPDs very fast to get in and out of, far faster than any strap or clip system. I actually feel safer and more secure riding with SPDs...probably just because I'm so used to it. The only time I've fallen as a result of wearing SPDs in 10 years was just a very silly mistake on my part; I had been using older worn out cleats and had the SPD adjusted very tight to compensate. I switched shoes and cleats and forgot to loosen the pedal...predictable result...OUCH.

If you don't feel comfortable with them, don't use them. I remember there being an adjustment period when I first rode clipless but I was about 14...it was over 20 years ago and I don't remember how long the adjustment was or how severe any problems were. It's been so long that I feel funny when I'm not clipped in...like my foot is flying around all over the place. I did have a pair of the platform/SPD pedals and liked them...there are those short jaunts where putting on a shoe just doesn't make sense. I didn't notice any huge difference between the SPD side on those and a standard SPD pedal, but I had those on a mountain bike that I used mostly for short commutes and shorter trail riding. I wasn't doing centuries with them.

I agree this is sometimes the case but not always. It took a lot to get my wife to try clips and straps. She was quite happy with platforms but she let me install a set for one ride. She could not beleive the difference.

Then, a few months later, I found a new pair of Shimano cycling shoes in her size at a thrift store for $2 and convinced her to try clipless (it was not easy and took a lot of convincing). After a cuple of rides, she was sold. This is someone who really wanted to hate them but saw the benefit.

Her average speed increased as well as her riding enjoyment. She thought she would feel "trapped" but instead felt secure. They aren't for everyone but some people use them for their function not for their form.

I actually *started* using SPDs for *safety* reasons in 1994. My wife (girlfriend at the time) and I had just bought an inexpensive MTB tandem a few months after I had taken up Mountain Biking in a pretty big way. I was using Toeclips and straps on the trails and had been using them on the road for the last 20 years before, so I was very comfortable with Toe clips. My girlfriend had done some touring and she had an old Raleigh Grand Prix with toe clips and straps too. I was worried that it would be too complicated and dangerous to put toe clips and straps on the tandem for obvious reasons (think about keeping up momentum and two people getting their second foot in on a ~50lb bike). I also considered platforms too dangerous for a tandem, I was picturing someone having their one foot fall off the pedal only to quickly lose their other footing while the cranks continue to turn, powered by the other rider. So we bit the bullet and bought two pairs of Shimano 323's (platform on one side, SPD on the other), Shimano shoes, and cleats were sold separately back then! We were pushing a $300 investment in pedals and shoes for something we had never tried before (and those were lean years for us too). Anyway, it worked out great and I think we went over exactly one time while we were learning (On a tandem, you should both unclip on the same side;-) We had the security we needed for club rides, and the platform sides of the pedals were great for quick runs to the store and such. Within a couple weeks I borrowed a pair of pedals from the tandem to try on the trails with my MTB. I immediately saw the benefit, suddenly able to smoothly spin up steep rocky inclines, but I could also see that the double-sided SPDs were the way to go for Mountain Biking, especially when you have to start from a stop on a steep uphill.

Anyway, flash forward 16 years later and every bike I ride now has SPDs, save for my wife's old Grand Prix, which I will take to the store on occasion. It has platforms.

Funny you should say this. Today I had to pick up a bike that was in for repair. It was a, well it wasn't a fast bike, it was in fact one of those really slow comfort bikes, and it had no clipless pedals. One of the reasons I decided not to ride it home was due to no clipless pedals... I just couldn't ride it properly (no power transfer ).

Clipless pedals on a comfort bike would be pretty bizarre.

Dude, that's like needing a calculator cuz you can't make change.
Seriously, a good pedal stroke should not be dependent upon being clipped in and the cases where any reduced efficiency would be apparent are limited...climbing, sprinting, etc.

It's the feet forward riding position of some of them cruisers that should be scaring you.

I think it depends on the rider. I definitely pull up, pull back, push forward, and push down when I have foot retention. Believe me. "Studies have shown" that some riders don't. But I do. So do others.

With 5 pages of insights and personal testimonials under our belts, perhaps we can nip back briefly to OP's / Jerry's original question. In the context of being stopped and trapped by clipless, whether it be from a mangled uphill shift or a smooth glide to a stop at a light that just happens to be in front of a sidewalk cafe of people you know who are looking at you:

• Yes, almost all of us clipless devotees have suffered "such a scary event"
• Suggestion 1: (mentioned in passing earlier) - be sure the cleats are well positioned on your shoes, and release tension, float angles, etc., are well set up. As a non-racer, you basically want all the retention stuff set to minimum, the pedals will still work great.
• Suggestion 2: be sure the cleats aren't worn out, the pedals are well-lubed and functional not super-cheap with a sticky mechanism.
• Suggestion 3: if/when you fall next, do the old mountain biker trick of keeping your hands on your handlebars. A solid thump of your shoulder/back/hip on the ground is less likely to result in a snapped bone than you flailing and sticking a hand/arm out to break on the way down.

If you decide to opt out of clipless for any of the many good reasons, do so as a personal choice because it helps you enjoy the ride more.

Personally, I don't see clips & straps as a viable middle ground for most folks who are not already avid users of them that are very comfortable in that legacy cul de sac. If you have mastered clips and you are willing, you can master clipless. When snug, clips & straps are tougher to enter/exit than clipless. When not snug, they are not any better than flats (unless you're going purely for the retro hip look). My opinion only, others will disagree, perhaps violently. I rode off & on for 15 years with clips & straps, haven't looked back at them since I turned on to clipless, though I do see the sanity in platform pedals for some situations.

if you clip yourself, dont drink and drive!

Great summary of advice, slcbob! I never thought of #3. I don't know if I can keep my wits about me in that split second. Maybe I'll practice it. Also, I suspect it works best with upright bars where the handlebar is sure to stick out wider than the hands.

My wife was learning SPD cleats and fell twice. The second time, she injured her knee, even though her forward speed was zero. Unlucky, I guess, and she's not going to try again. I feel bad.

Actually I found that I liked the release tension set to the midpoint. Too much and it takes great effort to get out. However setting too little tension creates some slack in the connection, and means you have to move your foot farther out to release.

Also, if you place the cleat on your sole turned in a bit - ie pointing more towards your big toe rather than your middle toes, that lessens the amount you have to swing your heel out to release.