RuggerJoe

Well now I'm nervous about making the change to clipless.

Sixty Fiver

The pros outweigh the cons... I always tell people they will probably fall at least once and to do this when no-one is looking.

corkscrew

I only ran clipless pedals on an upright bike for a few weeks. Practiced enough with the bike on my trainer to avoid tipping. Took them off not long after because of the knee pain they caused.

I now run clipless pedals on my recumbent trike - helps keep the feet up off the ground, thus avoiding leg suck.

The best part about clipless pedals on the trike? I can come to a stop and not have to unclip or worry about falling over. On my uprights I continue to run bare pedals.

tjspiel

I've heard lots of stories about people falling, witnessed a couple, and had a couple of my own. Though I'm sure it's happened I've never seen or heard of a serious injury.

To put it in perspective, I've wiped out walking on ice more times in the last couple of years than I have fallen due to clipless pedals. I might have even fallen once or twice in that time frame because I tripped over something.

What can you say? Gravity has its downsides.

Seattle Forrest

I was climbing a hill with some people on platform pedals, who were falling behind. The last thing I heard out of them was "Wow, this is when you really wish you had clip ins, huh?"

c3hamby

Most of my falls were getting used to the pedals and not clipping out in time and falling over at stop signs. I have had a couple of instances where I forgot something-like leaving my gloves on my back rack. I stopped in a parking lot and was so concerned about getting the gloves before they fell of the rack that I forgot to unclip.

I've been having a problem where my old(20 year old)allen wrench was not fitting snug enough into one of the bolts on my shoes so that I could tighen it properly. But I've just been nursing it along.

Yesterday I came up to the intersection of a busy access road. I couldn't unclip my right foot because the cleat was loose! I had the presence of mind to unclip the left foot and hobbled over to a grassy area so I could lean the bike over. Once I did that then was able to get my foot out of the shoe and then fix the problem.

My next stop was at a nearby local bike shop and got a 3 way allen wrench and that solved the problem.

I strongly recommend the Forte Campus pedals from Performance. Clipless on one side and platform on the other. Extremely easy to use, never get in the situation where I can't find the right side. I have them on my old Centurion and my new LHT.

RuggerJoe

I picked those up when i was fixing up my old bike to start commuting with. Haven't put the cleats ont the shoes yet, since I havenn't had a weekend to play with them. I figured in traffic was not the time to learn to use them.

cppb

I switched to clipless from platforms after a few months of riding and never had trouble. I think I fell down once when I was practicing in my back yard maybe. I did that for five minutes and then went out on the road. Once or twice I forgot to unclip at stop signs and sort of jumped around until one foot came out. It is definately unsettling, but you get over it; I've never actually fallen over in the road. I find that being clipped in is fine now even if i "forget" and come to a complete stop at least for a few seconds. (then again, I can track stand pretty well, so I usually never unclip)

I've noticed that some people I ride with unclip several seconds before we coast to a stop. Is this what everyone else usually does? Does it serve a purpose other than being that much more sure that you won't forget? I find that it only takes a split second to twist my foot, so I just clip out as I need to put my foot down.

c3hamby

I do it this way most of the time. I've only had the LHT a couple of months, so I've been having to get used to the bar end shifters as well as unclipping.

I'm getting to the point now where I can unclip fast on a stop if I have to, but I don't prefer to do it this way.

But I still am not interested in moving from platforms to clipless at this point for my mountain bike. If I do, it will be the Campus pedals, just for the sake of uniformity.

NeuroDawg

I've had two episodes, one witnessed.

The witnessed episode occurred as I was commuting one early morning, about 0530. Usually nobody on the street, but for some reason the light about 100 yards ahead turned red. It usually cycles fairly quickly, so I slowed down, expecting it to turn green and I could just start pedaling again. Well, the light didn't change, and kept slowing down expecting it to change, and then suddenly I'm at the stop line and haven't clipped out. Fell to the right. And of course a car pulls up behind me just as I'm falling. Ten miles later, at work and in the shower, I see the big abrasion on my hip. My embarrassment kept me from feeling any pain.

The second episode occurred again on my morning commute. I had stopped to take a picture of the sunrise, and had clipped out my left foot and had it planted firmly on the ground. As I'm snapping a couple of photos, I want to plant my right foot on the ground, so I go to put it on the ground, completely forgetting it was still clipped in. Lost my balance and fell over to the right. No harm.

Luckily, I'm still pretty consciously aware of being clipped in, and unclip early to avoid falls. And despite my falls, there's no way I'd ever go back to platform pedals.

Hippiebrian

Every time i see someone forget to unclip at a stop sign or light, I'm reminded of Artie Johnson on Laugh-in!

I gave fleeting thoughts to trying clipless, but I am just not a strong enough cyclist for them to make any difference, and I'm perfectly fine with my toe cages (no straps) and I can wear normal shoes everywhere so I don't sound like I'm wearing heels when I walk...

bluefoxicy

Oh, I don't go playing around with the live production nuclear systems. Already had those tip over in routine daily maintenance, without any odd experimentation (a system's check found an error, and unfortunately the error condition was such that the act of checking brought down the entire control system; they're quite durable and nothing bad happens for several hours, they go into a safe, low output mode). Of course you don't go mucking about in the danger zone.

But so many people won't do anything, even in a sandboxed environment, or off to the side, or under project deadlines, or what. They won't risk spending $50 because maybe what they're buying will be not-great-for-them, and they're out $50. They won't attempt to troubleshoot whatever's not working because "I don't understand how this works" ... meaning they don't want to do something and find out it's even more wrong, even when the entire scope of damage is "I lose 5 minutes of my time doing something stupid, and then go back and try again."

I ask a lot of questions; but I blaze a lot of paths through planes nobody even knew existed because they haven't gotten through the surrounding bushes, either. I also fall in a lot of thorn bushes and have to come back....



By the way, got my clipless pedals today. I fell off twice; turns out asphalt doesn't hurt. Hard part seems to be flipping the pedal over (clips only on one side), and while I was distracted working that out I hit the ground. Aside from that, clip in is harder than clip out; but a few tries and I got it: In and forward.

The result? It's like I went from 2 cylinders to 4 cylinders. Power up the hills, accelerate 0-20 in like 1 second, no fatigue, legs don't feel worked so much as they feel... like they're doing work. It's not exhausting or strenuous, I've got tons of power to just throw all over the place and burn rubber wherever I want.

This ... this is good.

beebe

Install clipless. Go to parking lot to practice, girlfriend comes to watch me fall over and laugh at me. I learn to clip in and out, ride around, don't fall over at all. I'm happy, girlfriend is dissappointed. I gloat. We ride to grocery store, girlfriend walks in front door while I watch her bike. I play around with pedals, fall over while standing still. Everyone at the entrance to the store laughs at me.

webtwo

I started with clips/straps/sneakers while in college. From there went to cleated shoes with clips/straps so there is no way to accidentally come loose without first loosening the strap. Fell a few times until I programmed myself to plan my strap-loosening reach everytime I stopped. When I finally got some LOOK clipless, I fell the first few times also because I kept reaching down to loosen the strap, but the strap wasn't there! So now I've been clipless for over 20 years and never had any mis-haps due to pedal functionality. Engaging and disengaging becomes second nature surprisingly quick.

asromzek

I bought a pair of Shimano PD-A530 pedals. SPD on one side, platform on the other. I can jump on the bike in tennis shoes or put cycling specific shoes on for longer rides. I've gotten into the habit of unclipping a fair distance before I have to stop or before I get into a questionable situation, then simply let the pedal turn over and use the platform side until coming to a full stop. Works very smoothly for me with no major incidences.

bluefoxicy

I'm still trying to get the clips to come up rather than the platforms.

asromzek

My pedals seem to be balanced fairly well. I can usually flip the pedal to the clip side or platform side with my shoe, or just rotate the crank with the other foot to bring the pedal to the right orientation.

gear

Most clipless horror stories are actually memory lapse horror stories, the pedals just get all the blame.

willb1046

My first experience with clippless pedals. I was riding with a new riding partner (second ride) with a new bike (third ride) on the Schuylkill River Trail. We were to meet her long time friend at Valley Forge.
I was keeping up with her quite nicely, as we neared the area where her friend was waiting for us, down-shifting to a lower gear, I was feeling confident with myself. I twisted my right foot out of the pedal, came to a nice slow stop when I leaned to the left.... Down I went, crashing down to the ground. I laughed it off, extending my hand to Dave introducing myself. I don't think he will forget me any tine soon. You know... first impressions. :-) I'm still learning, hope not to fall again. Knocks wood!!

tjspiel

Give them some time to break in. At first my A530s didn't spin all that freely. I never knew which side would be "up" when I started pedaling. Now they move to an almost vertical position after I unclip. The clipless mechanism is always facing the back. So if I want to clip-in, I nudge the top of the pedal forward with my shoe and then stomp down.

My Shimano SPD-SLs are the same way.

brumskee

Speedplays are not a good choice for winter riding. Had both feet freeze in place one cold day. Absolutly could not free my feet. Kept riding till I got home and fell over in the yard. Then had to slip out of the shoes still cliped in while laying down, bike between my legs. Wife saw me through the kitchen window. She was still laughing when I wandered inside.
Very first clipless(older Look) ride ever resulted in a tipover at a stop sign. Of course a car load of youngsters witness it. For some reason they found my crash histerical.
These only two incidents aside, I love clipless and would never ride uncliped. I have made life somwhat easier by installing matching mtb pedals on all my bikes. Now I have only one pair of shoes to find and prefer resessed cleats for off the bike.

redeyedtreefr0g

You said the benefits outweigh the disadvantages such as falling over (which I have never seen anyone do yet, but I'm just starting to get into bicycling recreationally for fitness so far). What are the benefits?
I'm assuming these are special shoes with a bracket on them that "clip" into a bracket on the pedal? I do notice my shoes tend to slip in closer to the pedal arms as I go. Probably clippy shoes would fix that.

But I also don't yet understand how I'm supposed to be comfortable pedaling with the balls of my feet instead of having my foot center on the pedal...

Not to derail your thread here, just curious. The various stories are certainly entertaining.

B. Carfree

After over 400,000 miles in clipless, I haven't had a single bad episode. I did witness a couple of mishaps. Back in the early '80s Cinelli came out with the first clipless pedal system. The cleat slid onto two rails and you locked in by pulling out a tab on the side of the pedal which caused a post to rise into the cleat. Obviously, one had to remember to push the tab back in to get out. This wasn't much different than remembering to loosen the toe strap to get out of toe-strap/cleat set-ups. The wreck that my friend had with these pedals prompted the nick-name "Death Pedals" for them. It turns out that the spindle was a bit undersized and was thus prone to failure. In his case, it failed in the middle of an all-out sprint down the main street of a neighboring town. He had some ugly road-rash and a fifteen mile one-pedal trip home (all flat terrain).

The only other clipless incident I ever saw happened many decades ago to my wife. We were riding to the beach and were both track-standing at a red light. She was behind me and there were a couple of teeny-boppers in a convertible next to me. Unbeknownst to me, the teeny-boppers were checking me out. My wife was laughing so hard she fell down the side of an R.V. that was behind the teeny-boppers. I happened to turn around just in time to see her go down. Fortunately, the driver of the R.V. saw the whole thing and waited until he was sure she was clear before he proceeded.

bluefoxicy

You get a V8 engine instead of a little 4 cylinder, and no longer have to downshift to go up hills like they're not even there

itsthewoo

Er, I wouldn't exactly describe the difference like that.

I like the fact that I don't have to think about where my foot is on the pedal or how good my grip is, especially when it's wet. I also like how my feet aren't stuck in cages that won't release under tension, and instead cause my legs to twist painfully in the event of an accident. I do also like the ability to provide power on the upstroke, which is a major boon when going uphill.

However, there is not a major increase in power, nor does it make me feel like Lance Armstrong. They're just pedals after all.