Riding with Clipless
 

Wow, just started with a set of clipless (Shimano 105's with Fizik R4 shoes) - I've never used clipless before and I'm amazed at the difference. I'm shocked at how much less energy it requires to ride, especially hills. I am sure there's a best way to leverage the full cycle of the pedal stroke but for now I'll just keep practicing until I take my first spill - as I know it will happen at some point.

Are there any guides on how to best to transition and not do anything wrong that trains your body to use them the wrong way?

Self-fulfilling prophecy: Believing that you will fall over because you are using clipless pedals can increase the chances of your falling over. I've never fallen over related to toe clips or clipless pedals. (Knock on wood.) Riding SPD style clipless for 20+ years.
I keep the release adjustment fairly loose so that it is always easy to unclip. If you wait till the last second to unclip, either on purpose or otherwise, you want it to be effortless. A little cleaning and lube once in a while can keep the mechanism in good shape.

Well, what kind of pedals do you have?

You need the broad, wide mountain bike pedals first of all, and you'll need the metal spikes poking up all over them. The reason for this is you want as many metal pokes from the pedals as you can muster over as many square inches of your shoe soles as you can manage. The reason is that when you're back stroking the pedals and up stroking the pedals, you want those metal pokes to remain in your sole the whole stroke.

I learned to feather cling my shoe soles into the metal pokes and the back and up strokes, and I poke my feet down more in order to get better purchase of the pedals and crank mechanism. It takes some practice. There's a perfect balance.

Also I dip from the hip joins in the pedaling, so that I'm also using my abdomen. This also takes practice and prime muscularity to reach the perfect balance.

By the way, I wear foam soled Sketcher shoes, and the metal pokes grip that very easily. I'm betting harder plastic shoes or slick soled shoes would not work as well.

I fell over literally the first time I stopped at a stop sign on my clipless pedals. Hurt my wrist and elbow.

I think the easiest way to use them wrong is having the cleats poorly placed in your shoes. Keep the release loose like mentioned above.

try to remember and train to swing your heel to the side , not pull your your foot up off the ped !!!!

I've been using SPDs for a forgotten number of years, and never had metal spikes poking up anywhere? Can you explain this a little better?

He seems to be describing platform pedals with pins that grab the sole of your rubber soled shoe. A lot of mtbers like them.

Thank you. The OP said clipless, so I was a bit confused.

Wait, is clipless with or without the pedal being directly linked to the shoe?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...dcde2fc377.png

That's the cheapest, most highly rated reviews I could find online. I don't even know if this is appropriate for this thread, but I bang on the streets with my mtb. It's hard tail and hard forks. It's nothing fancy. Just a sledge hammer and two wheels, and the pedals stay together, and roll smoothly after several months like this. They have the ability to do re-lube the bearings in them too, so...

Yeah, and so....essentially what you're doing is pawing the pedal backwards and then upwards to the top of the revolution. And you can paw it forwards slightly up to where you can shove the pedals forward and downward. The key to the pawing is with the steal pokes and the amount of surface area that covers the bottom of the shoes. Again I find the foam Sketchers shoes to cling to these pokes excellently.

That isn't clipless. It's going to sound odd, but clipless means there is a clip on the pedal that mates with the cleat on the bottom of a specially made shoe. Don't ask me why.

Okay, no asking why they call it "clipless," but I went to research these subjects, and I found out I knew not a whole lot.

I'm going to get some of these for my bike, and just learn to bail my feet out ultra fast. I see people doing it on the videos, so that's I can.

I'm knowing the power in the full revolution is there, so I'll buy it.

I was always told in order to get a nice smooth pedal stroke, pedal like you are wiping dog poop from the bottom of your shoe.

If you are sprinting you can use different muscle groups by pulling up on the pedals to quickly increase the acceleration, to train yourself to increase cadence during a climb, try not to push down on the pedals at all.

This builds other muscles in your legs and makes for a well rounded pedal stroke.

-Sean

Guru at the bike shop told me to practice peddling with one foot,
( on easy straight aways)
swap back & forth a few times first few rides to
Build the full circle pedal stroke into muscle memory.

'clipless' is a confusing piece of cycling language because it was first used to describe pedals without toe clips but with a foot retention mechanism that made use of a cleat on the shoe. But it did not mean just any pedal without toe clips, even though they, too, are clipless.

I'm not supplying power throughout the full circle of pedaling but my feet are always where they should be.

When I said clipless I was referring to SPD (SL), which are a bit of an oxymoron that I have heard was meant to give them a name that differed from the original clip ons which actually were more of a cage design. What you described sound like regular flat pedals that don't lock the shoe to the pedal. Different setup and the concepts are probably a bit different.

This sounds like a good way to train your brain and legs to use the full stroke, albeit a bit time consuming.

toe clips and straps:

http://www.gbcycles.co.uk/images/pro...oe-Clips-1.jpg

clipless pedals:

https://r2-bike.com/media/image/prod...0-spd-sl~2.jpg

platform pedals:

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/02...26_480x480.jpg