I'm not much of a rider... I'm just getting back into riding after having a bike stolen about two years ago, and will be getting a Jamis Cross Country 1.0 or 3.0 next week.

I am thinking that I want to start riding with clipless pedals. When I was younger I had to get about 20 stiches and go through a painful rehab after getting bitten by a chainring-- I could see my tendon -- and now I am parinoid about ridining without something keeping my feet on the pedals.

I've ridden with baskets before, and I really liked it, but I want to go cliplesscause it's svelte and a lot of people like 'em.

While I want to ride trails around here, I also want to ride to work (I ususally wear birks or tennies), and I am thinking that having some platforms around the clips would be useful.

So inform me with your collective wisdom: are there any problems with pedals that have both clipless and platforms?

Are one sided pedals (clipless on one side, platform on the other) a good idea? They don't sound all that good to me, and I am thinking that the two sided pedal sare better.

Is it possible to ride clipless in my birks or tennies? Does that suck?

Do ya'll have any recomendations about brands or things to stay away from? I am thinking that the crank bros. candy c's would be good, but I have read a few bad reviews. I am looking to spend less than 60$.

Finally, would it be rude to ask my LBS (who I am going to buy my bike from) to give me a price break on my pedals and shoes, or is buying on line a better idea?

Its never rude to save money.

I have the shimano 520s and they are great. They are about 50 bucks.

There are actually platforms that can clip into pedals. Some bikes come with temporary ones clipped in.

I'd look for a pedal with a SPD mountin the middle and a bit of a cage around it (like a platform) that way you can get more leverage and if you un-clip in a corner and you don't get back in your pedal first go you still have something to put your foot on and put the poiwer down out of the corner. The clipless one side and platform other side could be good but again if you take your foot off and then put it back on it could get annoying if you put your foot back on the wrong side.

You can use normal shoues on clipless pedals with a cage around them but it is uncomfortable, not very grippy and will be painful ater 20 or so minutes.

The big platform pedals with clips, like the Crank Brothers Mallet, look good in theory, but I found that the "clipless" part of the pedal stuck up and annoyed the heck out of me when I rode in regular shoes. The Shimano pedals with the clipless part only on one side annoyed the heck out of me for a different reason - half the time the pedal would be on the wrong side when starting from a stop.

For myself, I decided that I had to commit to either clipless or not clipless. So my commuter bike has BMX platform pedals so I don't have to wear bike shoes and my mountain bike has Eggbeaters. I can't imagine mountain biking without clipless anymore - the control is so much better.

Bike shops are marginal businesses at best. You can ask for a discount, but I wouldn't expect to get one. My suggestion is to buy the pedals online where you can get the best deal (keep in mind shipping costs though) and buy the shoes at your LBS where you can try them on.

"I found that the "clipless" part of the pedal stuck up and annoyed the heck out of me when I rode in regular shoes. "

My commute is pretty short, but when you found them annoying did you find them annoying on trails (which, to me require a lot of concentration and work) or less demanding kinds of riding around town?

I wish I could afford to have two bikes, but I will only have one. The commute is less important, so I guess that my question is this-- did you find the cage annoying when you were riding for fun and profit?

And is it significantly less annoying to commute with those cages around the clipless than without?

I used to run the shimano pedals that are clipless on one side and platform on the other. I never used the platform, but it worked out ok because the weight of it meant that the clipless side was always up when I wanted to clip in.

I found some used CB candy SL's for $48 used, and 661 session shoes for $16 new! This was my first time with clipless pedals, and I love it and cannot imagine going back to normal platforms! Unclipping them is a breeze and have not crashed yet in them !(However, I think having the cleats used and broken in has eased my learning curve on getting out of them easily!)