ok carry on with your superior platform pedals. I hear they'll be using platforms at the grand tours this year, because they gain no efficiency from clipless pedals.


as for the muscle comment. If you're just pushing down, you're using your quads and your hamstrings aren't doing anything. Muscles get fatigued eventually, if you split the load between more muscles then obviously they'll take longer to be fatigued.

Having used toeclips back in the distant past, I can add another advantage- comfort. In order to get good power transfer using toeclips, they have to be tight. Don't forget that track cyclists still often use them. However, when they are tight enough to be efficient, they do pinch your feet on a long ride. A good fitting pair of shoes should be comfortable and will still provide power transfer at least as good as tightened toeclips.

One benefit of clipless (I ride them and platform, and I think each has advantages/disadvantages), is for high-cadence spinning, and downshifting where you don't want your foot to separate from the pedal when the resistance suddenly drops. If you're concentrating, platforms are fine, you can train your legs to keep your feet on the pedals, but sometimes you get tired, lose concentration, and "crap!". Toeclips prevent this. However, everybody I know who has ridden clips for a long time, and given clipless a reasonable testing, has switched. This can include learning how to click-out on a stationary bike before hitting the road, using hybrid platform/clipless, and buying light-spring-tension release models for your first transitions.

If you have excessive pronation/supination, you can get shims, or get "more forgiving" cleat/binding systems. Shims are great in principle, but they may transfer injurious stress to your knee(s).

There are lots of great models, and the fact that there are several different basic designs (along with copycats for some like Look and SPD, not Speedplay or Crank Bros yet, still under patent), tells you there is no "perfect" pedal for "everybody".

try pothole riddled roads coverd in ice and snow, I know you don't get that often in england.
one bad step and your platforms and shoes are frozen and very slippery.

higher cadence is generally better than slower, especially for your knees. general ball park figure is 95rpm.
I can hit a good 160rpm going down hill when I'm all out of gears. It's very hard to do that with platforms even if you have a good technique.

and just try platforms with a fixed gear.

I just want to add that, when I am descending at high speed speeds and making sharp right angle turns at 45 mph I need pedal retention. When I do corners like that it's not uncommon for me to see lean angles that approach 50 degrees. When I got my clipless pedals, I instantly found that I could hold a tighter line and climb better.

One more thing: A time or two, while descending, I have entered a corner and turned in too late, or with too much speed for the line I took. As a result, the bike has veered onto the unpaved shoulder. Suddenly, I'm being tossed around like a ragdoll, holding on for dear life until it's smooth enough to slow down safely or I can ease the bike back on the road. In those instances, I guarantee you, I would have crashed in a horrendous fashion if the pedals didn't keep me on the bike. But, because they did, I didn't crash at all.

This is an exaggeration that does not occur in *any* cycling situation other than a crash.

Also, the ability to cycle more recklessly because your feet are locked to the pedals is a recipe for disaster for yourself and/or others.

They are racing, I said they are worth it for racing because you need maximum power, which using extra muscles will give you. From the point of how heavily you need to breath/how much food you need, more muscles does not = better.

Yes, that is true. It's not something that bothers me though. The fact I find them comfier outweighs it and I can move my feet on the pedals to use slightly different muscle groups.

Once again though I bet in normal cruising along your not pulling up as much as you think.

Once again, please stop making assumptions without doing a bit of research first. We've had lots of snow this year, it's gone for a week without coming above 0, and we have had grit/salt shortages, which means the roads are even more slippery. Also once again I live in the countryside, there are potholes big enough that even 4x4's try and go around them.

I also live in a very clayey part of the country, ever ridden a bike across wet clay? If anything it's even more slippery than ice/snow, at least that gets broken up a bit.


Yes, I know higher cadence is better for your knees, 95rpm is no problem with platforms. If I was pedaling 160rpm in my hardest gear I think I'd be going over 60mph, hills around me are too twisty for that so it's never really a concern. Why would I want to try platforms with a fixed gear? This isn't the fixed gear forum and this thread isn't about them.

Alan Bike Houston

He would rail against clipless ... that only Tour de France riders should use them. The rest of us will suffer a miserable, disfiguring future of ruined knees if we even think of using clipless pedals. They are the devil's tool to ruin mankind. Basically, he doesn't like them, so no one else should ever use them.

I race, but if I never race again, I will always use clipless for all the benefits previously mentioned.
The only exception being riding while taking my dog for a walk around the neighborhood or such similar type ride.

Meh, I don't mind other people using them, just personally for me they don't hold any advantages.

I ride platforms about half the time and clipless about half the time.

1. I can't spin as fast on platforms. It's difficult and uncomfortable. 95rpm's is not fast spinning, for some people that's a slower than normal spin.
2. I can stand and pedal just fine on platforms.
3. My feet don't get thrown when I shift, you learn to time your shifts no matter what system you're using.
4. I can't dig in as hard when I stand on platforms. On clipless there are times when I'm pulling and pushing and twisting, etc. It's called a steep hill and too high a gear (in my area it's because I screwed up, but there are places with hills where it'd be because you're in the granny gear already).
5. Clipless puts your foot in exactly the same spot every time. The spot you've carefully figured out is comfortable and has good power transfer. With thousands and thousands of miles on platforms I can't say that I can put my foot in the right place every time. It's close, but when you start hearing squeaking and realize your foot and moved inward and is rubbing on the crank...
6. I definitely use my quads more on platforms. I don't think it's as efficient of a pedal stroke.

So, in my opinion: Clipless lets you spin faster and use more muscles. It's more efficient.

Is that efficiency necessary if you're not racing? Nah.
Is it nice even if you're not racing? Yea.
Is it always worth changing shoes? In my opinion, no.


I would love somebody to try and throw numbers on this. If I owned a power tap I'd probably throw the bike on the trainer and ride threshold (by heart rate) for 5 minutes and give you my average power. Then do it with the other pedals. If a half dozen riders did this we could get an idea of what clipless pedals are or aren't doing for us power/efficiency wise.
That wouldn't cover max power, stability, or spinning speed though.

Where does this ideas of using more muscles being more efficient come from?

I only mentioned 95rpm because it was the number the other person used, spinning faster is no problem, if you can't then clipless are probably better for you then they are for me. I personally also like the fact that I can place my foot in different positions and having my foot come of in any situation has never happened.

Yes, on a hill where you can't spin at a reasonable rpm and have to mash, then clipless will be better speed wise because you are conciously focusing on pulling up.

sometimes I wonder if some of the people on this board have even ridden a bicycle for more than a few months.

Several problems with the experiment (including motivational bias, placebo effect, and fatigue.) Moreover, I think you'd have to make it much longer, or much shorter. I'd be willing to bet that I could hit pretty close to my 5 minute power with platform pedals, and a fairly rigid shoe. But I'd also bet that there's no way I could do a 4 hour century on platform pedals.

On the other side, I am certain my 5 second power would be substantially lower, given that in a effort like that you're recruiting every muscle fiber you possibly can.

seriously?

ok lets demonstrate it.

Grab a 20 lbs dumbbell. Now curl it with your right arm until you can't anymore. Does that mean you can't lift it anymore? No. Just move it to your left arm and curl it until you can't anymore. Does that mean you're done? No. No put it behind your head and lift it with your right tricep until you can't anymore. Then with your left tricep until you can't anymore. Guess what, you're still not done! No lift it forward using your right shoulder until you can't anymore. And I bet you figured this out now, you can also use your left shoulder! You were just able to lift that weight 6 times more than if you just used one muscle to do it. Same thing happens when you spread the load while cycling.

Thats doing high power low reps though. Doing 100rpm for 4 hours is nothing like that.

Actually, I think the disagreement in this thread comes down to intended uses and priorities.

If you're not riding long distances, don't particularly care how fast you do it, and you're going to be walking a lot when you get where you're going, platform pedals could make a lot of sense for you. ( However, the dual sided "campus pedals" with walkable shoes might also be a good choice.)

But if you're riding longer distances, at higher speeds, and walking in the shoes off the bike is not a priority, then there's a very strong consensus that clipless pedals offer real advantages.

Otherwise you wouldn't see 99.5% of experienced riders at Centuries, and fast club rides using clipless pedals.

you can substitute it for a 2 ounce weight. the 6 seperate muscles will still be able to perform the action longer than any single one. same thing when i'm cycling and3 hours into a ride my legs are getting fatigued, i can concentrate on using more hamstring than quads and suddenly I finish the climb, or catch back up to the group, or not fall of the back, etc. Once my hamstrings are fatigued, I can switch back to doing more work with my now rested quads.

Successful troll is successful.

All this is talking about fatigue though, not efficieny. If can use slightly different muscle groups by shifting my foot slightly, effectively having the same result.

Good point, no one has ever mentioned that before. Just because it is more effective does not make it more efficient.

Ha ha. Yeah. We are all very intelligent individuals who somehow transform into a big group of fools and jackasses when we congregate online.

if switching muscle groups is the difference between finishing the ride in the lead group or getting dropped because of fatigue, then yes, you used your muscles more efficiently. moving your foot around lets you use the muscles in slightly different ways. pulling up lets you target an entire different muscle. big difference.

No, you just used more muscles. Not a single muscle more efficiently.

i think you're right. i should stop feeding him.

you use your body more efficiently.

Yes, true.