And you're wearing cleats with those pedals and the straps tightened down as much as possible? Old schools cleats were much more of a PITA than clipless.

My fixed gear bike has toeclips. I ride it with cleated shoes, and the strap tightened. The only way to make the pedals as efficient as toeclips is to tighten the straps so you can pull back without pulling out.

And they are harder to get out of than getting out of clipless pedals.

It really doesn't take much of either.

Expand your horizons!

Have at 'em, killer:

https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...iimmmbeerrrrrr...

Only because you pointed me there.

I don't think that there are many here who are old enough to remember what real toe clips are (i.e., with cleated shoes). Crashing with the old toe clips was fun, because, if the straps were cinched tight, that bike was coming along with you, no matter what.

Yeah, it goes right along with my having to walk to school in the snow uphill both ways rant.

And now you can ALL just get off my ****ing lawn.

No, no, no. Your addiction is your problem!

If you didn't reach down and loosen the strap, you were tipping over unless you could pull a track stand.
Don't forget about the numb feet and lack of float. Straps were a crappy way to ride, I'm glad clipless were invented.

If this thread were in the MTB forum I'd agree, but not on the road forum. The only time I've fallen due to being unable to unclip was the one time I tried a free set of Wellgo, SPD cloans. They locked both shoes in place and I couldn't unclip and fell at the end of a short ride, in my garage. Now I know why the Wellgo's were free.
Other than those defective pedals, I've never fallen on a road bike due to being unable to unclip. That's true with SPDs or LOOK pedals.
However, MTBs are a completely different story. I lost count of the number of times I fell because I couldn't unclip.

Bingo....a little practice with a lot of discipline keeps the rider ahead of the curve. Back in the day (early 80's) even with the little screw on strap stops/quick release buckle, the Detto/MKS combo proved a crash-tastrophy

I don't agree with this at all. I fell on my first two rides with Shimano SPD-Ls but then switched to Speedplay and haven't even come close to falling in the past three years. If I would have started with Speedplay I would have never fallen and that wouldn't make me a liar.

I talked one of my riding partners into Speedplays when he first started riding and he has never fallen and I don't expect that he will unless he gets hit by a car.

I think I'm still in the will fall category. I have fallen and will continue to fall like I did today.


I some how partially clipped in, but couldn't clip out, as I was making a right turn behind a car. The car stopped so I stopped, but all my weight was on the partially clipped in foot.

So you both have fallen.

Yep. I can't remember falling over with clipless pedals, but I did fall over a couple of times using clips and straps.

Who cares? Some of you guys seem so proud about having never fallen! One would think you popped out of the womb while trackstanding!

If you've never, ever fallen on a bike, it probably still has training wheels on it.


On the other hand, I see no value in the fatalistic "you've either fallen or you're going to fall" philosophy. It doesn't matter whether you will fall or not, only whether you'll get back on if you do.

Whippersnapper!

When I was a boy we didn't have to walk uphill to school because the earth was still flat.

It's not that we are proud not to have fallen because of a failure to remember clip out of the pedals, it's just that it's idiotic to assume that it must happen. Maybe it will happen to me some day, I don't know, I can't see the future.

As for never fallen on a bike... I certainly have fallen, and broken plenty of bones doing it. It was just never because I couldn't remember to unclip from my pedals.

As far as I'm concerned it doesn't really matter if someone falls or not. Like you said, as long as they get back on. I just don't understand why people feel the need to reassure themselves or others that it's ok because everyone does it. It's common, it happens to a lot of people, it's no big deal, whatever. It doesn't have to happen to every single person to make it ok to happen to you.

umd, seriously? It's just human nature, man.

When something relatively minor yet "bad" happens, like stabbing your finger with a pin when hand-sewing, like the first time your kid cooks and burns something, like shaving and cutting yourself, like getting drunk at 18 and waking up next to the bar-troll as the sun peers through the window at 7am in the morning, orrrr.... like falling on a bike because you didn't unclip, people generally say, "ah, don't worry about it, it happens to everyone!"

It's a good-natured way of saying, "it's alright, it ain't a big deal, time to move on". Does that mean it LITERALLY happens to everyone? No. Of course not. Does it make it a bad thing to say "it happens to everyone!"? No. Of course not.

The options in this poll don't leave much room for your interpretation...

I'm going to go with this option:

But seriously, umd, what's the deal? Are you deliberately being obtuse? Do you really "not understand"? Or were you isolated as a kid from social interaction, like home-schooled or something? What gives? Do you have some deep-seeded bad pedal experience as a kid or something?? Did your momma spank you with a pedal strap? What's up? Open up to us, man! We are here for you!

C'mon man, it's bikeforums, it's just stupid fun. I think you read way more seriousness into my posts than is there.

Wait! You think I'm serious?? lol... I'm just having stupid fun myself!

Wait, that only happens at 18?