pedals
 

I have a GT GTR series 3 road bike that i just got and i want to upgrade the pedals to clipless pedals, i currently have toe clip pedals installed. I ride to and from school everyday and i do rides with my friends around on the weekends. I dont mind carrying an extra pair of shoes around. I am leaning towards the SPD type pedals because that is also the type of pedals that they have at the gym that i go to. What type of clipless pedals would be the most beneficial in my situation?

You can ride some SPDs and MTB shoes and be fine for commuting but realize that if you decide to do longer rides, road style shoes/clips are made for those purposes. Road shoes usually have super stiff soles to prevent flex in the foot and help with power transfer.

I'd suggest Speedplays (because they're double sided entry like the SPDs) and some road shoes with a carbon fiber (or carbon composite) sole, I've had cheap road shoes made out of a plastic sole and it still had flex and my foot would cramp or go numb after 30-40 miles (sometimes sooner).

As for the gym, do what I did, scour the internet for a super cheap pair of MTB shoes and throw SPD cleats on it.

SPDs are great if you want to be able to walk around easily in your bike shoes. Some people have problems with these that they don't typically have with road pedals, like the bottom of their feet getting sore around the contact point. You can usually fix this by getting very stiff shoes, and larger pedals with more contact area to spread the force. Like A-520s:

http://www.comparecyclegear.com/img2...ess-pedals.jpg

If you don't want to wear clipless to commute, how about these:

http://www.amazon.com/Shimano-PD-M32.../dp/B001AT33CW

They aren't as good as full clipless road pedals, but they will at least give you something while still allowing you to have grip on the pedals even in wet conditions. If you can find them, something like the old set of LOOKs I had on my commuter for a while work great even though they are a bit heavy. They are some of the only road pedals I have seen that have a platform on one side and clipless on the other.

http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=228996

The search button is your friend.

I have found that the platform of this one-sideed SPD pedal doesn't interface very intimately with the shoe, and therefore doesn't offer any advantage in terms of stiffness or stability. However, it suffers from the disadvantage of being one-sided, making clipping in less convenient and causing the clipless mechanism to wear at twice the rate of a double sided pedal. Plus the additional platform adds about at much weight as an additional clipless mechanism. If it breaks, you can't clip into the other side. If you go with an SPD, go with a normal two-sided pedal.

^ I never saw being one-sided as a disadvantage. The A-520s are 315 grams a pair, which is almost as light as you can get with SPDs. If weight is a big concern, Crank Brothers makes less massive four-sided pedals, and Speedplay can get you down to about 200 g, for ~2.5x the price. But the A-520s have been very, very comfortable and work well for me.

Here's a list of pedals by weight, although I think it's a bit old:

http://weightweenies.starbike.com/li...hp?type=pedals

If you're just riding to school I would recommend SPDs or Crank Brothers. Affordable and easy to use and walk in.

You might like these. Flat on one side and MTB style on the other:

http://www.performancebike.com/bikes...1586500_400048

If you are mostly just tooling around campus, you don't really need to clip in at all. Just wear normal shoes. And if you aren't doing any major rides on the weekends, you can simply get some cheap MTB shoes and clip in. My wife has these on her bike and they are just fine.

thanks for all the good advice it has really helped me really what i jst wanted to do was to get away from my toe clips i never realized how inefficient they were until i started riding with them

Actually, toe clips can be as efficient as clipless pedals. However, you have to use them appropriately: with cleated shoes, and strapped down tight.

The reason for clipless pedals is ease of exit, and comfort, not efficiency.

http://www.sbhbicycles.com/store/ima...ip%20Pedal.JPG
These are the pedals that i have on my bike right now the strap constanly slips off the pedal making it harder to get my feet in i hate these pedals i took the reflectors off the bottom becasue they were just getting bent and becoming useless