so youre saying a set of toe clips and straps with cleats will be as stiff as a carbon soled shoe and clipless setup?

clipless will make your sprinting and acceleration a bit easier. Once you're up to speed I seriously doubt you could tell the difference. For longer distances you can run into issues w/ hot spots on your feet as well. It DOES feel faster, no doubt about that -- I loved it until I had to switch back to platforms due to comfort issues. Then I realized that the improvements were coming from the engine, not the gear. If nothing it'll be a great learning experience as to how it should feel to be connected w/ the bike, and it WILL improve your pedaling on platforms.

If you're a true skeptic, make liberal use of REI's awesome return policies. It does feel great to use clipless -- just don't toss the vanilla pedals you got w/ the bike away.

i getcha.

i went from platform to toe clips and straps to clipless and i would never go back though!

Yes. You can use that exact same carbon soled shoe with the cleat for the toeclip/strap/pedal setup.

They make traditional cleats that work on 3 bolt shoes. I still use cleats on my track bike with Diadora shoes that are plenty stiff. If I wanted to I could move the cleats over to my CF Lakes.



Toeclip/cleat setup will connect you to the pedals as tightly and efficiently as a clipless pedal system. I t just won't be as convenient, or as comfortable.

I rode toeclips for more than 20 years and switch to clipless about 10 years ago.

My take clipless is that they won't make you noticeably faster (though you might feel faster), but they are better and safer than alternatives. Better and safer enough that it's the only way I like to ride.

Haven't really kept up with the thread, but there are lots of guys doing huge distances with toe clips. I think clipless is better, but if you don't want to spend the money don't worry about it.

Yea you'll lose a bit of efficiency, but unless you're paying the rent with your legs, just pedal on and enjoy yourself.

It's been proven that the differences are incredibly small, and if you just learn how to pedal you don't need any expensive pedals and shoes that people try to make you feel like you need.

Whatever a person is currently using is what they will say is the best, otherwise they will feel like they've wasted their money. *Of course* when a person goes out and spends $100 on something they will "feel" a huge difference. Clipless might make some inexperienced cyclists feel like they are so much faster, but it's all in their head unless they have very poor technique.

100 bucks for perceived change is a great deal though, especially if it'll make or break whether someone sticks with it or not. Continuing to believe it makes a difference and throwing more money at it later for more space-aged shoes would be a true waste (which does seem to happen often), but I'm all for people trying out low-end clipless systems.

Unless you use old-school cycling shoes with slotted cleats, in which case the only significant difference is that clipless are easier to engage/disengage than toe clips/straps/slotted cleats.

You don't need an expensive bike or components either.

But I like to spend my money where I spend my time. With few exceptions, you're buying more fun than performance.

Only if you use real cycling shoes with your toe clips and straps:

Alan Bike Houston, that you?

I have to kind of disagree. Last year I got a pair of free Shimano shoes. These were really expensive new, like $280 or something like that. I'd never pay that much for shoes. They are the kind that they use heat to mold to your feet. They are the very best most incredible shoes I've ever ridden and I've gone from the old days of leather lace up shoes and clips to clip-less and so on. So what I am riding now are currently the best and they didn't cost me a dime, I won them at a race

Lightweight stiff carbon sole shoes are easier to pedal after 80 miles or 10 miles. Less weight you have to move around on your foot the better. Plus when the fit just right as in molded to your feet I swear you can feel parts of your pedal stroke you didn't even know were there. Just going from regular running shoes to a cheap cycle shoe with a stiff sole makes a huge difference clip-less or not.

I hope these last me a long time because as much as I love them I'd still not pay that much for a set of shoes

And yeah like I was saying if you want efficient clipped set up then you need shoes with cleats just like a clip-less set so you may as well go clip-less unless you just want a day tripper to ride to the mall or something.

For whatever it's worth...

I was happy with my tennis shoes and straps. Well, I WAS happy until I crashed in my driveway after a ride, and I broke my toe. Yup. somehow, my big toe got wrapped around the edge of pedal where the little "teeth" were. I blamed my soft-soled shoes, and I decided I wanted some shoes with a hard sole to ride in. I wasn't interested in using cleats; I just assumed there would be some tennis shoes with hard soles that people rode bikes with. I went to the bike shop, and they just had shoes with cleats. I let the guy talk me into some SPDs, and I haven't broken another toe since I started using them.


Years ago, my dad had a fun accident with old-skool straps. He went down in a crack in the road, and he basically just slid until the bike stopped. His entire side from foot to shoulder was a purple and red bruise/brush-burn for a while. That's when he stopped using the strap that went around the back of your foot and just used the front part.

I'm a roadie and a racer, I have expensive carbon-soled clipless shoes and ride Speedplay pedals. And I think that clipless pedals are seriously oversold. There are benefits to foot retention, which of course is why I use clipless pedals. But the benefit is about keeping your foot on the pedal and not having the proprioceptive cost of having to make sure your foot and the pedal stays in contact. There's very little advantage in terms of speed.

So here's the thing. There are two basic means of keeping your foot attached to the pedal. One is clipless pedals, as mentioned. The other is toe clips and straps. In the Old Days, there was no functional difference in how securely these held your feet - with cleated cycling shoes, toe clips and straps are every bit as locked-in as clipless pedals. Clipless pedals won out because they are way easier to get in and out of, and they're nicer to your feet. In the modern era, toe clips are treated as more of an intermediate step between plain pedals with no retention at all and clipless pedals are are totally secure. People tend to use them with tennis shoes or other non cycling-specific footwear that can still be slid backwards out of the clip relatively easily.

My opinion is that the benefits of the modern use of toe clips and straps are extremely marginal. They do hold your feet in place reasonably well, and you can sort of pull up on the pedals if you really want to, but they're kind of loosey-goosey, and, most of all, still pretty uncomfortable if you want them to be at all secure. Personally, I would rather ride plain pedals than clips and straps with tennis shoes most of the time.

I rode with toe clips for a long time. Then last year, as part of a bike fitting, I switched to Look Keo pedals and a specialized road shoe with fiberglass sole.
The difference was very significant.

Then this year, I switched to a road shoe (also specialized) with carbon fiber sole. I thought carbon fiber in shoe soles was just for show and boy was I wrong.
It makes a huge difference in spreading the force evenly and not flexing when climbing out of the saddle. Maybe Specialized fiberglass soled shoes are crap, I would not know since I never owned another shoe with fiberglass/plastic soles.

Clipless pedals and a great shoe is what I would recommend. If you watch ebay and the specialized web site on clearance, sometimes you can find great deals on their top line shoes.

Thanks everyone, super answers and gave me a lot of insight on what everyone thinks. Seemed to get some mixed reviews. A lot of cyclers really do love clipless. And with good reason, I can see why since I bought a pair and gave them a shot for a couple of days.

I found it great to have your foot attached to the pedals, seems like I was wasting a lot less energy not trying to keep my feet in place. Not to mention I did notice a difference on hills and sprints like most of you said.

However, aside from hills and sprints, I didn't feel a significant advantage performance wise when just riding on flat road (most of my road is relatively flat), aside from feeling more connected to the bike and not having to position my feet properly. But I absolutely understand how clipless pedals are needed when doing performance based or long rides.

So at the end of the day, since I am currently not riding super far yet, I bought a pair of toe clips and installed them. And for the type of riding I'm doing currently, I found toe clips to be just enough, they keep my feet placed and I can leave them sort of lose and still sort of get the benefit of the pull effect. Also they cost me 5 bucks vs 150 for clipless. But it was never the money that was an issue, I just felt I needed to justify the expense.

But I know the day will come when I will feel the need to but out some hard core carbon roadie shoes, with super cool cleats and pedals! Maybe once I can do 80km+.......in one go..........

i have velcro shoes; are they clipless?

I don't mean to be rude, but you may be doing it wrong. Do you utilize the full pedal stroke? For me, even in flats, it's a huge difference.

Yea your probably right, I haven't got accustomed to using the full pedal stroke yet. Sometimes I tell me myself to pedal properly but I find after 2 minutes I feel as if I'm using more of my energy as oppose to simply pressing down. I must be doing something wrong.....or it could be that my achilles tendon is slightly underdeveloped so i have a low range of movement with my ankle.

$84 gets you rolling. A good pair of sneakers alone will cost that. if you got mountain shoes/pedals it would be even cheaper

https://www.nashbar.com/bikes/Product...76_-1___202531
https://www.nashbar.com/bikes/Product...99_-1___202527

"The full pedal stroke" is essentially a myth. The way human physiology works, it's basically only possible to put meaningful power to the pedals on the downstroke. Studies of elite level athletes have demonstrated this - everyone mashes, and the best peddlers put a bit less downward force on the pedal during the upstroke. A bit less! They aren't pulling up, they're just not weighting it as much. Pedal stroke is super over-analyzed, and it has always struck me as a bit humorous given that it's an extremely prescribed motion that can't be significantly optimized beyond getting the positioning of your contact points (butt, cleats) just right. The benefit to clipless pedals is proprioceptive, maintaining your contact point on the pedal in the most optimal position, not the ability to put out more power throughout the pedal stroke.

I think there is a benefit to a smooth pedal stroke, but I suspect that it is in enabling more comfort at higher cadences. A higher cadence = putting power to the rear wheel more smoothly, which feels better and, depending on the rider, might be a better use of energy. But it's not about power.

You probably are using more energy. I would say you'll be fine if you just keep riding. Smoother form develops naturally with time.

Once when I was going up a hill out of the saddle, I ripped the upper part of my shoe off of the sole from pulling up on the pedal. Yes, clipless. It was interesting riding home after that.

Well, hang on. I suppose I should add a key point - under MOST conditions, people don't pull up. On steep hills, sprinting, etc, sure. There are limited circumstances. But 99% of the time is what I meant. Sorry, I should have made that clear. There are always exceptions. Always.