It will lead to earlier exhaustion.

At the risk of taking this post seriously....


No, you aren't. That's a myth.

Data from pedal-based power meters makes it very clear that you apply very little useable force on the upstroke when clipped in. You aren't applying power throughout the entire pedal stroke; what you're doing is pushing down, and then getting your leg out of the way. I.e. a bicycle operates like a two-stroke engine.

Clipless does not:
• Significantly increase power output
• Fix crappy pedaling technique
• Make it physically easier to climb

The benefits of clipless are:
• Improved control
• Staying attached to the pedals when applying lots of power (e.g. sprinting)
• Encourage riders to use stiff-soled bike shoes
• Improved ride feel

Clipless doesn't cause any real harm, and offers useful advantages for many riders. But it's still not the case that you are applying force in "four directions."

What? That took you 2 pages??? Slacker!

Based on this, I would say you probably coast a lot.

There can be additional force applied on the upstroke during hard climbing and hard accellerating.

Clipless may not "significantly" increase power output, but it allows you to maintain the same power output for a longer time, which is in all reality, an increase in power.

By using other muscles besides the main "push down" group, you spread the burden around which makes all the muscles involved last longer.

I fell yesterday because i didn't unclip fast enough...I laughed at myself...DUMBA$$...At least i was OK and was able to laugh at myself...It was only about my 5th time ever on a bike with clipless pedals......Momentary lapse of reason.

Oh boy! A ghost from the past!

I would love to see the guys from the TTT yesterday do it again with platform pedals. I wonder how that would go.

Anyone done a TT clipless, then in as same conditions as possible, done it again with platforms?

I test rode a tt/tri bike with platforms. Every time I came to a hill or needed to pick up the pace substantially I couldn't keep my feet stationary on the pedals.

Yet another troll thread.

I've never seen a single scrap of evidence to support this claim.


You use the same muscles, whether or not you use any foot retention.

Researchers and experts like Andy Pruitt have used pedal-based power meters for years. No one adds power on the upstroke, not even top pros. All you wind up doing is lifting your leg, without losing contact.

Clipless is not about power, it's about control.

It should bear the honorary name of 'Fred's Conjecture'.

To the layman, this might make sense, but in practice, clipless, like Forrest's testimony, has helped my legs become better cycling tools. That sentence sure contained a lot of commas.






Your witness.

It really does feel like winter recently.

whatever, can we change the freakin names tho. you clip in and out of clipless pedals. rattraps with straps have no clips. please people, can we change the names.

It should be called trolling for the sake of trolling

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

Have you ever sprinted, or attacked (or chased an attack) on a climb ? I can feel my foot trying to pull out of my shoe from the upward force.

On longer sustained climbs, I can decide to utilize my hamstrings and pull through the bottom of the stroke. With some shoes with older delta cleats, if there was any play, you can feel the shoe slide back ..... I'm curious about these "studies" and how they were run.

Let's break this down, engineering style.

Unless you've got one of those funny (and pretty damn cool, imo) elliptical crank sets, your crank and drive train in general are radially symmetrical. So really, they don't care which 'direction' you're pulling/pushing, just that energy is going from you to it. (In reality, since it's a polar [radial] system, you are only really pushing in one direction the whole time, you're just using different muscle groups to accomplish it. So, if consider using the exact same amount of energy on platform vs clipless, you just get to spread that energy payment over different muscle groups, which helps to keep you from exhausting yourself too quickly.

Also, it should help you maintain a more consistent power output. Like I said, the crank doesn't really care which "direction" you push, but you're not using the same radial system as it. So when using platform, you can only push down, which only lets you use one quarter(ish) of the crank rotation per arm, or about half the rotation in total. Pulling/pushing in other directions uses - again, assuming the same amount of energy - the same energy spread more consistently over the crank.

As for clipping/unclipping, I still have the occassional trouble unclipping really quickly, but it's a necessary evil IMO.

How about a flying 200 meters on a track bike?

Yeah, but don't forget about the aerodynamic efficiency of some platform pedals. The airfoil shape helps generate lift that can negate the weight of the bicycle. You don't get that on a clipless pedal.

Science rules.

In baseball, it's called a strike when the ball isn't struck with the bat into the field of play.. Why not call it "not struck" instead?

And what about home plate? It's five sided. No plates in my home are five sided. They have two sides, the top and the bottom.

And the foul line is fair. Why not call it the "fair line"?

I will however, agree to agree with you.

Not sure how long you have been riding, but back until the mid to late 80s we used quill pedal which had toe clip and straps on them. The shoes still had cleats, but the cleats were slotted to fit over the back edge of the quill pedal and then the toe strap was tightened to get a good interface between shoe and pedal. That is what I and many others rode on back in the day. Still have a set of quills with toe clips and my old Specialized shoes in my gear bag. The style of pedals used now are indeed clipless, as they no longer require toe clips or straps, but instead use cleats and spring tension in most cases. And they are far easier to get in and out of than the old quill pedals with toe clips and straps.

Let's think this through. Would it have been a nice day if he flipped, but came loose from his bike?

No, flipping your bike means you're going to have a very bad day whether you're attached to it or not.

The thing we should learn from your story isn't that clipless pedals are bad or dangerous, it's that you shouldn't run your bike into things.