Clipless pedals are to bicycles like digital cameras are to photography. It's hard to go back, even if you don't particularly like the idea.

Are they necessary? No. Can you ride without them? Yes, even a road bike.

But if you do some serious fitness riding, you probably benefit from having some kind of device to keep your foot on the pedal. It's not just the idea of pulling up on the upstroke. Even if you don't do that at all, there is still an efficiency gain due to the fact that you don't hold back or waste any energy trying to keep your foot on the pedal. Toe clips and straps do that too, but not with the same level of convenience as clipless pedals do... if only because there are no straps to tighten and loosen. Because of that, they are actually safer... much safer in fact.

If you ride with toe clips but with loose straps, that's not the same thing. Clipless compares to full toe clips with straps tightened, but without that major inconvenience.

I can happily live the rest of my life without ever feeling I need a threadless headset and stem system, or without anything more than 9 speeds in back, but all in all, I prefer my clipless pedals for longer, faster rides.

Looks like Sidi has renamed the road version of the dominators. My guess it is the genius model. When I bought my Dominators about five years ago, I remember that I almost bought a road version on accident.

Very true. The Shimanos give me plenty of area though, I can ride it a while before getting pissed off. There's nothing like being clipped in. I do run to my girlfriends house and things when I don't wanna get all dressed up, or if I'm just being lazy (which is most of the time).
I can't get my Shim road pedals off my Ultegra crank

tired of my wellgo spd mtb pedals. love my mtb shoes though.

should i go time atacs or bebops? I like the larger cleat of the bebop (maybe reduce chance of hotspots), but time atacs are widely recommended and a bit cheaper.

these would probably be used on both my road and mountain bikes

Try the Bebops. I've been curious about those ever since i started riding, but I haven't invested that much in pedals yet.

ATACs are the shizzle. I've never had a hot-spot problem, but my shoes have a crabon fibré sole and that probably helps.

It definitely made a difference in my (painful) experience. I crashed from a pedal hitting the ground only once in a lot of riding, and it was when I was clipped in to half-platform pedals, and the outer edge of the platform hit the pavement as I took a sharp corner. The pedal hit the ground, not my foot. I've never had that problem with other pedals that don't stick down (and out) as far. Certainly I'm extrapolating from a single incident, but "Pedal Strike" is a real enough problem on fixed gears to have a name, and that name isn't "foot strike".

What's relevant is what is closest to to the ground as you go through the bottom of the crank rotation while leaned way over in a corner. I don't see how you can get any part of your foot lower at any point than the outer edge of the pedal cage as you lean through a turn.

Me too. I have 105 pedals on my fixed gear bike (which are pretty much the DA pedals from a few years back). I'll even ride to work in rubber-soled dress shoes. I wouldn't try it with leather soles, though.

you only think the name doesn't make sense because you're not old enough to remember what came before. in the olden days, serious foot retention was done with a combination of slotted cleats, toe clips and straps. when look came out with their first retention system, the really noticable thing about it was that there were no toe clips. hence the name clipless.

really, my theory is that in cycling if the name implies it exists, it doesn't and vice versa. ie clipless actually clip and tubulars actually have no tubes.

That's an awesome analogy.

I like my bebops, but I'm going to switch out to ATACs because it's a hassle to share the same pedals between 3 bikes and for bebops that 3x$90 minimum.

That and the cleats are big enough that they make walking in the shoes a bit hard on hard and smooth surfaces. Not as bad as road clipless, but enough to cause you to slide around on the floor.

Well there's Tubeless. Tubular just means there's no 'clincher' and is a single 'tube' that goes all around.

godly. i refuse to ride my bike any other way.. EVER!

btw. get mountain shoes/clips if your just commuting.. walking in road shoes sucks

Incorrect.

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And now there are tubular clinchers!!

Which are actually tubeless!!!!! Confusion reigns.

overload

holy nitty gritty batman. i should have specified that they have no apparent tubes.

Thanks, great. I learned something.

hmm, didn't think about that. also, might not fit my clipless puma suede retrofit. think i'll go atacs coz i'll probably toss them on the mtb too.

or maybe i'll just get it over with and buy a road set up. considering sidi genius 2's with dura ace pedals. dunno what a proper price for that would be

I just bought some cheap diadora shoes and clipless pedals off nashbar to try out.

https://www.nashbar.com/webapp/wcs/s...0052_508301_-1
https://www.nashbar.com/webapp/wcs/s...0052_133805_-1

i was eating raspberries while reading this. Not the best experience in the world..

Question- I'm going to get take the plunge into clipless and I've decided on these shoes - https://revolutioncycles.com/product/...es-52667-1.htm
(thanks to catnap for the blog article)

My next question is, it seems there's a few different pedal options for me such as SPD or platform (possibly DX also?). I'm a total noob when it comes to clipless setups, so what should I go with? Differences between them? Bonus points for giving me a link to pedals that will work good but are under 70$(ish)

man, that's a can o' bees you're going to open there. people get real worked up about their choice of pedal systems.

my first piece of advice is to do some searchin' around this forum and that mtb review site and try and think about what features are important to you (easy clip in, price, "mud shedding" (whatever the heck that is), float, availability of replacement parts &c.) then choose your pedal system and ignore what everyone else has to say.

my second piece of advice is to get egg beaters -- if you don't you're skinny-panted hipster!

ignore my second piece of advice.

So maybe I'll rephrase- opinions on whats best for my needs? I just ride in the city, no offroading or anything crazy. The reason why I picked those shoes is because they look comfortable and they don't look like soccer cleats/ moon shoes as I will be wearing them quite a bit off the bike as well as on (commuting to school and work, grocery runs, etc.). So I guess whats most important is price and easy to clip in.