i'm going clipless. should i go road pedals or mountain pedals? and if you ride clipless do you have a brake?

Road shoes with brake.

End discussion.

Mountain shoes without a brake. Discussion not ended.

Mountain shoes if you plan any walking at all.

Done both and I prefer road shoes. I have to walk a lot so I use mtb shoes. Yes on front brake, I have yanked my foot out of both my LOOK and SPD pedals.

I have mountain shoes and they suck for walking.

Walking into a restaurant or an ATM? sure. Pushing your bike up some insane 3 mile hill? No.

Which shoes and cleats? I have no problem using mine as all day / everyday shoes

spd's

also search.

It all depends on what your purposes are. If your riding a lot of 30+ mile rides then you should probably get road pedals. If your going to be riding around town a lot then spd and shoes with recessed cleats.

And yes a brake, always a brake.

Road pedal systems have bigger platforms and more sophisticated float systems.

MTB pedal systems allow for MTB shoes (easy walking), mud shedding, and quick entry to the pedals being that there is lots of on-again/off-again in MTB racing. Quality MTB pedal systems feel primitive compared to the quality road system.



In short: If you ride long, go with road. If you are on and off the bike (like bike messengers) then go with MTB. This, btw, is why messengers who did ride clipless, preferred MTB systems.

Odlly, my mtb shoes and clipless wellgo pedals are harder to get out of and clip into than my northwaves and speedplays.

OP - YMMV with all the responses here. Get your butt to a LBS and try some shoes and clip systems out. You might surprise yourself in finding that YOUR opinion is the one that matters, not ours.

impossible. ours matters almost exclusively.

Both. Track racing, road racing, and casual riding I use SPD-SL. Cyclocross I use Crank Bros products; currently Candies. Like everbody's said, depends on what you're going to be doing. But as far as systems I prefer SPD-SL and Crank Bros.

mountain shoes with spds, use a brake if you want to keep your brains

The answer to your question depends a lot on what sort of riding you do. But if you are basically a generalist who does a bit of everything (some commuting, some errand running, and some recreational riding) and if you are only going to have one pair of clipless shoes/pedals, then go with MTB shoes simply because they are the most versatile. They work perfectly find for road riding, MTBing, and everything in between. If you want additional shoes/pedals for additional bikes that are more specifically for high pace road or track riding, then buy road pedals/shoes as a secondary pair.

Riding brakeless is stupid with or without clipless pedals, but if I were forced to ride brakeless I would choose clipless.

SPD mountain

im using a platform/spd from performance bike(campus pedal)and I love it because I can still ride anytime sandals or serious(shimano M086) and I can still walk around


hope this helps

Another vote that mountain shoes are way better than road for walking. Personally, I use SPD-M520s.

I've also used the same pedals for touring, so they've been great for me on long distances. (Disclaimer: have never used road pedals/clips before, but again, if you need to do any amount of walking in the shoes, mountain > road. Walking in road shoes also wears the cleat down, besides being awkward.)

And yes always for brakes.

EDIT: Just saw post before me - actually, campus pedals might be best for you since you can do both clipless and not.

I'm with Jesus... My fixie is more for short trips and tooling around town, but even on the touring commuter bike I run Shimano M-520 pedals with a pair of Mavic Alpine shoes. Good for when you're on and off the bike a lot, or where you have to do a lot of walking. Plus, I can ride in regular street shoes whenever I need to.

SPD-SLs are on my "speedy" road bike for long, most open road rides.

I'm fairly new to fixed-gear, so yes -- I run brakes front and rear, "just-in-case." When I need 'em, I need 'em bad ;-)

Mountain Shoes and pedals.

Especially if you plan on doing any commuting/errands on your bike.

I use SPD's, but I'm considering a switch to Crank Brothers eggbeaters.

I like Time Atacs. And I use Northwave Raptor SBS shoes. which is a mtb set-up.

I'm going to start riding with Look Keo Classics and Sidi Genius 5 Pros as my first clipless setup. I always have a bag with me though so I figure I'll just change shoes when I get to work/the library/wherever. Does anyone have any beginner's tips? I sort of want to avoid 0 km/h falls, as it's dangerous for both me and my bike... D: Is it safe to start with the tension dialed down a lot so it's easy to unclip? Or is that less safe than it sounds?

It's not hard to unclip when the tension is "normal" . . .

As for beginner's tips, I would practice clipping in and out while the bike is moving (granted, I did this on a road bike, so this might actually not be such a good idea on a fixed bike cuz of the pedal rotation), so that you get used to the motion while you have momentum to keep you from falling.

Actually, before I did that even, I just sat on the bike where I could safely hold on to something (like in a doorway) and clipped in and out until I felt comfortable doing it in motion.

If you have a trainer, that's a really good way to practice. Just clip in, clip out, clip in, clip out, clip in, clip out.

It eventually translates to...

just ride it and set the tension low in the beginning. just unclip before you come to stop, eventually unclipping becomes second nature.