DCwom

We are still hunting down our first tandem, soon we'll have to deal with the "pedal issue". We currently use standard flat pedals, and are well aware of the advantage of securing your foot to the pedal on a tandem, but we're not to keen to being "locked in". I'm wondering what our fellow clipless phobes use (spacifically)? I've seen straps, cages, little toe hooks, etc, are any better for a tandem?

andr0id

Well, you're not locked in. You just turn your foot to get out. If you need practice, try it on a trainer a few times to build up some confidence.

I use to ride with clips and straps and I believe that would be the absolute last thing I would want to go back to. I'd take 5 speed, down tube, friction shift, center pull brakes, and cottered cranks before I'd ever consider riding with toe clips and straps again. And that counts double on a tandem.

It would be better to ride with flat pedals than to deal with straps. And you'd have to learn the secret bungie cord arrangement which I'm not telling.

geranimo57

I rode cages for 20 years on my single. When we brought our first tandem home this past summer we opted for flats to get some experience on the tandem. My wife had never been on a bicycle. After a few weeks we went with the SPD pedals because they had the best options for shoes that we could walk in since most of our rides a casual touring. We like to "stop and smell the roses" as part of our rides. I had never used clippless before and was worried about being locked in. Let me tell you these things are the best thing since sliced bread! No problems being locked in, you will love them.

SDS

I would recommend double-sided SPD pedals, that is, the ones that will allow you to clip in on both sides. Shimano used to make a pedal that was a platform on one side and a SPD pedal on the other side.

Keep in mind that a shoe/pedal system is just that. Arguably best for a beginning tandem team, and perhaps for teams of nearly all levels, is a MTB/touring shoe with a slightly recessed cleat. Here the small SPD cleat can really shine. It's small enough to make the recessed location practical, the MTB sole can be contoured to "funnel" the cleat and the pedal together with the correct alignment, and the recessed location means that you are walking on rubber sole instead of slippery metal or plastic cleat, and youi won't scratch anybody's floor with the metal cleat.

Also, the rubber sole of the MTB shoe makes stopping much safer, whether you do it with one captain foot, or one captain foot and one stoker foot. The rubber sole is much more slip-resistant than metal or plastic, and that means your feet stay under you where they can support you, instead of sliding out from under you.

Most pedal systems release when you swing your heel out away from the bike, which is your first reaction to some suspicion that you are trapped anyway. Release tensions can be satisfactorily low. While men never have a problem, I have known a few petite women who have had problems because no one had turned the adjustment screw to lower the release tension. Check before you ride.

As noted above, toe-clips-and-straps are awful for most people. Seems to me I got out and onto Look pedals around 1986, when they first became available.

JTGraphics

We love our Speedplay X2 pedels easy to clip in and out, I use them on my single and commuter as well.

rmac

We have been using Shimano SPDs for a number of years. Lately, my stoker has been complaining of knee soreness. SPDs, while having some float, center with a spring action. This tends to keep your foot aligned in one direction which is not optimal for some people. We're switching to Speedplay Frogs because they have much more float and are not spring centered. (Plus we got a great price on them.) Hopefully, they will cure the knee problem.

Here is a thread that reviews MTB pedals for commuting. Speedplay Frogs came in at the bottom.

https://www.bikeforums.net/commuting/401343-clipless-pedal-spd-bebop-vs-rest.html

apage4u

My stoker had a knee problem. After a slight adjustment to the cleat position on the shoe it went away.

rmac

Could you explain how you decided on the adjustment?

WillFam-Reno

Good luck with your tandem search. We had toe clips for many years on the tandem, while I used Look pedals with road shoes on my half-bike (which I liked except for walking around). On our tandem, I tried the Look pedals and found that the road shoes were very slippery and I had to be VERY careful while holding up the tandem. I only really slipped once, but was able to recover by the heal gaining traction at the last moment - I went back to toe clips. When I got a triplet, there was more weight involved and so I started out with the toe clips on it, but coordinating the bike while pedaling from a stop, and then having the clip scrape the ground until I could get the bike up to speed to enable me to get the toe clip in place in order to insert my big foot, was frustrating to me. I know that Zonatandem does well using toe clips. I bought a pair of MTB shoes with SPD pedals just like SDS in post #4 recommended and now am riding that way. The feet are secure like the Look pedals with plenty of float for me, and give a lot better traction even while holding up the triplet and trail-a-bike (and trailer). I still have the bottom of the shoe clip about even or maybe a half mm lower than the bottom tread on the MTB shoes, so I would not want to walk on a hardwood floor or anything, but for walking into a carpeted store or a short sidewalk stroll, they work fine. Maybe I need to do some carving to recess the clip?

Anyway +1 on MTB shoes.

How do you decide on the adjustment?
Make sure the stoker is comfortable. I suggest watch the stoker ride a flat pedal on a single bike or have someone else pilot the tandem and watch how their foot is placed. Usually within a few hundred feet, they will rotate the foot into a natural feeling position. Just try to duplicate the position with the cleat. If, after riding a bit, the stoker is not quite comfortable, try making a small adjustment of the cleat and try again. There is quite a bit of adjustment range usually available.

apage4u

I had to make the adjusment in the middle of a 75 mile ride. Figured I needed to rotate a little left or a little right, took a guess and got it right the first time. You could have her sit on a table with her knees at the edge and see which way her feet turn. As mentioned above, have her pide platform pedals to see where her foot goes naturally.

WebsterBikeMan

Our experience is as follows: the soles of my feet weren't happy in regular (running) shoes inside my toeclips, so I bought some SPD-compatible mountain shoes. But I wasn't ready to go there yet. It meant I could walk in the same shoes that I rode in, and the soles were solid enough that I didn't feel the structure of the pedal. After a few years I did something that damaged one pedal enough that while still usable, it was now hard to get the dust cap on and off for maintenance, so that was my excuse to get new pedals. Clipless. Nobody so far has admitted to falling at an intersection, so I'll go first. Magic how impossible it seems to uncleat when the bike has already reached a standstill.

Years pass.

Tandem time. I'm certain I want clipless, and the convenience of double-sided outweighs the weight disadvantage. Especially in the captain position. Stoker is not so convinced. She's never used clipless pedals, and wants to feel sure she can get her feet free. So when spec-ing the bike I left it at "we're still figuring this one out". So when we showed up at the bike shop there were clipless on front and back, with Shimano's "platforms" on the rear, so she can ride without cleats. She asks the fellow who fit us, and built up the bike from the Bilenky frame, and he says it's significantly more efficient. So we bought her a pair of SPD compatible shoes, knowing that they can be used with toe-clips or clipless pedals. And on the tandem it is less important for her to be able to uncleat than on her single.

Next day the tandem is in the family room on the trainer and she's practicing cleating and uncleating. And the day after she wants me to swap the pedals onto her single so she can ride (an hour and a half or so) with the clipless pedals on her single. My response is that this isn't happening many times before I order a set of clipless for the single. She says she feels more "one with the bike" or "connected" or something. That's what the woman who sold me the clipless pedals for my single said too. I don't know about that but I do know my single-sided clipless pedals are a lot lighter than their toe-clip predecessors. And the connection is more firm. The clipless pedals for her single should be arriving today.

So I don't know whether it really is much more efficient. I think the "communicating through the pedals" thing works better. I'm not quite sure how communicating through the pedals works, but she says it is working. I can't imagine riding tandem without both riders being connected to the pedals, at least with toe-clips, unless perhaps on a DaVinci or similar with independent coasting.


As far as the falling at intersections bit goes, if you're the sort that can easily form habits and always remember to do the right thing when coming to a stop, great: always uncleat as you slow down, before you come to a full stop. If you're like me, you might want to ride clipless on a single for awhile first; and at least practice getting in and out on a trainer. And keep the tension only tight enough to do the job. There are essentially four domains: too loose to cleat in reliably; too loose to stay in if you rotate your foot a little bit; tight enough but loose enough to easily uncleat; and tight enough that it could be hard to uncleat. You want to be somewhere around the semi-colon separating the second and third in that list.

sch

Websters writeup is a good summary of many people's experience. I recall my first fall
on the new bike coming up to a stoplight after a few hundred miles on clipin SPD pedals.
Ignominious, at the least and potentially very unhealthy: fracture wrist or collar bone,
rarely hip. After the SPD wore out at ~8000mi I switched to Speedplay: no spring adjustments
there or needed, easy clipin and twistout. Frogs even nicer and with recessed cleat to boot
for easy walking. Very easy to clip in and out. My pilot used Look for awhile, constant battle
to clipin, big PITA, finally went back to his well worn double sided SPD. I tried Cranks for awhile
and found a minor PITA to clipin for 500 or so miles then it eased up. Switched cleats R<->L
Biggest hassle for me with Cranks was not so much clipin as resistance to clip out, shades of my
original SPD where I once had to take foot out of shoe and wrestle the shoe off the pedal.
This eventually settled down as well. Cranks definitely grip tighter than Frogs but were ultimately
abandoned for a second pair of Frogs, which are my preferred pedal. First pair going strong on
3d set of cleats at 18K miles on the bent.

thebearnz

My stoker prefers Crank Bros Quattros (a double sided road pedal) so that's what is on the tandem. We have carbon soled MTB shoes so we have stability stopping and walking but still have performance when we stomp on the power.

When we were learning however, we tried clippless pedals first- bad mistake- almost dropped the bike a few times just trying to start, so switched to flat pedals. We found after a few goes we had to put the clipless on the stoker as her feet would naturally "slip off" when stopping. Once she was clipped in, we got the starting and stopping technique correct and then put clipless on the captain and away we went.

DieselDan

Advice and misconception correction:

Clipless pedals are easier to use then old school toe clips and straps, you just rotate your heel out to get out of the clipless binder, no matter who makes the pedal. Toe clips and straps require you slide your foot out the back, then out to put your foot on the ground.

Try using double sided clipless pedals on a single bike first, get proficient at them, then move them to the tandem.

I'm using Look road pedals for me on the captian's crank, while my son or wife sticks with platforms as stoker.

WebsterBikeMan

Maybe so, but I never fell in about 30 years from inability to get my feet out of the clips and straps.

Onegun

hehe! Then you never practiced your track stands at traffic lights. Plus, (when you're a young, single guy), the odds of going down are directly proportionate to the number of young, cute girls in the car next to you that you were showing off for in the first place!

Toe clips and straps are not a stepping stone to clipless. Getting used to clipless on the trainer, then your single, then the tandem is the way to go IMHO.

SPD is a good way to go, and the $40 Nashbar SPD pedal, (in colors!), is able to be set at the lowest release tension on the market. Downside is that if your are either heavy or strong, they don't last all that long and cannot be rebuilt .... (a press-in sleeve instead of a bearing on the inboard side).

I have swapped over to Crank Bros Candys. Like em a lot, and my experience is just the opposite of sch's .... virtually zero release pressure. Difference may be the particular model of pedal or, (more likely), type of shoe. My experience has been with road shoes only thus far. I understand with some mountain shoes you have to ocassionally carve out a little rubber on the sole, and sometimes use the supplied shim under the cleat, or sometimes both to get them just right. Their whole thing is "no tension adjustment cause you just don't need one", and that has been my experience with them. YMMV

rmac

If I remember clips and straps you had to actually reach down to release the straps or you couldn't get your feet out. At least with crashes you stayed with your bike. This was a long time ago when I was riding with a racing club. Is this incorrect?

Onegun

Technically, yes, but in reality, no. Even with the best of straps, (like Alfredo Binda Extras), if you panicked and yanked hard enough ......

Problem came in when you didn't even have time to panic!

Abram

The last time I rode with straps & clips, I was at the LBS trying to isolate a creak by trying different pedals. Rode around the lot, back up to the door, hit the brakes and tried to twist my feet out like clippless by habit... And went right over.

If toe clips are tight enough to really work, IMHO they are not easier to get out of. There are the angled straps that you twist in and out of, never used them personally, though.

WebsterBikeMan

Maybe my feet are larger than yours, and I definitely never raced in them, but I always kept them loose enough that I could get in and out easily, and the clip itself was tight enough on the toe of my shoes that they "really worked". Perhaps not as well as I would have needed for racing, but at 6 1/4 feet, I have a serious handicap when it comes to racing. And I'm not that age anymore anyhow. The other thing is that I was not yet teen-aged when I learned to use toe clips. Perhaps I learned faster back then.

I haven't tried clips and straps since I switched a couple of years ago. I wonder whether I'd have a similar experience.

andr0id

At least for me, it was always a very fine line between "tight enough" and blood circulation in my toes. Yet another thing to hate about clips and straps.

Monoborracho

We are a new tandem couple, about two months and 200 miles so far. I ride a LOT with SPD's. My wife rides much less. For now, we have a set of clips for her as stoker. This has required a great deal of faith on her part but its working out. It allowed her to take comfort in being able to get loose if she needed to. Truth be told, she saved our bacon on the second ride we had when I came close to dropping the tandem.

I am currently using M324 pedals on the front which allow me to start easily and clip in when I get going.

Works for us (for now).

zonatandem

We started off way back in the 70s with clips and straps on our Follis tandem. Worked fine, never fell due to toeclips. Only times that straps were super-tight (not just snug) was in competitive situations.
Have also used Powergrips; a wide strap that runs diagonally across pedal and you have to use same heel motion as 'clipless' to remove feet.
Have used clipless for several thousand miles (yeah, we know, you do have to 'clip' in).
Stoker had foot issues with her clipless pedals; definitely caused knee problem for her.
Stoker has also used half-clips (no strap). The last 25,000+ miles she's been using mt. bike toeclips and had no foot problems.
As for the pilot, he can 'take it or leave it' with clipless and has been using plastic road toeclips.
Fortunately we've got all sorts of pedal/shoe choices to keep us pedaling!
Pedal on TWOgether!
Rudy and Kay/zonatandem