First ride with clipless shoes

[lobstermash]

C'mon, don't kid yourself... science (bad or otherwise) can be quoted to prove almost anything. Go on, ask me how I know

So... How do you know? Science doesn't ever 'prove' anything... It merely tests hypotheses

[human909]

Yes, quite seriously...

Lets play a hypothetical game.......

Huh? I've never said that clipless pedals make no difference. In fact I believe they do help ones cycling. But we are talking very marginal improvements. As I said, talking about 5 minutes over 25km is unrealistic.

I am happy with accepting reality as being closer to the scientific tests linked than your hypothetical bikini babe example!

[Dimis]

C'mon, don't kid yourself... science (bad or otherwise) can be quoted to prove almost anything. Go on, ask me how I know

So... How do you know? Science doesn't ever 'prove' anything... It merely tests hypotheses

Correct... and its the conclusions of experiments that can be brought into contention. ie: we see the same test, yet interpret the results to suit our own purposes.

PMed for details about how I know

[clackers]

could not believe how much harder it was to ride a bike without clipless pedals.

From treating them initially as a novelty, I actually get irritated now when I find myself on a bike that doesn't have them.

[AP81]

I have to agree with lobstermash.

Clipless for commuting with a lot of stop/starts almost negates the need for clipless. I clock almost identical times on my commute with or without clipless. If I had a unbroken commute (i.e. minimal traffic lights), I think there would be a difference.

I also find clipless teaches me "lazy" pedal habits, so I save my clipless for proper riding and commute exclusively on flats.

[g-boaf]

could not believe how much harder it was to ride a bike without clipless pedals.

From treating them initially as a novelty, I actually get irritated now when I find myself on a bike that doesn't have them.

I have to agree. Clip less is great, you just have this feeling of security in being locked to the pedals. When a magpie decides - I can just go up three gears and hammer away.

[lobstermash]

I have to agree with lobstermash.

Clipless for commuting with a lot of stop/starts almost negates the need for clipless. I clock almost identical times on my commute with or without clipless. If I had a unbroken commute (i.e. minimal traffic lights), I think there would be a difference.

I also find clipless teaches me "lazy" pedal habits, so I save my clipless for proper riding and commute exclusively on flats.

I should clarify that I still commute clipless, as I'd bought the things and find them more comfortable. The ACT has a number of poles for cyclists to grab onto to stay upright, saving me having to clip in and out all the time.

[Mulger bill]

You have clipless , I'm without clipless All else is equal...
Who do you think will get the cash?

Ummm, the bloke with the sharpest elbow or best bunch sprint headbutt?

[gorilla monsoon]

I rode with toe clips for about six years but have gone clipless on both bikes over the last three-four months and I can honestly say I found the clipless conversion underwhelming.
Yes, I have a minor degree of security on the pedals that I might not have had with toe clips and yes, my foot is more likely to be positioned correctly but the benefit there is comfort, not speed. As for perceived performance improvements, my ride logs suggest that my times are about the same with either pedal type (and that is measured on my regular training ride over an identical course).
My usual morning training ride is pretty close to 25km and I really don't think I could knock five minutes off it by dint of different pedals. That's like saying an aero helmet or bumping tyre pressures up to 150psi would have a major effect.
Sadly, I have yet to see any bikini-clad wenches holding briefcases full of money where I ride but my two bobs' worth would argue that the cash-grabber would be the fittest rider, not necessatily the one with clipless pedals.

[human909]

My experience toe clip give you 75% of the benefit and clipless an extra 25%.

What is the benefit you might ask? I find the biggest benefit is it allows you to be a little more lazy about your pedalling, less mental coordination effort. Extremely high cadence is also a easier with clipless but who needs 200 rpm? Certainly not me!

Overall since getting clipless I have no desire to not ride clipless for long rides on the road. On the MTB I prefer flats. For commuting I like clips and street shoes, though clips can scuff you nice dress shoes.

[Dimis]

Ok I'll concede that clipless might not be worth 5mins in 25km if its the first 25km, perhaps not even the middle 25km... But what if it were the last 25km after 100+km and those were up hill?

Clipless for me thanks
...and Ill see you guys in 5mins. Haha :p

Enjoy.

[human909]

Ok I'll concede that clipless might not be worth 5mins in 25km if its the first 25km, perhaps not even the middle 25km... But what if it were the last 25km after 100+km and those were up hill?

Clipless for me thanks
...and Ill see you guys in 5mins. Haha :p

Enjoy.

I don't know? What if? Having done enough MTBing on flats with long grinding ascents I am not clear on the difference you are implying here. In fact after 100+km and hitting a long hill I often would just settle back and pump the legs until the top.

Given the vast leeway regarding biased self assessment of performance I think it is safest to stick to the actual peer review data here. And that data suggests that there is no statistically significant performance gain from clipless pedals.



And here is the efficiency data. It does show that clipless is approximately 2% more efficient. Certainly believable and certainly not insignificant for competition. Statistically you could claim that the difference is not significant.**

Net Efficiency
Elite Cyclist
26.0% ± 2.3% Pedal
26.5% ± 1.8% Clipless

Non-cyclist
24.7% ± 2.1% Pedal
25.0% ± 2.0% Clipless

**(Getting geeky here, but from a statistical viewpoint their conclusion that clipless and pedal are statistically insignificant is flawed. They should have been comparing the difference +SD on individuals not the difference +SD on the group. Maybe they did this, but it isn't evident in the paper.)

[Dimis]

The implication being that while grinding up a hill, the dude with clipless can recruit different muscles ie: pull the pedal up, resting their tired and lactate filled quads to allow for a second and third wind.

For the record - your right it is subjective to some point. But so are the differences between riding a road bike and a mtb. On a mtb there is little benefit to leaning forwards & jumping out of the saddle to push and accelerate. Most your energy is transferred into bouncing the travel in the suspension (at least in my case without a locking mechanism.) if I want to go faster on a mtb I need to shift weight to the back wheel for traction. So you're correct technique is everything, but specific to its intended requirement also.

Thanks for the graphs. But it's still clipless for me. No contest

[thomashouseman]

Is this saying Elite Cyclists exert the same force on a pedal as non-cyclists? That's just wrong!

EDIT: Just saw the 60% quote, but even at 60% they should still be exerting much more force. That what those humongous quads are for!

[human909]

The implication being that while grinding up a hill, the dude with clipless can recruit different muscles ie: pull the pedal up, resting their tired and lactate filled quads to allow for a second and third wind.

That is an odd implication considering that "pedal pull up" has largely been debunked as an efficient way to ride.

For the record - your right it is subjective to some point. But so are the differences between riding a road bike and a mtb. On a mtb there is little benefit to leaning forwards & jumping out of the saddle to push and accelerate. Most your energy is transferred into bouncing the travel in the suspension (at least in my case without a locking mechanism.) if I want to go faster on a mtb I need to shift weight to the back wheel for traction. So you're correct technique is everything, but specific to its intended requirement also.

Huh? Absolutely you want to jump out of your saddle for acceleration on a MTB for the same reasons you want to do so on a road bike. Since when was I

Thanks for the graphs. But it's still clipless for me. No contest

I'm not trying to convince you otherwise. There is no reason to approach the discussion in a partisan way. I'm simply presenting facts.

Is this saying Elite Cyclists exert the same force on a pedal as non-cyclists? That's just wrong!

You do bring up an interesting point. It should be noted that the non cyclist were still fit athletic individuals. Either way the figures that you probably want are the power figures which were 274W for elite and 232W for the non cyclists.

[lobstermash]

Pedal pull up is not efficient energy expenditure wise, but because it's working different muscles and take some of the strain from your quads, even for a short period, it can be a very useful strategy.

[jonbays]

Probably been debunked now too but when I was taught to ride I had to ride fixed with toe clips and the thing I remember being encouraged to get right was not the pull up but the pull back at the bottom of each stroke. Sort of push down to the bottom and a shuffle backwards at the bottom of the stroke with no real pull up at all. At low cadence when truly bonked on steep hills you could stand up and throw the bike around and push down and pull up at the same time more to get relief on tired muscle groups than anything else though.

Therefore having learned this style riding with plain shoes and toe clips was awkward as your foot slips backwards a bit on the pedal sometimes. with cycling shoes when racing with plates and toe clips all was fine.

Look I still ride steel frames with downtube shifters so I would be a technophobe I guess but I do like the feel of Clipless better as I find there is no power lost in shoe movement on the pedal at all and it feels more connected just like a fixed versus freewheel connected feeling.

[human909]

It is my (limitted) understanding that research has generally shown that max efficiency is really achieved by simply engaging the downwards force on the pedals.

What has been found though is that efficient riders generally have less downward force on the pedal during the upward stroke. So yes often you are pulling you food up on the upward stroke, but only in as much as you are lifting some of the weight of your leg.

This incidentally can be seen in the previous graph. When the net effective force is negative on the upward stroke that means the cyclists is still putting downward pressure on the upstroke. The elite cyclists have much less downward force during the upstroke!

[Mulger bill]

Clipless is fun.
Clip and strap is fun.
Flat is painful, my shins don't need more scars.

[Timbo1]

Flat is painful, my shins don't need more scars.

+1

[human909]

Sorry I have no peer review research handy about the prevalence of shin scars from flat pedals.

[lobstermash]

I reckon we could put together a pretty large sample size though...

[Summernight]

I have a few ankle/heel injuries from not getting the clipless cleat in and having the foot slip off the pedal with the force as I thought the pedal was clipped in. You'll have to add them to your sample.