Tom Kunich wrote:
On Thursday, April 22, 2021 at 8:59:48 AM UTC-7, AMuzi wrote:
On 4/22/2021 10:36 AM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 4/21/2021 10:33 PM, wrote:

I somehow forgot about clipless pedals. They are a HUGE
improvement. I started with Time Equipe road pedals back
in the late 1980s, early 1990s. Same ones Lemond used.

Interestingly, the guy who set our club's record for club
mileage (11,000+ miles of club rides, not counting his
individual rides) just got a new pair of shoes for riding.
They're ordinary New Balance sneakers. He rides using toe
clips.

There are also the occasional barefoot marathon runner and
US football kicker. They are outliers.

One of our club riders mentioned that most falls on bicycles stems from
people not getting their feet out of clips rapidly enough. So he reverted
to flat pedals. Now he cannot keep up on any climbs. And people with
training can get out of pedals just as fast as he can step off of a flat
pedal since they are ready to clip out when the conditions warrant care.

Can’t say I have found any performance difference at all, I used clipless
for a few years on my first road bike, was fine, never struggled to clip in
or out or had a clip less moment but I never loved them.

Few years back bought a CX bike for hacking about the woods plus road and
put some MTB flats on, and used my MTB flat shoes, ie pedals with pins in,
plus shoes with soft tacky tread.

In short with proper flats you can’t slide the shoe but have to lift to
reposition, unlike the road flats which are frankly terrifying slippy.

I’ve done 100+ miles on them, climbed up big mountains, tackled seriously
steep climbs etc.

I’ve seen opinions dressed as science with huge gains for clipless but
proper stuff the gains is marginal, apparently. Which certainly echoes my
experience.

Interesting the pulling up, gain is very difficult to prove.

Roger Merriman