Clipless vs. Flats

I ride both. All the XC riding is with clipless, doing some trials with
the flats. Any thoughts on one or the other? My flat peddle riders say
they (flats) are better - they are afraid of the clipless saying they
are dangerous. It seems you need to have alot of time in the saddle to
"train" your feet to unclip properly - they seem to unclip fine every
time I fly over the bars and bounce off the ground... thoughts?

"SuperG" wrote in message
...
I ride both. All the XC riding is with clipless, doing some trials with the
flats. Any thoughts on one or the other? My flat peddle riders say they
(flats) are better - they are afraid of the clipless saying they are
dangerous. It seems you need to have alot of time in the saddle to "train"
your feet to unclip properly - they seem to unclip fine every time I fly
over the bars and bounce off the ground... thoughts?

I would never go to flats. Clipless help me tremendously on climbs and I
have much more control on descents.

CG

SuperG wrote:
I ride both. All the XC riding is with clipless, doing some trials with
the flats. Any thoughts on one or the other? My flat peddle riders say
they (flats) are better - they are afraid of the clipless saying they
are dangerous. It seems you need to have alot of time in the saddle to
"train" your feet to unclip properly - they seem to unclip fine every
time I fly over the bars and bounce off the ground... thoughts?

Clipless took some getting used to for me, but now that I'm used to
them, I can't even think of using flat pedals again. I have tried both
Ritchey and Shimano and I love the Shimano 520's I'm currently using;
they shed mud quite well and seem to have a wider adjustment range then
the Ritchey's I owned.

Chris Glidden wrote:
"SuperG" wrote in message
...

I ride both. All the XC riding is with clipless, doing some trials with the
flats. Any thoughts on one or the other? My flat peddle riders say they
(flats) are better - they are afraid of the clipless saying they are
dangerous. It seems you need to have alot of time in the saddle to "train"
your feet to unclip properly - they seem to unclip fine every time I fly
over the bars and bounce off the ground... thoughts?


I would never go to flats. Clipless help me tremendously on climbs and I
have much more control on descents.


I agree. On the pure trials stuff I would say flats are better since you
can dump/eject quickly. I have been out riding (over and over) logs the
long way - and the flats seem to work best for that type of practice. On
the hill climbs you clearly get more power and on the fast kick-butt
downhills there is nothing like clipless to hold you in. It might be
that the flat peddle riders simply have not "trained" themselves for the
natural reaction to clip out...

For bunny hops on flats that takes shifting of weight vs. just pulling
up (if you were on clipless...)

On 2005-06-25, SuperG penned:
I ride both. All the XC riding is with clipless, doing some trials
with the flats. Any thoughts on one or the other? My flat peddle
riders say they (flats) are better - they are afraid of the clipless
saying they are dangerous. It seems you need to have alot of time in
the saddle to "train" your feet to unclip properly - they seem to
unclip fine every time I fly over the bars and bounce off the
ground... thoughts?

I don't understand why you're asking this question. If you ride XC
with clipless and it works for you, then obviously you don't need more
time to train your feet ..? What am I missing?

--
monique

"Get a bicycle. You will not regret it, if you live."
-- Mark Twain

"SuperG" wrote in message
...
I ride both. All the XC riding is with clipless, doing some trials with the
flats. Any thoughts on one or the other? My flat peddle riders say they
(flats) are better - they are afraid of the clipless saying they are
dangerous. It seems you need to have alot of time in the saddle to "train"
your feet to unclip properly - they seem to unclip fine every time I fly
over the bars and bounce off the ground... thoughts?

Do whatever works for you, ride your bike

SuperG wrote:

I ride both. All the XC riding is with clipless, doing some trials with
the flats. Any thoughts on one or the other? My flat peddle riders say
they (flats) are better - they are afraid of the clipless saying they
are dangerous. It seems you need to have alot of time in the saddle to
"train" your feet to unclip properly - they seem to unclip fine every
time I fly over the bars and bounce off the ground... thoughts?

When I'm riding in technical terrain, I just make sure and keep the
pedal release tension adjusted very low. I can pop out of them
without conscious effort. The down side is that I'll also pop out
occasionally when my spin gets a little lumpy or I'm having to use
body language to get around obstacles - but it's better than having
the bike ride me into the ground on an endo.

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $695 ti frame

SuperG wrote:
I ride both. All the XC riding is with clipless, doing some trials
with the flats. Any thoughts on one or the other? My flat peddle
riders say they (flats) are better - they are afraid of the clipless
saying they are dangerous. It seems you need to have alot of time in
the saddle to "train" your feet to unclip properly - they seem to
unclip fine every time I fly over the bars and bounce off the
ground... thoughts?

Stop listening to your friends.

Bill "ain't broke; don't fix" S.

"SuperG" wrote in message
...
I ride both. All the XC riding is with clipless, doing some trials with
the flats. Any thoughts on one or the other? My flat peddle riders say
they (flats) are better - they are afraid of the clipless saying they
are dangerous. It seems you need to have alot of time in the saddle to
"train" your feet to unclip properly - they seem to unclip fine every
time I fly over the bars and bounce off the ground... thoughts?

Clipless are good for XC rides, racing and generall overall riding.

Flats are good for situations where you have to eject from the bike quickly.
Freeriding, dirt jumping, etc.

Flats are superior as a teaching aid. Flat teaches you how to maintain you
CG (center of gravity) over your bike. Your foot coming off the pedal under
various riding conditions tells you you lost your CG. Flats teaches you use
your your upper body to control your CG.

By maintaining your CG you also become faster on your bike. Try riding a
rough downhill section and some whoops that gives you negative Gs with
flats. Footing slipping off or moving around. That means you lost your CG.
By pumping the fork and shifing your weight you should be able get through
that section like you're glued to the pedal. By doing so you just went
through the section at a faster pace. Clipless tends to mask your lost of
CG in this situation. Without feedback you can't correct.

Anyone can bunny hop clipless. If you never intend to go big then clipless
bunnyhoping is good enough.

If you intend to go bigger then you should learn with flats. Flats allow
trial and error on smaller stuff because you get immediate feedback on a
screwed up CG. You can slowly work you way up to bigger stuff. By
maintaining you CG your landing from bigger air will be safer. Flats
teaches you on how to be one with the bike in the air.

Practice on flats and race with clipless. One thing clipless can do is the
pulling up of the cranks as you power out of the turns.

Monique Y. Mudama wrote:
On 2005-06-25, SuperG penned:

I ride both. All the XC riding is with clipless, doing some trials
with the flats. Any thoughts on one or the other? My flat peddle
riders say they (flats) are better - they are afraid of the clipless
saying they are dangerous. It seems you need to have alot of time in
the saddle to "train" your feet to unclip properly - they seem to
unclip fine every time I fly over the bars and bounce off the
ground... thoughts?


I don't understand why you're asking this question. If you ride XC
with clipless and it works for you, then obviously you don't need more
time to train your feet ..? What am I missing?


Been riding XC for years and will continue as such... with clipless.
Have linked up with some trials riders that ride over items that the
typical XC (like myself) might go around - granted there 'ain't much I
go around now but adding the trials training sessions have helped with
the balance and tossing the bike over larger boulders, etc. Being
clipped in riding the length of a 12" log 3' off the ground is not good
practice. Clipped in it was always easy for me to, for example swing the
rear of the bike around - just by pulling up on the spuds. The first
time trying that with flats was a surprise - needed to learn more about
moving body weight around to get the rear of the bike up on flat
peddles. This using the flats (in training) clearly helps when pushing
the bike over a big rock or a log.

The original question was to see who else might have ridden with both
and any increase in tech skills picked up (plus to drown out the Mikey V
crap...)