I am now 60 years old, 6'3" and 200 lbs ex water polo pro and I like doing MTB riding. I have a xc racer hat and a Trek EX 7 trail bike. And I was also anxious using click pedals and shoes. So I did a compromise and ordered magnetic click pedals and cheats. Looks easy to use and simple to adjust so I did it on my xc racer and bought cheap shoes with click montage possibility. Started at home for my normal evening trainings round of short 10km with a lot of asphalt and natural surfaces on it. Riding and climbing was very easy and I had a lot more power on the pedals, also more speed. Naturally. Then it came the first stoplight for crossing the big road. I have to turn to the right in a right ankle for the crossing so I broke up and wanted to out click my right food. It didn't worked and I smashed the stoplight and lande with the bike on the street. Fortunately no car came and I am only light injured on elbow and knee. After freeing myself I controlled what the mistake was and the result was the shoes. My shoes are too soft and I took my feet out of the shoe in order to click out. And this is what brought me back to my flat pedals. I use 5 ten shoes and large flat pedals up till now, shoes do cost € 100 and my flats 45,--. Costs are low for good good looking and working stuff. If I want to use click pedals I have to buy pedals from about € 90-150 and shoes, for my weight from about € 250 - 350. I will never be a pro in my future and in my age it isn't simple to work against your brain too, which said too dangerous by using clickers. So my decision is using flats for the rest of my life and being less quick uphill but perhaps a bit quicker in downhill. Use what you like most, for me it was clear after my test, by the while the magnetic pedals were € 150 and the shoes € 120 too. No cheap test in my opinion. Cheers from Germany and stay healthy 😊
That's crazy: I'm riding clipless now for 30 years. The last years all people asked me "how can you ride freeride and technical trails and stuff with those pedals???" And now clipless is the HOLY GRAIL??? Hahahaha
Jill's giving the racer's perspective, for the normal rider flats are perfectly fine. Even Karver tells his racing students its better for most to train clipped for racing. The sticky shoes made flats better for most "normal" riding. Plus riding international, flats make life much easier when your hiking / exploring / or just walking around. 41 years on mt bikes, did my clip phase, also had actual toe clips back in the day too. Learn both, then choose what works best for your riding. Clips also make people loose the skills flats require.
I would even say flats are fine for racing. Do what's most comfortable for you, the 3 watts you get from being clipped in is worth it for some but not others (I say this as a high school xc coach and a sometimes xc racer). 🤷
Nice work Jill and April. I did start in the days of toe-clips and after riding being "clipped in" on my road bike (off-dirt bike) for years, I thought it'd be a natural progression to ride trails with my spd's. The learning curve was steep and I was still humbled a lot. The idea was with the-toe clips and off road, I naturally pulled my foot back any time I wanted to stop. The spd's will not unclip when pulling the foot backwards. The best thing to do is just step off to the side as if you want to stop and put your foot down. Magically it works so well but it took me a while to unlearn toe-clip muscle memory. I love it. I love the control being clipped in gives me. I do ride flats sometimes just to get my bike handling skills a polish. Congrats April.
Over/under 3 months until the inevitable "I tried clips but going back to flats" video comes out 😂. BTW clips are the best I don't understand why anyone would ride without them but I just don't see it with her
I used toe clips/straps back in the day and then moved straight to clipless. I’ve tried flats but had a few pins on shins so stayed with clipless. It becomes a natural subconscious thing. Good luck
April this is THE best most practical video on this subject. Both cilps and flats have both got better over the years. Im using Chromag Dagga pedals on all my bikes with Leatt 3 shoes. After being clipped in for 20 years i have not been injured trapped in the flat pedals crashing in unexpected situations. Its also a benefit to choose any footwear you want depending on the season with flats.
I have always wanted to know if I would like those type of pedals and shoes, that I have bought the pedals but I am still hesitant. Thank you April and Jill for a very educational video and perhaps one of these days I will make that change. 😊
Nice, April! Now you have me at least considering clipless. I love the giggle when you slowly fell when your right foot didn't release. Glad that was your worst mishap.
Nothing more embarrassing than for an experienced mountain biker to try clipless pedals for the first time and fall over in the trailhead parking lot before even getting to the trail. Yes, been there, done that.😆
'Now we add a little panic' Indeed... The biggest issue is exchanging all that muscle memory we have from yrs of childhood bike riding (with flats) with being clipped in. Forgetting that your clipped is where its gets ya!
Five Ten riding shoes with flat platform pedals make the most sense, and will help a rider avoid injury ten fold! Anyone clipping in, is asking to pay a heavy price for that decision, I promise ya!
Like some others commenting here, I started MTBing back in the late 80s and early 90s with the plastic toe clips. NGL - once you got the muscle memory for getting the pedal flipped up and you slid your shoe in - you were set. I rode on the infamous North Shore in the Vancouver area so I never had the clips tight. Cool thing was, you could use any shoe you wanted! I rode with clips from about age 17 to maybe 25 - never had a crash with toe clips. Switched to SPDs and found myself falling over in one critical way: steep technical climbs. Twisting out while in high torque - couldn't happen. I know a few guys who really got hurt in technical sections with their clipless pedals. Soooo I threw out the SPDs and went back to the old clips lol. But then I got shamed by my PMBIA instructor who said, you can't use CLIPS YOU OLD DINOSAUR! (I already had flats, I was trolling a bit lol. I was riding in Squamish with my old toe clips on and saw another guy with toe clips and we did the little bro nod at each other lol). With flats, you just gotta remember to lift the front foot and lower the rear so you're locked in. Flat pedal shoes have lame tread on 'em though so if the trail is slippy and you gotta hike-a-bike... oof. That said, I'd only clip in for XC racing or road. I have flats on my gravel bike ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I transitioned from road racing to mountain biking almost 30 years ago, and went straight to SPDs on the MTB. I'd ridden clipless on the road for thousands of miles so it was a piece of cake for me. But road or mountain, the toughest part is that rotating your heel to clip out is an unnatural motion, so in a panic type situation you just want to lift your foot to regain balance or plant that foot, and that just doesn't work with clipless pedals. So, take your time and just get used to them and that muscle memory will kick in and you'll be clipping in and out very quickly as the trail dictates. I tried riding flats last year and just couldn't keep my feel attached the pedals, and in really rough downhill sections that was terrifying to me!!
This was a really awesome and well done video! Thanks for that, loved it! The opening scene reminds me of when I started my Clips journey ha ha! I was falling over and wrecking my elbows and knees all of the time. Then one day, I decided to put a very small amount of chain lube on the cleats and all of a sudden I could unclip, and it was like a whole mental unlock!
I ride clipless and flats and there are definitely benefits to each. Once you get used to them, a lot of things are just easier with clipless. You might find riding the e-bike is easier with clipless since you basically don't stop pedaling on one of those bikes and it's easier to stay on the pedals with clipless. I find rough, rocky descents are easier with clipless since you don't have to think as much about staying on the pedals. And of course there's being able to easily pick up the back wheel to get up or over obstacles - sure, I can do it with flats too, but it's easier with clipless. Much of this comes into play when on longer rides when being able to save a bit of energy over the length of the ride can make a difference in how "spent" you are towards the end. I find I jump better with flats, but that's more of a "me" problem than any issue with the pedals. After Thanksgiving, I'll switch to flats and run them all winter.
My first ride "clipless" cost me a new brake lever, a set of carbon bars, and a couple of scrapes and bruises! The learning curve was steep but the control and stability riding clipped in is amazing, especially down hill through fast rock gardens!
If it works for you, that's great! For me, I tried clipless about 10 years ago and just couldn't build the muscle memory. I tipped over on a very rocky part and fractured my left forearm and that was it for me. Have been riding flats and will stay that way.
Once you come to grips with the fact that YOURE GONNA FALL it’s not that bad. Like the legend said “it’s all muscle memory”. It gets easier every ride.
Love clipless, being connected to the bike, and no chance of bouncing off the bike. A lot of crashes happen from your foot slipping off the pedal, shifting your balance forward on the bike, then over the bars you go.. its worth mentioning multi release cleats too, which are better for learning..
Trail riding in rocky CT on my 3" travel CC bike I planted my 26" front wheel against a rock at speed and went OTB so fast I landed on my back still clipped in with both hands on the bars. But you'll be fine. Pro tip- A dab of grease in the cleat mounting holes helps keep the screws from welding themselves in when they rust.
I go back and forth with clipless and platforms, but more often I find myself riding flats for comfort, convenience and sense of safety, specially for technical terrain
I recently tried the crankbruh system, ooof. I was disgusted by SPD's set-up but when I learned you had to switch them plates 😮 straight to the bin, marketplace bin that is 😂
Having been clipless for over 20 years, I can't understand how anyone rides without them. Going to flats to me would be the same as putting my hands on the grips with wrapping my hand around it.
flats is safer, you dont have to rely on some mechanism to get out, flat is easier to get out and more convenient. of course since i ride emtb, what little efficiency you ACTUALLY gain is far outweight by the power of the motor, so clipless is useless as far as efficiency is concerned. but at the end of the day its a matter of preference what you like. modern flat pedals are nothing like the past, they have much more grip now.
I used to ride SPD's since about 1995, got on flats for awhile since I was into trials but when I moved to BC I started riding DH on SPD's and noticed how uncomfortable and unpractical it was after all, had a crash and almost pulled my leg off, that was it flats ftw 😂
That makes no sense when riding clipless actually equals wrapping your hands around your grips and quickly having to unwrap them when falling. I would never tie myself to my bike, it's ridiculous.
Agreed. I have a couple of bikes without clipless (or half and half pedals) and just don't feel as connected with the bike. I even used toeclips back in the day, and still do on some of my older rides. I liked the analogy!
Great video, I think it would be weird if someone didn't feel a bit nervous with something new. It's funny, everyone says to use flats to learn good technique, but there are also bad habits people get from riding flats, the things I see most are giving up on technical climbing sections too soon because it's so easy to step off, the other is relying on that mid-corner dab instead of improving there technique. Obviously, you can improve these things on flats, the same way you can learn to do a proper bunny hop in clips.
when I learned SPD, first I tried falling next to a bed. to practice the movement when I'm falling. by default, my mind is not focusing on the rotation of the ankle, instead it tries to just move the feet away from the bike, to stop the fall. then it starts to build a muscle memory, when falling, must rotate the ankles out. then for many years, I never had an SPD accident when someone just falls sideways, in slowmo, like a bag of potato :D
Cudos for always be willing to face your fears 👍 I can easilly imagine it must feel super weird at first - never tried and I don't bike as much as I would like to, for this to feel worth the extra money... Interesting to see how it works, nontheless
Riding clipless can hurt your knees if not set up just right because you're sort of locked in to that one spot but you'll be able to feel which way you need to go and you can just make some small adjustments untill it feels right. You will get it but just ride flats if you dont like it and it'll be fine. I ride flats on mountain bikes and ride clipless for road because it feels faster.
I rode 10 years clipped in. Eventually you'll have a crash where you just couldn't unclip fast enough, and you will know that if you weren't clipped you could have saved it. But they are still a requirement to win races.
If for some reason, you want my Eggbeaters, you'll have to prise them from my cold, dead hands! But Crankbrothers, the pricing of your brass cleats is outrageous, IMO. Please sort that out!
In a seated position take not of how your feet are positioned that will give you a good idea of how your cleats should be positioned. If one foot turns a certain way that is your natural body mechanics and needs to be adjusted with the cleats.
I am sorry to say so but I cannot enjoy watching this video with my headphones. The left/right only audio and additionally swapping between left/right is really annoying and stressful to me. :/
maybe a future update with a little more detail on 1 ) tensioning the pedal for easier or more firm release 2) tricks on tensioning where 1 side is easier and the opposite side of same pedal is firm.
