Cleats, Clips, Clipless Pedals; To Clip In or Not To Clip In?

In a word, Yes.

High-end bicycles don’t come with pedals. Once you reach the point at which you would purchase a bicycle that costs what our cars cost in college, you have ridden some miles. Perhaps you’ve wasted money on low-end bicycles (I did), believing that no one in their right mind would spend more than a couple of hundred dollars on a bike(or so Sweetie informed me). Then, finally, you upgraded, and hopefully developed (or are developing) a preference for a pedal system.
Flat pedals are a great invention. You can pedal a bicycle in whatever shoes you have on at that moment—no special shoes required. The tradeoff, however is that you only use about 40% of your pedal stroke. That’s off the top of my head, maybe it’s less—but if you look at the physics of the pedal stroke you can estimate.
When your foot is in a rigid shoe, and cleated into your pedal, you train yourself to use the entire circle—more power, more muscle-groups, better workout. Riding long endurance rides, if you only used only 1/3 of your pedal stroke, you’d not only be working harder, you’d be isolating one muscle group.
To beginners, the idea of having your foot firmly attached to the bike is frightening. I promise you, after a couple of weeks of getting used to ‘clipless pedals’ you will find the thought of being without them frightening. Your foot can’t be knocked or jolted off the pedal by accident, so it increases your stability. More power, more stability, what’s not to like?
In addition, your cleats are attached to rigid shoes, so your foot doesn’t have to flex, and unconsciously ‘work’, inside your shoe. This will keep you from having foot cramps. And the hard sole makes the transfer of power more efficient. We are going to the trouble of pushing (and pulling) those pedals around, so we may as well reap all of the benefits in power transfer, yes?
And puh-leeez... don’t get me going about those old fashioned clips that used to tighten around your shoe. YIKES!
Off we go to the bike shop to make the salesman happy once again!
If you need to economize, save on pedal models rather than shoes. Try Nashbar.com. Ask questions!

Apologies to those of you who are happily pedaling around in your Dura-ace SPD-L’s, Look Keos, your Speedplays and Egg-beaters. This is, of course, aimed at the new cyclists among us.


Beth Travers
USA Cycling Certified Coach