From a guy for the gals...

DannoXYZ

"It would be very much the same if they were Monolos and a mini skirt...Very much different if they were yet another pair of birkenstocks"

Actually, Manolos do have a version with SPD attachments...

"He want's to meet a girl who cycles and uses clipless pedals. He's 23 yrs old. "

I find this statement very strange and extremely puzzling.. if not alarming... What does clipless pedals have to do anything with a girl? I get the impression that it's a turn-on of some sort if a chic uses clipless pedals, that it makes her more attractive? Kinds like a fetish of his???

Personally, I use toe-clips with dual-straps on my crit-bike, toe-clips with single-straps on my road-bike and clipless pedals on my track bike. These clipless pedals really aren't pedals as there's no platform, just a bare-spindle with an outer-cover that spins. Then the shoe has a wrap-around cleat that grips around the spindle; the lighest pedals I could find at 75gm each, but they're not the easiest ones to get into and out of, thus I only use them on my track bike.

As for the road-bikes with toe-clips & straps, I've always gotten off quickly in a crit faster than most guys with clipless; partly because of the two-step motion of flip/toe-in instead of the three-step motion required by clipless of flip/toe-in/heel-down. The third motion of reaching down and tightening the straps I do later once the pack gets up to speed and into formation (BTW- being on the edge next to the kerb on the start is the secret).

I guess my comparable fetish to the TheDL's fascination with chics and clipless pedals is that I find women with guns to be highly erotic...