Clipless vs. Flats

"SuperG" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

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 said:

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 said:

"SuperG" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

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:

Quoted message said:

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" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

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 said:

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 said:

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" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

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 said:

On 2005-06-25, SuperG penned:

Quoted message said:

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
[censored]...)

On 2005-06-25, SuperG penned:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

On 2005-06-25, SuperG penned:

Quoted message said:

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?

[snip]

Quoted message said:

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 [censored]...)

I get all that, but your original question seemed to be asking whether
clipless are dangerous for some terrain ... not just whether they
didn't hone your bike sense as well ...

I would certainly believe that learning to do certain maneuvers on
flats requires more skill with the bike than learning to do them in
clipless. Whether or not that matters if you always ride clipped-in
anyway .... well, I'm sure it would help some.

I'm still new to mountain biking, but I find trials riding
fascinating. One of these days, maybe I'll get enough balance to
attempt some of it. Right now, I'm still working on little stuff like
getting my front tire over obstacles.

--
monique

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

On 2005-06-25, Mark Hickey penned:

Quoted message said:

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.

I hear this a lot, and it confuses me. I've had my tension set at the
absolute lowest on every pedal I've used, and I also have the more
forgiving cleats. Now that I'm used to riding clipless, I can
effortlessly release whenever I want to, yes, but I can't remember
ever coming out when I didn't want to. Believe me, my spin is way
more than a little lumpy.

Actually, I do recall every now and then turning my foot enough that it
feels like it's starting to coming out, but it's never resulted in lost
contact with the pedal. I just straighten out my foot and all is well.

It just seems like if anyone would have trouble staying in pedals, it
would be a newbie like me with sloppy technique. But I haven't had
that experience. Obviously my definition of technical would be
different than yours, but I'm probably mashing the pedals at least
twice as hard as you are on any climb.

--
monique

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

SuperG said:

Monique Y. Mudama said:

On 2005-06-25, SuperG penned:

Quoted message said:

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.

I found that I learned 80% of my trail-handling skills by riding with flats
on foot-high urban stuff.

--
Phil, Squid-in-Training

Got rid of clipless the day I went to stop and the
right foot was still clipped in. Over I went with my foot attached
to the bike. But it was a matter of just removing the cleat and
retaining the platform pedal. Now a days they have flat one side and
clipless on the other.

The bus Monique.

Clipless when im doing a namby pamby XC ride with my mates, as the
going up is far easier with them. Then i whip them off and go flat when
im riding big downs, purely for confidence.

Monique Y. Mudama said:

On 2005-06-25, Mark Hickey penned:

Quoted message said:

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.

I hear this a lot, and it confuses me. I've had my tension set at the
absolute lowest on every pedal I've used, and I also have the more
forgiving cleats. Now that I'm used to riding clipless, I can
effortlessly release whenever I want to, yes, but I can't remember
ever coming out when I didn't want to. Believe me, my spin is way
more than a little lumpy.

Actually, I do recall every now and then turning my foot enough that it
feels like it's starting to coming out, but it's never resulted in lost
contact with the pedal. I just straighten out my foot and all is well.

It just seems like if anyone would have trouble staying in pedals, it
would be a newbie like me with sloppy technique. But I haven't had
that experience. Obviously my definition of technical would be
different than yours, but I'm probably mashing the pedals at least
twice as hard as you are on any climb.

Being a closet roadie, I pull up on the back half of the stroke a lot
more than most MTBers (actually, according to a Spinscan computer, a
lot more than most roadies). That's the only place I ever pop a pedal
out - it would be (as you've found) unlikely for the pedal to release
on the front half of the stroke (since you're pushing down on the
cleat).

You may or may not ever develop a "round spin" to the point where
loose cleats are a problem.

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

On 2005-06-26, [email hidden] penned:

Quoted message said:

The bus Monique.

??

--
monique

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

Monique Y. Mudama said:

On 2005-06-26, [email hidden] penned:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

The bus Monique.

Quoted message said:

??

Had to go back to your post to get it. You asked what you were missing.
Crazy replied the bus. Arr-arr.

Bill "my kingdom for some quoting" S.

Monique Y. Mudama said:

On 2005-06-25, SuperG penned:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

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?

[snip]

Quoted message said:

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 [censored]...)

I get all that, but your original question seemed to be asking whether
clipless are dangerous for some terrain ... not just whether they
didn't hone your bike sense as well ...

I would certainly believe that learning to do certain maneuvers on
flats requires more skill with the bike than learning to do them in
clipless. Whether or not that matters if you always ride clipped-in
anyway .... well, I'm sure it would help some.

I'm still new to mountain biking, but I find trials riding
fascinating. One of these days, maybe I'll get enough balance to
attempt some of it. Right now, I'm still working on little stuff like
getting my front tire over obstacles.

I find clipless very safe on all the rough XC that I ride. You of course
need to spend the time becoming comfortable with being clipped in and
clipping out as a reflex. The flats have been (IMHO) better for learning
more balance and weight shift moves. We practiced over the winter in
parking lots riding 2x6's on milk crates. Not good to do with clipless...