Well, I hate to admit it, but I did fit clipless pedals to my road bikes for a few years before removing them all and returning to toe clips about 1997. Much as I hate to say it, it did seem to me that they increased pedaling efficiency. However, I concluded the classic appearance of toe clips and the versatility of being able to ride in any type of shoe outweighed a bit of efficiency. The efficiency gain I thought I noticed with shoes locked in on the upstroke was probably exaggerated by the fact that with toe clips I usually don't pull the straps very tight, least I have trouble stopping in traffic. With straps well tightened I might not have noticed a difference. Of course, clipless is only more efficient when they are working, as anyone who watched the OLN coverage of this year's Paris-Roubaix knows. The Telekom rider (Wesemans?) in the final break had his foot coming loose from the pedal every couple of kilometers due to a malfunctioning clipless pedal, no doubt clogged with mud. He would probably have had a better result with toe clips.
Regards,
Jerry Moos
-----Original Message----- From: Roadgiant@cs.com [mailto:Roadgiant@cs.com] Sent: Monday, June 25, 2001 1:10 AM To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org Subject: [CR]toeclips vs clipless: advantages/disadvantages?
Got into a new vs retro argument last night with a guy who couldn't believe I rode a 24 year old Fuji with topeclips no less. Among other things he said that one couldn't rotate the cranks in a perfect circle with toeclips. I said one could but that wasn't the way people really pedaled anyway. So here's the question to the group: How does one actually pedal a bicycle? Is the force primarily on the top/downstroke with a little help on the back/up stroke?
Anybody?
As an aside, when I told him that his CAAD 4 probably wouldn't make it to his 30th birthday he shrugged and said, "buy another one, dude"
Hate it when I'm called 'dude'
Scott "Dude" Smith
LA