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Bicycling 101 - Clipless Pedals

by Liz Sands

One of the best upgrades that beginning cyclists can make is to acquire clipless pedals. First, some terminology. A plain pedal with nothing to keep your foot attached is a platform pedal. If you add a plastic cage to the pedal that goes around your foot, with a strap that can be tightened, then you’re talking about ‘toe clips’. Pedals that have some form of mechanical connection with your bike shoe, usually a cleat on the bike shoe that locks into a receptacle on the pedal, are ‘clipless pedals’ (clipless because they don’t have ‘toe clips’).

Why make this upgrade? Your pedal stroke is much more effective when your foot is attached to the pedal and can exert force through a greater range of the pedaling circle (with a platform pedal you can only exert force on the downstroke part of the circle). Toe clips do offer some of this efficiency, but they can be difficult to get in and out of when starting and stopping. In order for toe clips to be the most effective, the strap should be tightened after you get your foot in - you then need to remember to loosen the strap to let your foot out when you need to stop.

In contrast, most clipless pedals allow you to step on the pedal and immediately ‘click in’ instead of fumbling around with getting your foot into the toe clip cage. To release from the pedal, usually all that is required is a twist of the foot.

There are lots of different clipless pedal systems out on the market. If I had to recommend one particular kind to a beginner, it would be an SPD-style pedal and cleat. With an SPD-style cleat, you can choose to buy a shoe where the cleat is recessed on the sole. This allows you to walk around more easily when you’re off the bike, unlike the larger cleats that make us walk like a duck when we go into the convenience store to buy Gatorade. The other advantage is that most SPD-style pedals have a tension adjustment that allows you to make the pedal-cleat connection looser or tighter. That’s a big plus when you’re first learning how to use the pedals – you can adjust them to be loose, so that you’ll be able to twist your foot out of the pedal quite easily.

When you’re shopping for clipless pedals, be sure to ask whether the model you’re looking at has tension adjustment. Another thing to keep in mind when you’re shopping, if you already have bike shoes, is to buy a pedal whose cleat can be installed on the shoes you already have. If you’re shopping for both pedals and shoes, again, be sure that the pedals and shoes you buy are compatible with each other.

Another feature to be aware of is how much “float” a particular pedal system has. “Float” is how much the pedal will allow you to wiggle your foot around on the pedal. People who have knee issues are going to have to pay more attention to float (some peoples’ knees feel better with more float, and some do better having their foot in more of a fixed position). It is very important to have a knowledgable person at the bike shop help you with the placement of the cleats on your bike shoes. You want the cleats to be positioned so that your knees end up in proper alignment.

Down the line, more advanced cyclists often will move on to different pedal systems than the SPD style. These cyclists are looking for features like lighter weight pedals, more cornering clearance (pedals are shaped so that you are less likely to hit a pedal on the pavement when leaning the bike over in a corner), and an extra secure attachment so that they don’t pull their feet out of the pedals during a sprint. There are many different options and like other types of gear purchases, my advice would be to start by talking to other members of the club and finding out what they like and don’t like about their particular pedal system.

Copyright © 2005 Liz Sands. All rights reserved.

(Originally published in the TCBC Activity News: April 2005)

 

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