Covering old ground I know but I’ll try to give it a new twist….

After years of road riding and a few years of XC bike riding I’ve now built up a slightly more burly machine. Pike clad trail bike rather than XC whippet. Wheels mostly on the ground for me but hope to be a bit more adventurous in my lines.

I was a strictly clips man and find riding to the shops for a paper without being attached to the bike weird, but I’ve noticed that many riding such machines have gone flats. Try as I might, however I can’t get my head around that. I wondered about CB mallets as a bit of compromise between the two but have others found it a compromise in all the wrong or right ways?

I might just try Acids and remaind with what I know.

Mallets are not designed to be ridden unclipped. You may have your wires crossed.

They are for clipping in with extra traction and support for the foot.

Yes, but you can ride them with softer shoes. Can you not ride a bit you know you might have to dab on with your foot not clipped though?

either clips or flats.

any cross dressing pedal is just expensively, unnecessarily, wrong.

however if you want your bike to look like you ride ‘core flats, great, and you can still clip in

but we will know, its only your mother-in-law that you are fooling.

:-) I did think that there might be something a little “superficial” about them. I also wonder if those that ride flats are sometimes doing it for “fashion” reasons too.

The old style were terrible for riding unclipped in. The cleat dug right in to the ball of your foot and made it slip around. The new ones might be better but I’d try before you buy if you can.

The pop-up cleat design of the Shimano M647 ones makes a lot more sense to me. I think Atomlab also make some similar ones based on the older Shimano design.

Edit: Yep, here, although it seems they use a special cleat design and don’t make them any more.

I also wonder if those that ride flats are sometimes doing it for “fashion” reasons

Well SPDs don’t work very well with my Jimmy Choos. 😉

Hmmm – I’ll go against the grain here. I’ve got CB Mallets on my h/t so that I can use it for “everything” without fannying about with Pedals (I use CB Candy’s on my f/s). I’ve been doing this for a few years with no probs – that covers riding around town with trainers on, Munro approach stuff wearing 3-season boots as well as trail centre and natural riding while clipped in – the mallets have worked really well for me. I had the older ones and now I’ve got the new model, which are a slightly nicer shape and a bit grippier…..

Yes, but you can ride them with softer shoes.

You can but you will feel the springs through the sole and it is not comfortable at all. They offer hardly any grip either this way.

i love my mallets ride clipped in most of the time
but i regularly go spd free for popping to the shops and dropping the odd set of steps on the way and my regular trainers stay on reasonably well, wouldnt go on a proper ride with em withoup my spd shoes

I agree with Soobalias:

I used Mallets for several years but decided that they are a very poor middle ground. If you are going to unclip and use them as flats they are rubbish (no grip) and if you are not going to unclip, then what is the point of having the cage?

You really have to make your mind up whether to use flats or spds.

The other thing I found was when coming up to a technical section, I was thinking “should I unclip”, rather than “how do I get through this section, and therefore tended to bottle stuff because I wasn’t concentrating on what I was doing.

Now I use flats and am so much happier.

Yes, but you can ride them with softer shoes.

You can but you will feel the springs through the sole and it is not comfortable at all. They offer hardly any grip either this way.

I wasn’t really thinking like that – I was thinking that unlike with small platform spds where you needs a stiff sole, you can get away with a more “trainer” like sole in terms of flex with a big, broad padel.

I use old style mallets, but only with spd shoes not trainers (i have my commuter to go to the shops on). In my experience you might struggle with ‘trainer style spd shoes’ as they dont seem to unclip very easilly due to the grip of the shoe on the pedal. I have proper (xc?) style spd shoes and find the large platform usefull for DH riding as they give you somewhere to stand with relative security until you can clip in, certainly a margin better than the platform a candy gives you.

I ran mallets on my DH bike for a while, but using my regular XC/race shoes meant that I didn’t get the best experience of them. My xc shoe/pedal contact was similar to eggbeaters so I wasn’t getting much in the way of a platform benefit from the mallets with that combination in any event.
I can see using Shimano MP66’s or similar would have been a far better idea.

I run Acids on my Ransom.. they have good underfoot support and do have a bit of platform for those moments where for some reason you are in no mans land between being clipped in and unclipped. I’m ok with Acids for those moments where I’m committed to a techy descent but haven’t managed to get into my pedals.. I should point out that I would never want to willingly enter a techy descent section being unclipped from clipless pedals (regardless of platform size) and relying on only the cage as platform.. but in ‘oh cr*p.. i’m in it now situations’ they are fine.