makecoldplayhistory – Member

Who here rests their hand flat on the bars with fingers outstretched and who curls their fingers around the bar?

WEll, you know, I ride with open hands and I use those shimano hand-clips. But I always find that when I try and ride like that without hand-clips, I fall off. This proves hand-clips are the best.

The idea of attaching my feet to the bike by anything other than gravity and awesome technique frightens me. I wouldn’t wish for my hands to velcro’d to the bars either for that matter. Flats. Always and forever

This. The idea of clips off road give me the right willies. All my riding mates ride clips though so I admit I’m probably missing something.

Bought a road bike last year and felt compelled to put SPD’s on, I’ve fallen off on my own, in front of laughing children (twice) and most spectacularly onto the bonnet of a moving car. 🙄

Flats, foot/pedal position changes depending what I’m going over/doing.

With flats I have the ability to crash and run on my feet, most of my crashes would’ve been worse if I couldn’t instantly disconnect from the pedals and start running down a hill trying to grab every tree I passed.

Ditto.

Too used to having pedal axle under my arch, not my ball, couldn’t get cleats far enough back…

I was the same when going to clips so have always cut the slots back further into the shoe to get the cleats somewhere closer to where you’d have your foot on a flat pedal.

In an ideal world you should be able to ride both and not rely on clips for gaps in technique.

At the end of the day it’s another of those personal preference things. There’s no right or wrong here and I don’t think it matters if it’s an Enduro bike or not really.

It’s flats for me because they keep you honest. Instant feedback if you’ve done something wrong. You can also go and arse about on your bike for five minutes in your trainers and practice bunny hopping on the street. Yes, I’m a 30-something big kid really.

Seriously, it seems to me that SPDs are great for the Pro’s who already have perfect technique to begin with. They can tap into the final 5% of SPD performance.

Loved the part in the video after 5:25 results where he said he can’t bunny hop without SPDs.

If you’re riding (decent) flat pedals correctly your foot only comes off if you want it to and if you’re doing it right you can bunny hop until the cows come home on any bike.

When I do (very rarely) slip a pedal I know I made a mistake and need to think about better technique next time.

That’s my opinion and experience.