My own feeling is that clips may lead to more low speed crashes, but they don’t tend to be the ones that cause injuries and I’m not sure there is much difference at higher speeds where the force of any crash tends to “release you” from the bike anyway. But I tend to use clips on road and gravel but flats on the MTB so don’t have much experience with clips on the MTB.
If you are waiting for the bike to release you your in for a bad crash ...
Here is the bike releasing someone with clips ...
I found flats to be faster in a test I conducted whereby I threw one of each of the pedals types down the length of my garden.
shouldnt the question be ‘which is faster’? safety should always be secondary to speed, in which case the answer is clips.
Agreed, but personally, I find bravery to be my limiting factor to downhill and/or technical speed. I'm more willing/less cautious on low speed tech both uphill and down; and much more confident leaning over on a loose corner in flats. Almost certainly a mental issue rather than physical, but seems to be faster for me.
To the original poster - Its a bit of an impossible question to answer as if you have a 'mishap' and you are on say Clips it would be very difficult to know if that exact same incident would have been worse or better for you on Flats unless you do an 'exact' recreation on Flats which is just not possible.
Best your going to get is purely anecdotal views and comments - nothing more than that.
Can't speak for the wider audience but for me, clips are safer. I ride flats when messing about with the kids, just cos it's easier and in those situations I'm always on/off the bike and let's face it, spd shoes wouldn't be great for collecting branches to build a den.
It's probably because I've ridden clips for so long and got a bit lazy, but I really can't jump on flats as I lose the bike. Have also said many times how quickly it's possible to unclip and dab if required so I've never had any issues as far as that goes either.
End of the day, the safest pedals are the ones that make the rider feel the safest.
Flat pedals definitely do more damage to shins and pretty much anything else they come into contact with.
I found flats to be faster in a test I conducted whereby I threw one of each of the pedals types down the length of my garden.
Re speed, I conducted a similar technical experiment whereby I fitted a clipless pedal on the left crank of my bike and a flat pedal on the right.
I then raced over a 1km distance and found the clipless pedal to be a microsecond faster. Further analysis concluded that the clipless pedal had started half a crank rotation ahead of the flat pedal proving each were in fact equally fast.
I repeated the experiment over various distances with consistent results proving distance was not a factor.
I'm hoping that this scientific experiment can finally close the age old which is faster debate.
To the original poster – Its a bit of an impossible question to answer as if you have a ‘mishap’ and you are on say Clips it would be very difficult to know if that exact same incident would have been worse or better for you on Flats unless you do an ‘exact’ recreation on Flats which is just not possible.
Agreed, which is why I tried to pose the thought experiment of a thousand riders on each and looking over a long enough period that all the different scenarios would play out over each group.
Best your going to get is purely anecdotal views and comments – nothing more than that.
Well that's true for most of the forum, but it's just a bit of fun 🙂
I do quite like the idea of using clips on the MTB (as I do for road and "gravel"). As basically an XC mincer it would suit a lot of my riding and when I've tried it I have quite liked that connected feeling. But I can't shake the feeling that I'm just increasing my chance of injury.
Flats generally I'd say, but on my hardtail I used to run spds as I got bounced off the pedals on rocky/rooty terrain, so it's dependant on the riding.
For general trail and xc I dont think there is any difference though
The back of my calfs would say flats cause more injuries, hence less safe.
Huh, someone else said something along these lines just the other day.
Virtually all of my flat pedal bites are on the shins. What is happening that the back of your calfs are getting it?
I was actually doing some flat pedal dismount drills earlier, found it quite informative tbh.
The answer is whichever one you usually ride, I'm definitely safe on clips but then they are what I usually ride.
Flats safer for me on my FS
Clipless safer on my 'enduro' hardtail.
depends what you ride, and on what bike
but one thing for sure, anyone who says spd are worse as unable to clip out off, haven't used them long enough.
judging by my left calf , spds are safer :0)
that said, last few crashes for me have been on gravel bike clipped in,
ROVERPIG "Well that’s true for most of the forum, but it’s just a bit of fun 🙂" "I tried to pose the thought experiment"
Well in that case I can answer the question...
If I imagine I am clipped in and on a steep slope on the edge of a drop and the bike slides away from me and I cant unclip and fall down the slope with my bike to my death then I can honestly say Flats are safer.....
However if I imagine I am on flats and pushing down a good run and over a big bump my feet loose contact with the pedals and I loose the bike and slam into a tree then I can honestly say that Clips are safer.....
Hopefully that helps 😉
(Personally I ride Flats and feel safer on them - I have no particular reason or evidence to support that its just how I feel)
I think you might be misunderstanding the experiment 🙂
The point of following a hypothetical 1,000 riders for five years is that it should tell you which of your scenarios is more likely and therefore which is more risky. Of course nothing will tell you what will happen to you. You could be that guy who smokes 40 a day and lives to 100 but we still know that's a risky thing to do.
"Hypothetical 1,000 riders.." (presumably the 5 years is Hypothetical as well)
"Thought Experiment.."
"Evidence would be nice, but guesses are fine too.."
"but it’s just a bit of fun.."
I think I have understood it perfectly well ....... 🙂
Recently got back into flats for messing about in the woods and re learning some old skills. Feel safer using flats for that.
On SPD's I still feel safe as I might hold back a bit on some technical stuff, but when pedalling I am much faster with SPDs.
It's about choosing the right tool for the job.
I have a scar on my head from flat pins, I doubt I'd have that if I was still on spds, so, flats.
TBH I don't think either is safer or less safe, or at least, not meaningfully when we're talking about normal everyday riders.- the thing that's safe or not is the pilot and that drowns out anything the pedals can do. If you're not safe on spds because you needed to dab or something, that's not because of spds, it's because of needing to dab.
