[Closed] Flat pedals - old dog new trick

Stick with it. Been through it myself - it gets better! Now 100% flat after 20+yrs on spds, and I think it's made me a better rider.

Keep practising if you want, mtfu if you want. Your foot should be a little further forward on the flat (axle nearer the instep than SPuDs) which might feel weird after 10 years of SPuDs.

What are you trying to get from flats that SPuDs aren't doing?

I think it's made me a better rider.

What are you trying to get from flats that SPuDs aren't doing?

Watching and talking to better riders than myself and thier all on flats .

It took me months to actually enjoy riding flats after years on SPDs. Feet slipping off pedals and wonky foot position are the main issues, but this will get much better after a few rides. Personally, I still prefer SPDs for most stuff but YMMV and I know a lot of people prefer flats in the end.

Thats the end goal , more confidence on steeper techy stuff .

Axle under-ish the instep & drop your heels- you're essentially standing on the pedal's platform and digging your heels in which is much more stable than balancing on the balls of your feet when trying to go/get down a techy bit*.

* for a mortal/average bod. Super fit/skilled/awesome #Enduro/XC/DH pros need not apply.

I'm currently going through the transition to flats myself... and 'losing' the pedals at the sniff of a little air was my main issue, and nearly gave up in frustration.

Turns out I just needed [url= http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/chicksands-and-coaching ]a little coaching[/url], and now still in baby steps, I'm usually confident I will still have pedals under my feet when I ride off the kerb.

My advice would be to get someone who can show you what to do, then watch you and provide feedback as you session a small feature.

Oddly, as a Flat pedal rider, I seem to only see people shredding on SPDs and making me feel inadequate. Odd isn't how you see things innit.

Keep it up if you want, but don't feel like you have to, I'd probably be better off on SPDs if I was confident, but I ride tight when I'm clipped in and I don't enjoy myself.

Going from SPD's you probably need both to (re)develop technique and also a grippy shoe/pedal combo.

I messed about for ages after coming off SPD's because i was riding with a 5yr old (at the time) and it was on/off ... push him up a hill... etc.

That's 5 years ago and meanwhile I used crap shoes and crap pedals
I just actually changed to some proper grippy pedals and suddenly see what people are saying...
for my 2p it's not like trying a 20mm longer bar or 10mm shorter stem... where you might try a bit longer/shorter etc. but it's pretty much good/bad

If you're freakin awesome you can doubtless wear flipflops on cheap pedals and still be awesome .. and look like someone nailed your feet to the bike

For me... what a huge difference to fighting for grip on the old Saint's ...
I just got some new Nano-X (currently £30) and these make the Saint's with the pins on full like wearing ice skates... obviously you still need to learn technique but its WAY easier to get the technique right on grippy pedals and shoes. I rode clipped in on Sunday on my XC bike and for the first time felt way less secure clipped in than flats... (after 30 odd years on clipless and toestraps before that)

Funny thing is after a few weeks I reckon the way less grippy pedals would be better as well.

I'm not sure of the life of the Nano's... (and if its even worth maintaining) but for the price they made a huge difference to how it feels on flats

I'll probably replace them with something like Vaults now I'm bought in....

fairly recent returner to flats here & also struggled with keeping feet on at times. Couple of tips that have helped me:
- Heels down is common advice but often without context. Thinking of it as trying to almost push the bike through the rough stuff with your feet - heavy feet, light hands make bike work.
- practice your 'scoop' - lifting the back wheel with your feet by thinking about wrapping your toes around the pedal, pushing back and pulling up. with clips you can just lift your feet but with flats you need to push back to create the grip you need to lift up.

Decent shoes make a massive difference, what are you wearing?

Keep at it. I've spent most of the summer riding flats after 20 years on SPDs. It does get better - you do need to focus more on keeping your heels down.

Katie and I both swapped about the same time. She's a complete convert to flats. I'm less convinced and I think I'll end up riding both a bit.

However, grippy your shoes and pedals you do get bounced off sometimes (whether it's suspension kickback or clipping a rut when climbing or just over rough ground). I didn't stop finding it hard to get my foot in the right place again afterwards (getting your foot light enough to relocate it at speed in the rough is tough).

A new pair of Shimano ME7s is giving a lot of the benefits of flats combined with those of cleats (shoes that are good to walk in, not needing to be clipped in all the time)

Decent shoes make a massive difference, what are you wearing?

Brand new five ten elements and superstar nanos .can't really blame them 😳

Brand new five ten elements and superstar nanos .can't really blame them

Much better than I started out with.... as I said above I now think it's much easier to get proper flats technique with the best grip combo you can get... It's not hat I did but what I'd do with 20/20 hindsight!

TBH the nanos and any flat shoe is way better than my old Saint's and a grippy shoe... When I bought the kids 24 it has DMR V12's and I was wearing just casual slip on shoes .... riding it down some of the jumps at the bull track I couldn't believe how grippy it felt...

sounds like you've got the hardware sorted in terms of decent shoes and pedals (although I favour DMR Vaults - bigger platform and slightly concave so give better grip imho), so more probably a period of adaption and learning new technique (in the same way as you did when you went on to spds). only thing I can add is thing 'heavy feet, light hands' to put more weight through the pedals. of, and you wont enjoy your first shin scraper - unfortunately it's an inevitable!

and you wont enjoy your first shin scraper - unfortunately it's an inevitable!

I'll prob get some vaults next but £30 for Nano's is £30 .... and they are also possibly a bit big for my size 8's???? So might go V12's ????

Can Kate not give you some tips?
She seems to manage ok 🙂

Can Kate not give you some tips?
She seems to manage ok

😯 barsteward.

Sorry mate. 🙂
Just stick with it for a bit longer.
One ride is not much time to adapt to anything.
I'm 50/50 with flats and SPD's but thinking of switching back to full time spd.
If spds work best for you just stick with them.
It's more a personal thing than one being better than the other in my view.

I was half expecting that Stu 😆
She pre warned me about the feet lifting and trying to curl my toes .
I'll give it some more time and watch a few YouTube vids on technique.

Why attach yourself to a mountain bike??

Imagine if skateboarders did this.

Now there's an idea.

Interesting thread. I am definitely in the 'old dog' camp here, having ridden clipped in for over 20 years. I have tried, but not persevered with flats, and might try again.

I also coach kids on MTB'ing and can clearly see how they become much better at skills than me, partly by being on flats.

Ideally I would be in the position to be able to swop between the 2, but not yet !

However, grippy your shoes and pedals you do get bounced off sometimes (whether it's suspension kickback or clipping a rut when climbing or just over rough ground).

That's a technique issue. I think I've lost a pedal a single time in the last few years and that was on my hardtail on a very rocky fast trail. If you've been clipped in for years and years it could take a long time to get flats technique nailed.

Centre your feet more, drop your heels when hitting rough stuff and think heavy feet, light hands. Drive the bike forwards with your feet, don't pull, push!

I can't see videos helping much unless you video yourself and compare. Better to just ride lots!

If you've got one near you go practise on a pumptrack. I'd been riding a pumptrack for a few years using flats, then when I had to ditch the SPD's off road due to a knackered knee the transition was relatively smooth.

One reason you feel "less connected" when moving to flats after years in SPDs is that when in SPDs, you have become used to your feet being in a very fixed position at all times (because that's where the cleat is) When riding flats, you can have your feet at funny angles (in all 3 planes) on the pedals, it just feels weird after years of not being able to do that! In fact, the more you move the bike (esp. in the air) the more you can make use of the fact that your feet are no longer nailed to the pedals!

Look at this pic of me on my Dune, in the air and just starting to lay the bike down for a bit of a scrub as i crest a jump. (i was in full on "fast as possible" mode, chasing a mate who's super fast, so it was low and fast rather than high and fun). Rather than bending my ankle, i'm just letting the inside of my right foot come up off the, now angled, pedal:

[img] [/img]

Because you can't do that in SPDs, which keep your feet at the same angle as the pedal, i find it just takes me a while to learn to ignore the different , less formal, looser, feeling as at first i'm trying to fight it and always keep my feet flat (sic) against the pedal at all times!

One thing i find really helps with foot work is to deliberately ride "wrong footed" for a bit (choose an easy trail to try this!!!) ie, best foot backwards. It feels soooo wrong, but often highlights what you have to do to maintain control.

I really don't understand spds off road. As kids, we all grew up with 'normal' pedals and it just seems a bit weird to try to unlearn that skill.

I did give them a pop, did the usual forgetting to unclip and falling off thing a few times... Sold all the gubbins and haven't regretted it!

Another old dog here.
I got some flats for christmas & bought some 5:10s for my birthday a week later. Coincided with a Ryan Leech Riding with Flats course free offer. That helped a bit with his bowl technique; pushing forward on the bars & back with your feet for grip.
Apart from a short spell with the winter boots back on in deepest, darkest winter, the flat pedals are staying on the big bike. HT & CX will stay clipped.
Flat's certainly aren't better or worse than clips, ok, maybe climbing sucks a bit, but you do seem to think about your feet a bit more.

Thanks for the replies and advice .
Slight improvement this week , strangely on my hardtail .
Concentrated on foot placement and technique , dropped heals and pushing into the bars . Knees are still a bit painful -outside of both knees.
I shall keep trying for a few months and see if my confidence on techy stuff improves .

Why attach yourself to a mountain bike?? Imagine if skateboarders did this.

Because you can't do that in SPDs

[img] [/img]

🙄

Started using flats a year and a half ago. Remember riding down some steps and my feet repeatedly bouncing off the pedals. Jumped off the pedals attempting a bunny hop. Then doing drop-offs I discovered I was lifting with my feet there too. If this is your experience when you first ride with flats then it's well worth sticking with it. Teaches you to place your weight through your feet, improves your bike handling. I prefer flats now. Feet feel better on them, my SPDs (Deore/XT) are a bit worn though, so shoes feel quite wibbly wobbly on them after riding flats. Still haven't learned to manual yet though 😉

ecause you can't do that in SPDs, which keep your feet at the same angle as the pedal,

Not strictly true. depends on what pedals you have. On Time's you have quite alot of angular float, more than enough to twist your body through your feet without unclipping.

I really don't understand spds off road. As kids, we all grew up with 'normal' pedals and it just seems a bit weird to try to unlearn that skill.

Speak for yourself. As starting out biking as a roadie when at school then taking up MTB'ing in the mid '80's I was up in the Peaks with toe clips in the days before clipless pedals. That really hones your skills and balance.

I really don't see the issue with clipless pedals. There is nothing you can't do in them that you can't do on flats and alot you can do on them that you can't do in flats. I ride properly - heals down, knees bent, weight into the bike, let the bike come up to you keep the positive pressure on the pedals at all times. I can bunny hop on on flats no issues, have never been in a situation where if i've been heading for the dirt i've not been able to get my feet out of the clips and on the ground - it's completely second nature and do it without thinking - in fact if I moved to flats with spikes sticking up into the soles of my shoes that would hamper me getting my foot off as I just couldn't twist and slide my foot as i'm used to - i'd have to lift off first.

I also confess that on the odd occasion i've come up sort on a gap jump i've lifted up on the cleats to just lift the rear wheel a tad. It's not a great technique because every action has an equal and opposite so if you are in mid air and you lift up on your cleats your body comes down as much as your bike comes up, but it at least can take the sting out of the initial impact of the wheel on the lip.

All this 'flats are proper riding' is nonsense. You will ride better in whatever you feel comfortable in and what you're most used to. If you've got bad technique riding clips, then you're going to transfer that bad technique over to flats. If you get tuition or help to sort out your bad technique, you can do that regardless of your pedals.

Imagine if skateboarders did this.

The day you can pull off a bunny hop kick flip then this comment will be valid and snowboarders seem to do OK. Big wave surfers ride strapped in - they can't ride the big surf not attached to the board.

Just had a re-read of this thread, having posted on it a week ago. My initiation to flats is coming sooner than I had considered, as on a British Cycling MTB DSU Coaching course weekend after next and we (the coaches) have all been advised to be on flats.

So, after saying

iainc - Member
Interesting thread. I am definitely in the 'old dog' camp here, having ridden clipped in for over 20 years. I have tried, but not persevered with flats, and might try again.

I also coach kids on MTB'ing and can clearly see how they become much better at skills than me, partly by being on flats.

Ideally I would be in the position to be able to swop between the 2, but not yet !

I now find myself having just bought a set of DMR V6's and a pair of FiveTen Freedriders.....

I won't get the chance to try them much before the course, but it is on fairly easy terrain, so I am going to just try and remember all the good tips from this thread and see how it goes....

just ride. anywhere will do even to teh shops or piss about of an evening in the close like you were 8 again. it all helps get used to it.

i ride flats and clips and happily swap between now.

i got good at clips but now i'm riding flats more i'm a bit more tentative on clips again. there are definite benefits to being clipped for me if riding anywhere far, or a trailcentre loop etc, but for messing about flats is the best.

^^^thanks, yes, will get out for a few wee spins round the estate from home after work, just to try and get the feel, hop on and off some kerbs etc.

I now find myself having just bought a set of DMR V6's

^^^ also ordered some of the HT PA03A ones recommended on the plastic pedal thread 🙂

well, I thought I'd update this one. 2 days riding on the HT PA03A flats with Freerider Elements at the weekend on a BC coaching CPD course. It definitely felt different, however after an hour or two I was confident that I wasn't going to lose contact and was finding it pretty ok. Manuals, small drops, various technique applications. On the second day, rear wheel lift and bunny hop sessions resulted in the self application of First Aid in a 'coaching learning environment' 🙂 A couple of leading pedal/shin interfaces which has left me with some big scabby holes in my leg....

Did I prefer it - not really, did i find it harder - maybe a bit at first, did I find a benefit - I think so, certainly from practising techniques, and definitely from the point of view of coaching others who are on flats. Will I stick with them...... dunno, my son is eying up the shoes, but he's not getting them.....quite yet...

I've had flats for ages and ridden them a bit, but not really bothered as I find it too annoying when climbing. However exploring the steep loamy stuff around Machen I suddenly wished for flats, so I reckon I'll fit them to the Patriot and see.

I'm a bit like the OP.

Only 53, but switched to flats last year after 25 years of spuds. Basically I wanted to learn to do stuff correctly; jump, manual, wheelie, bunny hop etc. Before, if I wanted to leave the ground I just leapt in the air and the bike came up with me as it was attached to my feet.

Now I don't even think about what's on my feet.

Still shit at skills though.

It does beg the question whether, whilst acknowledging that flats allow better technique to be learned in the first place, for those of us who have 'ok to enjoy our ride without feeling lacking' technique doing it 'the wrong way' on spds, do flats bring a benefit, or do they represent, for us, 'Emperor's new clothes' ???

I don't think either spuds are flats have a massive benefit over the other. I use flats as my knees were gowpin after the puffer, and I got fed up of freezin cold feet with the big brass heat hoover on the bottom of my shoes.

Other minor benefits such as family rides in normal shoes, nipping to shops etc... not a deal swinger though.

It works for me, but may not work for others. Took me a long time to be as confident on steep techy rocky descents on flats as I was on spuds, always liked the feeling of being attached to the bike, whereas others are quite the opposite.

It does beg the question whether, whilst acknowledging that flats allow better technique to be learned in the first place, for those of us who have 'ok to enjoy our ride without feeling lacking' technique doing it 'the wrong way' on spds, do flats bring a benefit, or do they represent, for us, 'Emperor's new clothes' ???

Depends.

I had clips on my HT, as I head up onto the South Downs & bash out reasonable miles on undulating terrain. The odd root is about as technical as it gets.

For racing DH/Enduro, and run riding though, my other bike has flats & always will do. I've tried to ride fun stuff and race in clips, but for the most part, it just doesn't work for me. I ride tight and slow on steep tech. So it's useless for me to persist.

They both have their place for me 🙂

I think that if you're happy on clipless and enjoy your riding (and not being "held back") then why bother changing? I went from a lifelong clipless user to flats about 6 years ago, when I got my first FS, mostly because a riding buddy recommended it.

I don't know why, but I've never really had an issue with my feet coming off the pedals, and certainly never been smacked in the shin, and I'm hardly a riding god. Maybe a few years of riding horses before switching helped with weighting through my legs more?

Tried going back to clipless a couple of years ago and hated it; I couldn't stand the feeling of the float (felt like I was stood on ice) and that I couldn't change the position of my foot relative to the pedal axle depending on what I was doing. For those reasons alone, I doubt I'll use clipless again.

Edit: that's on both a FS and a rigid SS.

I've always ridden flats and have never even tried spd's. To be fair I don't do long rides on trails very often, more DH sort of stuff, but I'm going to have a go clipped in on the XC bike. Why? Just for the experience of it really. If mastering flats benefits spd users then why not the other way round? And after all it offers a different angle on bike riding and I'll take any opportunity for a bit of that.

some great replies, and an interesting view that it's very much horses for courses, which is very much where i think I am.

Whenever I read threads like this I tend to think most of the contributers must either be posh or stupid. possibly both.

It's just riding a bike. If you're not very good at it. It really won't matter what footwear or pedals you do it with.

^^^^ what an odd thing to say. I suppose it doesn't matter whether you have gears, suspension, or solid rubber tyres either .... 😯

Why would this be a discussion just for posh people 😆

Well. If you really have to ask... 😛

Whenever I read threads like this I tend to think most of the contributers must either be posh or stupid. possibly both

I'm neither posh nor stupid , just someone trying to get more out of
"Just riding a bike .

^^^ well said

I've always ridden flats and have never even tried spd's. To be fair I don't do long rides on trails very often, more DH sort of stuff, but I'm going to have a go clipped in on the XC bike. Why? Just for the experience of it really. If mastering flats benefits spd users then why not the other way round? And after all it offers a different angle on bike riding and I'll take any opportunity for a bit of that.

I seem to have gone the opposite way to most others on this post, I have recently in the last 4 weeks put clipless pedals on after nearly 2 decades of flat pedal riding on BMX and MTB, I had ridden clipless for a few years on my work commuting roadie but always thought I'd die on the trails if I went clipless.

Turns out I wont, picked up some Shimano DX's wound off the tension, picked up some single release cleats and AM5 shoes and I was away. In the 4 weeks I have only had one SPD related crash and this was playing in the car park trying to do an endo to fakie and stalling before going over, before this I had managed to get out of an endo 180 to fakie fine. Out on the trails I have had no extra crashes on top of the ones I frequently have where I mis judge corner speeds!

The biggest learning curve for me wasnt getting out, it was getting in when I had stopped and took a foot out on something steep, few goes at it and nows its natural without looking. I am really loving being clipped in, I used to be really anal about foot placement (prob something to do with BMX) so used to get quite annoyed when my feet would be bounced into a different position on my pedals, SPDs are excellent for this and allow me to try and charge the rough stuff faster then before. They feel great on the ups for spinning to the top and I have even noticed I can get the power down better when sprinting too.

I should really go back to flats soon just to see how it feels, but part of the thing that pushed me to clipless was my 510's wore out and I picked up all the clipless stuff seconds hand except for the cleats for £50 which is less then I could get 510s for!

I ride flat pedals, I tried clipless for 6 months off road, and I've never had so many crashes, I just accept that clipless doesnt suit me.

However the best riders I have met (in this case various guides around the world) have almost all been on clipless, but a small minority have been on flats, so I conclude it doesn't really matter what pedals you use its just personal preference.

Whenever I read threads like this I tend to think most of the contributers must either be posh or stupid. possibly both.

I shall be sending my butler round to see you off!

Bloody rif raff.