Road shoes that are not clips

My GF rides her road bike on flats after a few big spills knocked her confidence loads.   I keep trying to get her to stick some SPDs on her roadshoes and use my MTB pedals with a platform and a clip so she can get a bit of confidence back but we will wait until spring for that now.  I was looking to see if for Xmas I could find her something that worked better with her Lycra than the FiveTen Free riders she wears.  Amazon have a few more road oriented flat shoes but they look like they would last 5 mins before they fell apart.

Anyone know of anything that might be suitable?

I run 5:10 Kestral Boa’s on my gravel/road bike, they’re SPD’s but they also do a flat pedal version.

Work really well, stiff but comfy and the flat pedal version will have a grippy sole.

William lennon do proper cycling shoes (proper being if you can remember nailing on cleats to your shoes!)

https://williamlennon.co.uk/product-category/cycle-shoes/

and just stumbled across this, unfortunately for me no big sizes

Cycling Shoes

Most of these would be best with toeclips and straps though.

If you’re not racing and riding for fun/exercise/leisure I really don’t think clipless pedals a necessary.  I’m sure there are some aero benefits if your’e racing and maybe (research is very mixed) some efficiency but that’s irrelevant for most riders.  And clattering around a cafe or pub stop in road cleats looks ridiculous.  I’ve always run mtb clipless on my road bike but if I was going to run flats I’d run something without mtb style pins as you’re don’t have to worry about your feet getting thrown off on rough riding.

And I use a Specialized ‘touring’ shoe – they used to do the same shoe with a ‘road’ sole, an mtb sole and a 2 cleat hole fixing but a smooth rubber sole for walking.  it looks like gravel shoes have taken over now though.

Shimano still seem to do a few –

https://birkenheadcycles.co.uk/m6b18s69p0/Shoes/SHIMANO/Shoes-Touring

I notice Lake sell cleat covers that aren’t Lake branded so would probably work with other brands (and a lot of clipless shoes used to come with something similar fitted that you had to cut out or unscrew.

CLEAT SLOT COVERS

There are a few ‘grip tape’ style things that look like they’d be better then trad cage pedals

https://www.tredz.co.uk/.Look-Trail-Grip-Flat-Pedals_235618.htm

https://winstanleysbikes.co.uk/ergon-pt-pedals?

There used to be touring shoes which were very much road orientated but walkable and didn’t take cleats, but not sure these are that available these days.

That’s what the William Lennon ones are. The problem with anything designed to take cleats is the sole will likely be hard plastic and so slippery as to be not really useable with flat pedals unless you use toeclips and straps

If you’re not racing and riding for fun/exercise/leisure I really don’t think clipless pedals a necessary.

100% this. I ride flats for everything now (except Zwift!), there are not the massive advantages to being clipped in that conventional wisdom would have you believe. I spent this summer doing club rides in just normal trainers, only on the faster/harder rides did I vaguely wish for something with a slightly stiffer sole (so I guess I’m on the lookout too!!)

@kilo not the two hole touring shoes. Rubber sole intended for walking in. Just they have a clear slot. But you could fill that with a plate.

Could try some XC / CX racing shoes with these?

https://ride.shimano.com/collections/cleats-all/products/sm-shex900

@kilo @fossy that PedalPedlar site is wonderful. Cycletoured 1000s of miles across different bits of Europe wearing a pair of the Diadora Cicloturismo shoes they’ve got. No need for cleats but did have toe clips.

They were excellent all day shoes and were great for walking round French markets too. Would potentially meet the OPs needs.

I’m sure there are some aero benefits if your’e racing and maybe (research is very mixed) some efficiency but that’s irrelevant for most riders.

The bigger gain is from the stiff sole, IIRC it’s something like a 15% loss through a typical foam trainer sole? The SPD system itself is more like 5% benefit, most of which is again from reducing unwanted compression/flex in the system.

Could try some XC / CX racing shoes with these?

I briefly used those really basic Shimano SPD shoes (MT-30 ?) around the millennium with flat pedals, the trouble is they don’t conform to the pedal at all so there’s actually very little grip. Especially with modern aluminum flat pedals that are actually flat-ish surfaces, might be better with old beartraps.

Has she tried MTB pedals with her road shoes? IME it’s so loose you start to (unnecessarily) worry about unclipping in corners as there’s zero friction between the pedal and shoe and the ‘click’ in and out is much more positive.  If someone is nervous about SPD’s on the road, that’s where I’d suggest they start.  It’s nothing like trying to unclip a 6-month old mangled plastic cleat that’s been walked on too much.  The downside is the friction of the plastic cleats holds you shoe nice and steady once you’ve settled into a position.  Some people might prefer one over the other for biomechanical reasons.

IIRC it’s something like a 15% loss through a typical foam trainer sole? The SPD system itself is more like 5% benefit, most of which is again from reducing unwanted compression/flex in the system.

you’re saying there’s 20% difference in power between rides in trainers and SPDs? Absolutely nonsense if so, 2 rides on a turbo trainer will tell you that.

Giro Rumble or Tracker flat
Pearl Izumi X-Alp or Flow flat
Is an Adidas Velosamba available in a flat?

you’re saying there’s 20% difference in power between rides in trainers and SPDs?

I would say it very much depends on the trainers and the sod shoes you’re comparing. When I first started commuting by bike I briefly rode ina pair of Nike air max and there was massive compression and flex of the sole going on. Felt horrible. A pair of adidas shell toes or skate shoes are fine.

velosamba plus cleat cap for the win. (I don’t really understand why anyone bothers with cleats for commuting unless they’re riding hours each way)

What are you after? Regular trainers that look aero to go with Lycra?

https://www.sportsdirect.com/lonsdale-camden-slip-mens-trainers-110075#colcode=11007537

I tried SPDs for a couple of years and never found great benefit, but I do go out on all day rides and tour, and at the end of some days get crampy tired feet if wearing overly flexible shoes.  I settled on trainers with a weightlifting, crossfit or cross training bias. generally a flatter, more rigid sole. My current are Reebok Nano, but I’ve had Nike Metcon before.

you’re saying there’s 20% difference in power between rides in trainers and SPDs? Absolutely nonsense if so, 2 rides on a turbo trainer will tell you that.

Alternatively there’s been a whole load of scientific research published on the subject that shows I’m right.

My Engineering Masters research was on a related topic so I did a lot of reading on the subject (and even got published in the Journal of Sports Engineering).

Alternatively there’s been a whole load of scientific research published on the subject that shows I’m right.

you kind of have to link it if you say that or it just looks like you’re bullshitting!!

I’ve tried it. No appreciable difference. Try it yourself on your turbo… if there’s 20% difference in average watts I’ll eat my Brooks saddle 🙂

GCN tested it in a lab at Bath Uni and found no difference.

so I did a lot of reading on the subject

like I said, there’s a hell of a lot of bollocks in the “conventional wisdom” of cycling, a lot of it is just old wives tales that can’t actually be backed up by science!

**** wearing flats on a proper road ride.

Anyway, that said – hear me out: indoor football trainers. Light, quick drying, cheap, sole seems to interface with pedals pretty well.

I thought it would be interesting to calculate the rough energy loss from trainers when cycling. (Note, that this is due to the hysteresis of the foam in the trainer being compressed – it doesn’t imply that there is any loss from a rigid flat soled shoe.)

An internet calculator tells me that 200 W, a nice round number for a reasonably trained cyclist to hold fairly consistently is 23 Nm at 80 rpm. With 170 mm cranks, that implies a constant force of 23/0.17 = 135 N. The loss from hysteresis will depend on peak force, rather than average. For this analysis I am going to assume that the 200 W is produced with a peak pedal force of 200 N (I.e. peak force is 50% higher than average force – from looking at examples of watt bike polars, this feels about right).

Table 3 of https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19424280.2024.2369995#d1e996 provides energy losses for a number of trainers with a 2000 N load. Taking forefoot striking numbers and assuming that we aren’t cycling in super shoes, a typical trainer loses around 2 J of energy every time it strikes. Assuming that the energy losses scale linearly (good enough for this rough calculation) that is 0.2 J at 200 N; i.e. 0.2 J per pedal stroke. At the 80 rpm I am assuming that would be 80*0.2 = 16 J lost per minute.

A watt is one Joule per second, so 16 J per minute is 16/80 = 0.2 W. I haven’t gone through this to check, so there could be an order of magnitude screw up in there. However, it suggests that if trainers are losing you 20% power it is likely to be a fit/psychological issue rather than the trainers themselves. That matches my experice; I do a lot of training rides on my commuter and normally wear 5:10s but sometimes have running shoes on and, whilst my knees don’t like it, the trainers don’t appreciably affect my power.