Clipless pedals: why you don’t need to be scared of switching | Environment | Bike Flat Pedals

The low profile body has a metal plate over the centre, helping to reduce premature wear and increase clearance between you and the road. Along with adjustable spring tension, quality sealed bearings, which cut down on maintenance, and hardwearing cleats these are racer-friendly and efficient road pedals.

Advantage 2: Flats are forgiving. While they may readily show flaws in your technique, they also give you a saving grace: you can dab, even at speed, without having to worry about clipping back in. When cornering, you can throw your inside foot out moto-style to get your centre of gravity further forward, giving more grip to your front tyre. If things go really wrong, you can even throw the bike away. If you’re trying something new, flat pedals are ideal for giving you the security to bail.

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There are four well-sized, widely-spaced, replaceable pins on each side, which offer plenty of lateral support but don’t restrict movement so much that unclipping strains your knees.

I run Time ATAC pedals on both hardtail and FS bikes, as I have for many years. I find they clear well in my local Cotswold mud. I wear stiff shoes with these: Sidi Dominators & Northwave GTX for winter.

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Really I’d only recommend them to riders who will find that learning curve worth the touch of extra speed off the lights or side of the road. To me it was.

Mat has worked for loads of bike magazines over 20+ years, and been editor of 220 Triathlon and Cycling Plus. He’s been road.cc technical editor for eight years, testing bikes, fettling the latest kit, and trying out the most up-to-the-minute clothing. We send him off around the world to get all the news from launches and shows too. He has won his category in Ironman UK 70.3 and finished on the podium in both marathons he has run. Mat is a Cambridge graduate who did a post-grad in magazine journalism, and he is a past winner of the Cycling Media Award for Specialist Online Writer.

Strangely enough I’ve found that the Atacs, which I bought back in 2008 & 9, have shrugged of all sorts of soggy muddy crap.

One of the biggest motivations for sticking with a traditional three-bolt road pedal system is the larger contact surface area it provides. Under harder pedaling efforts — and especially on longer rides — this helps distribute the load over a greater portion of the shoe (and thus, your foot) for greater comfort as the kilometers tick away.

One thing to note is it’s probably easier to have it on a frame without a fixed front mech braze on, the XT mech has a specific band on mount, so would suite you if you went to a titanium frame

Bushings are self-lubricating sleeves, usually made from metal or tough plastic, and in either case are much cheaper than bearings. They tend to require less maintenance, but they also have a small amount of stiction to overcome as they start moving. Bearings roll, so have no stiction, and may be easier to keep in service as they near the end of their lives, but tend to be more expensive then bushings.