FGF 392: Sticky shoes from Giro, flat pedals from Shimano, and a weird expanding tubeless foam thingamabob | Road Bike Clipless Pedals

It adds Bluetooth/Ant+, but I really like the display so that you can easily see what gear you’re currently in and whether you’re in semi/full synchro mode and also a battery level indicator.

Flat shoes are, as you would expect – flat. They don’t have the cleat recess on the sole are designed to have sticky soles to help keep your feet planted on flat pedals. Flat shoes are generally more flexible in the sole and the upper than clip-in shoes, although there are some exceptions and have a more casual look to them. You can’t use flat shoes on clipless pedals or vice versa, the sole of a clip-in shoes isn’t designed to offer much grip on a flat pedal and similarly using a flat shoe on the smaller platform of a clip-in pedal with protruding cleat mechanism won’t be great for comfort or grip levels.  You’ll find a style of shoe to fit you and your budget though whether you choose to clip-in or ride flats.  

With a mechanical system you’ll almost certainly need to adjust the gear cable tension after the first few rides, and probably occasionally after that, but that’s not an issue with electronic shifting.

Flat pedal mountain bike shoes are great: they’re comfortable, they look good, and they provide a ton of grip on rocky surfaces. Clipless pedal shoes are great too: they’re efficient at transferring power and they prevent pull-ups off the pedals in the air. So it seems like combining the two could offer the best of both worlds.

For obvious reasons, I’m doing all my riding in winter boots at the moment. I treated myself to a pair of Shimano MW7 boots. Nice and comfy, stiff soled, but not impressed with the new design. I used to be able to get away with the odd ‘dab in a stream’ with my old MW80’s, but the new ones have a lycra tongue hidden under a flap which quickly lets water in when they’re submerged, as opposed to the older design with a waterproof leather tongue. Summer riding is done in a pair of Lake SPD boots.

Yet again Canyon has no idea about their own mudguards and recommend clip-on guards as a temporary solution… for a bike out for a year with…

Things can get a bit fiddly with pulling the bearings out to clean them, but it’s really not that difficult to do. And technically you do require a very small 10mm cone spanner to retighten the bearings, though I ended up improvising with some needle-nose pliers to get the job done. Once tightened up and reinstalled into the pedal body, the play had disappeared, and the bearings were back to spinning smoothly again.

For a mere 20 quid, these double-sided mountain bike pedals are a brilliant entry into clipless pedals. The low price is not reflected in the build quality, which is excellent, or the performance, which is also excellent.

I’ve found platform clip-in pedals ruin my knees. They can effectively remove the free rotation in the clip-in pedal because the sole is in contact with the platform. How good a grip the pedal has on the shoe depends on the combination. I learnt to avoid them many years ago… YMMV

Then, on the way back home, her bus driver "had to stop the bus for a couple of minutes to take a restroom break at a Burger King in front of a stop."

The distance between pedal axle and shoe sole is known as the stack height. A lower stack helps make your foot more stable on the pedal, and by lowering your position on the bike will make it slightly more stable in corners.

This research would reveal that Sram’s system is wireless, Di2 and EPS are not. They would presumably therefore realise that they would need wires for the non wireless systems. Oh, and a battery. Unless they thought the battery was disposable they would probably realise that they would, at some point need a battery charger. If they thought it was disposable they would wonder how long the charge would last and how much would replacement batteries be.