Get attached: An introduction to clipless pedals | Road Bike Clipless Pedals

Moving away from cross country shoes other mountain bike shoes have more flexible footbeds, making them better all rounder’s for comfortable trail riding, the odd bit of walking or hike-a-biking and also offering more grip on larger platform pedals like these Crankbrothers Mallet E pedals. Something like the Giro Manta is a typical trail shoe design, it has the tidy looks of an XC shoe, it’s pretty light, fends off weather well and is stiff without being impractically so.

Ordinarily, when it comes to uninspired gifts, nothing underwhelms like a pair of socks. It’s the present that says, “You exist, and you have feet.” Cyclists, however, get genuinely excited about socks: they’re our “pieces of flair,” and sock choice is really the only way we get to express ourselves stylistically (unless you count really bad calf tattoos), especially if we’re on a team and all have to dress the same.

What good is a pair of road cycling shoes without pedals to go with them? In this third round of CT Recommends, we take a look at what CT staffers are using for road pedals.

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I bought a pair of these on the strength of this review in the mag so they’d better be good or I may write a strongly worded letter.

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…

Time’s Xpresso pedal offers the lightest system weight and the most generous float. It’s also known to be an exceptionally easy system to get in and out of.

That’s not my experience: when clean and in decent condition,  I find they’re solid even with quick or sturdy upstrokes on hills, and that they need a bit of a ‘flick’ to disengage, which suits me fine.

I wondered if the "Look" was a pun? It’s grossly overstating things to characterise my comments as a "rant" – including because I honestly don’t care enough to actually rant. If you’ve had a positive experience with them, that’s great you should totally keep using them. I don’t understand the value of your positive experience, either in the abstract or when measured against the negatives you identified yourself (even if you were exaggerating for effect, which apparently you now regret).  I’d suggest that is no more "childish" that your post-purchase rationalisation. If I am riding my road bike I tend to clip in at the beginning and that’s pretty much it. It would be a very disappointing ride if I clipped out more than a handful of time (esp after the first 20 minutes when I have left traffic lights behind). So being able to clip in marginally more quickly isn’t an advantage to me. If I am commuting I either use MTB (clipless) pedals or resign myself to clipping in "slowly" which doesn’t matter because I am inevitably going to have to stop again shortly and anyway I’m only going to work so why would I want to get there any sooner. So being able to clip in marginally more quickly isn’t an advantage to me. If its an advantage to you then that’s excellent, no one is trying to stop you using them, notwithstanding the drawbacks you identified and seem to have overcome/decided to live with. But having tried them (after ages of trial and error to get the screw tension just so they engaged), and having used many competing products, I wouldn’t use them or recommend anyone do so. The internet is full of people who are religious about them, which was why I tried them. I missed the damascene conversion.

Boehm enjoyed her carless commute so much she ended up buying an unlimited light-rail card so she could ride it to work a few times a week.

Giro Jacket II The Jacket II uses a Vibram Ecostep rubber sole, specifically designed for flat pedals. Claimed weight 415g in size 43. $90 USD.

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.