Sir Chris Hoy: how to teach a child to cycle Telegraph logo Feed of articles Saved articles Save | Carbon Fahrrad Umwerfer Installationssatz

There are two cleat options—free and fixed, with the free offering the traditional angular float, as well as lateral float. This is designed for most riders and minimizes the risk of knee injury from misaligned cleats. As the name implies, the fixed cleat offers no float and is designed for pure powermongers whose fit is dialed in and who think float is a bad word (it isn’t).

One of the greatest things about cycling is that you can spend as much or as little money as you want on it. In fact, once you’ve got the bike, it’s pretty much free to ride it, unless you’ve got an expensive Gran Fondo addiction or something.

My #CarlessCommute summary: 11 miles biked in 55 min.; 90 min on @valleymetro light rail; 600 cals burned; 1 FUBAR bike wheel; one middle finger salute to a bad driver; one guy crocheting a beanie; one cool sculpture; 10 frozen fingers, and a partridge in a pear tree. @azcentral

Sealing is a crucial aspect of flat pedals for UK riders and, like a lot of bike components, this aspect tends to vary, perhaps according to where they were designed. Poor seals might not matter so much in sunny locales, but in UK filth you’ll only get so long before you hear a grinding noise pulverising your pedals from the inside out.

Some in the BMX world say the ruling may reduce the cost for new entrants to the sport. Although clipless pedals have never been required, their widespread use may create the impression that they are necessary to be competitive.

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.

Guinness World Records have a very detailed definition, minimum of 18,000 miles, 2 antipodal points, and no significant East/West backtracking …

Pearl Izumi X-Alp Launch The Launch has a bonded seamless upper, with no stitches to fray or wear out. Claimed weight 356g. $150 USD.

Speedplay pedals are always touted as being super light, but the cleat on the shoe looks like it weighs a lot more than a simple plastic look type cleat. Out of interest what is the total system weight including cleats for the lightest from each brand?

The exception — and a very good choice for SPD beginners — is Shimano’s PD-M324 combination pedals. These have a flat platform on one side and an SPD mechanism on the other, and you get multi-release cleats in the box.

Unfortunately, based on my experience, I think we ended up with Dewitos instead. I don’t fault FiveTen here — the shoes are incredibly well-crafted and offer all the features mountain bikers expect in a shoe. But for me, I’d prefer to keep two sets of shoes in my closet; FiveTen Freeriders for flat pedals, and a different, more traditional clipless MTB shoe for everything else.

Running out of battery power is a possibility if you have electronic shifting although, to be honest, you’ll have only yourself to blame! Like falling off at the traffic lights the first time you use clipless pedals, it’s the sort of thing you’ll do once and then make sure you never repeat.