Stop Letting the Internet Convince You That You Need Clipless Pedals

At some point, every mountain biker gets told the same thing.

"You'll eventually want to go clipless."

As if flat pedals are training wheels.

As if you've reached some arbitrary level of experience where it's finally time to graduate.

I've heard it for years.

I've ignored it for years.

And after riding just about every pedal system under the sun, I'm more convinced than ever that good flat pedals and good shoes are all most mountain bikers will ever need.

Yes, I've Tried Them.

I've ridden SPD, TIME, and Crank Brothers.

Actually... let's not talk about Crank Brothers.

I've spent enough time clipping in, clipping out, adjusting cleats, replacing cleats, walking like a duck across parking lots, and wondering why a pedal system designed for bicycles somehow makes walking feel like tap dancing on Legos.

The funny part?

I always came back to flats.

The Stupidest Name in Mountain Biking

Can we all agree that "clipless" is a terrible name?

The pedals you clip into are called clipless.

The pedals you don't clip into are called flat.

Who signed off on this?

Here's the part almost nobody remembers: toe clips came first. Long before anyone clicked a cleat into a pedal, riders slid their shoes into metal cages strapped to the pedal body (the actual "clips"). When the SPD-style systems showed up and let you click in and twist out instead, they were named "clipless" for exactly one reason: no toe clips. Not "nothing to click into." Just "no cage."

Toe clips have all but disappeared. Almost nobody rides them anymore, which means almost nobody has the context for why a system you very much clip into is called clipless. New riders just inherit the confusing half of a naming convention with none of the history that explained it.

Which is one more small, dumb reason to just ride flats. Nothing to explain. Nothing to misname.

Buy Good Flats. Seriously.

This is where people mess up.

They buy a $25 plastic pedal with pins that resemble dull pencils, ride it once, slip off, and destroy a shin.

Then they declare that flats suck.

No. Cheap pedals suck.

Personally, I'm a OneUp guy.

The aluminum version is fantastic.

The composite version is almost as good and considerably cheaper.

Either one has enough platform, enough grip, and enough confidence that I honestly stop thinking about my feet.

Which is exactly what I want from a pedal.

Shoes Matter More Than People Think

If you're riding in old tennis shoes, just stop.

Good flat pedal shoes change everything. Five Tens. That's it, that's the recommendation.

The rubber compound they use almost feels unfair.

Once your foot settles onto the pins, it stays there until you decide it shouldn't.

People who haven't ridden modern flat pedal shoes still imagine the slippery skate shoes from twenty years ago.

They're not even close.

"But You Can Pull Up On The Pedals..."

Can you? Sure. Do you? Not nearly as much as people think.

Modern riding is overwhelmingly about body position: weighting, unweighting, pump, balance, traction. Most of the power still comes from pushing down.

Could a laboratory prove clipless pedals are a tiny percentage more efficient? Probably. Could I tell on my local rides? Absolutely not.

Here's What I Actually Like

I can move my feet. Forward, backward, a little wider, a little narrower, heel dropped, heel level, whatever feels right for this descent.

If you've ever had one foot develop a hot spot halfway through a ride, you'll understand how nice it is to simply... move it. No stopping, no unclipping, no tools. Just move your foot.

Mountain Biking Isn't Just Riding

One of my favorite parts about mountain biking has nothing to do with pedaling: stopping, looking around, taking photos, walking over to the overlook, checking out wildflowers, watching a hawk circle overhead, helping someone fix a flat, waiting for your buddies, chasing my kids around a trailhead, eating a questionable gas station burrito while sitting on a rock.

None of those things are improved by wearing shoes that click across concrete.

Racing Is Different

If you're racing XC, sure, run whatever gives you confidence. If you're lining up for Leadville or trying to squeeze every watt out of your legs, clipless pedals absolutely make sense.

My buddy Austin didn't love the argument I've been making. Austin is a mechanical engineer, a fellow mountain biker, and someone who shreds considerably harder than a guy who just spent several paragraphs defending flat pedals has any right to talk to. We worked together in the same engineering office, and this whole pulling-up debate came up mid-conversation, standing at my desk. I said pulling up doesn't matter much. He disagreed, grabbed whatever paper was closest, and just started drawing a free-body diagram right there, equations and all, mid-sentence, like that's a normal thing a person does at someone else's desk.

His math: model the pedal spindle as a lever, put roughly ten pounds into the downstroke, and you get fifty units of torque. Add a four-pound tug on the upstroke (the exact motion you can only really commit to when you're clipped in) and total torque per stroke jumps to seventy. Forty percent more, by his numbers, for a pedal stroke a flat-pedal rider mostly isn't doing.

I don't have a napkin of my own to counter with. Maybe he's right and I'm wrong. Maybe he's an engineer who can't help himself and I'm a guy who just likes his feet to move around. Either way, at no point during a normal ride around Golden am I doing torque calculations on my own pedal stroke, and I doubt you are either.

This article isn't about racing. It's about riding. Those aren't always the same thing, and apparently one of them comes with homework.

Ride What Makes You Smile

Mountain biking has become wonderfully technical: carbon wheels, electronic shifting, suspension calculators, power meters, GPS computers, tire inserts. And somehow we've convinced new riders that pedals need to be another complicated decision.

They don't. A quality set of flat pedals, a pair of Five Tens, and go ride your bike.

I honestly think more people would enjoy mountain biking if they worried a little less about optimizing every component and a little more about enjoying the ride.

Because at the end of the day, nobody remembers whether you cleaned that rock garden clipped in or on flats.

They remember the story afterward.

And those stories are a whole lot easier to tell when you're comfortably walking around the trailhead instead of sounding like a horse crossing a parking lot.

• flat-pedals
• clipless
• five-ten
• oneup
• mountain-biking