Telecaster68 wrote:I'm getting back into cycling to commute (urban, about 25 minutes) to work on a Decathlon hybrid, plus some weekend canalpath/railway line excursions. A friend has been moderately insistent I get toe clips because of the - alleged - pull-up, so I just spent an unbelievably frustrating 30 minutes attaching a cheap pair from Halfords, only to find I really don't like them. At all.
The weight of the clip makes the pedal swivel round so it's underneath any time I take my foot of the pedal (at lights, for example). Flipping the pedal round to get my right foot back in the clip is mildly annoying but I expect I'd get used to it. But then it seems that as I ride off, mostly, in my case, in rush hour traffic, I apparently have to flip the left pedal round, catch it with my foot, and slot my foot in, as I change up through the gears and attempt not to get cut up and find a reasonably assertively safe road position. I doubt I'll live long enough to get the hang of this before I end up under a bus.
And for my purposes - a fairly short city commute, with no massive hills - I really don't buy this 'pull up' thing. I'd have to be pulling up with more significant force than these clips look like they'd take, before it would make any difference to anything.
Also, having my feet attached to the pedals just feels unsafe. My feet (in perfectly normal trainers) just don't slip off the pedals, but if I did veer or wobble, getting my feet out of the clips would take a few fractions of a second which might make all the difference, or might just mean I twist my ankle. It's a solution to a non existent problem, for me.
Am I missing something, or am I just the wrong use case for toe clips?
I use toe clips: I always have (from when I first got them). In traffic I only use one toeclip and have the other foot free, but on a long clear strech can use my foot to flip it upwards and put my foot into it. I also like to have stiff soled trainers generally if not using touring shoes: I recently got cycling shoes for longer jaunts/not errands,but put the wee insert cleat cover in - harder to get stiff soled trainers.
I have never tried cleat/clipless but am not the most coordiinated (I can manage bicycles and toeclips) so do not want to change - the muscle memory of toe clip use came back quickly after a long perid not cycling. They kind of scare me as you don't have that option of not using them (as you do with toe clips, if you do nto flip them up.