mercalia wrote:here is an interesting view on cleats and mtb-ing from 2011 - not that long ago?
http://www.mountainbikesapart.com/bike- ... ss-pedals/
I found when googling
some bad experiences both off road and in the comments on road ( Marg )
Nope, don't buy it. SPDs, when set up properly with the right cleats and the right amount of float can actually be a lot better for your knees than flats as they allow the foot to change position during the pedal stroke whereas with flats, and straps especially, the foot stays in the same place..i.e. no dynamic float.
As for his discussion of the crash - basing his whole opinion of the pedals on one occurrence...a little naive, especially as we have no idea on the guy's set up, whether he was used to the pedals or how tight he had the releases set.
Tell you what...what if we were to recount all of the injuries due to people slipping off flat pedals, which vastly outnumber those where the rider happened to have SPDs,...would you then decide that flat pedals are too dangerous to use? Would you?
No, look at the 100s of 1000s of people using clipless pedals and then look at how few actually claim that the pedals made a crash worse (then discount those who weren't used to them, weren't using them properly, or just doing something else silly), compare that to the numbers who have never had any problem with them (like, apparently, virtually all the people in this thread who have actually used them properly).