Rookie needs help!

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Captain Scarlet

Über Member
Hello and welcome. I'm a relative newcomer to road biking an I'm still using flat pedals. Not got round to really spending some time looking and trying on shoes to take the next step. But I will do as soon as I can.

I've been road biking since about March.

Love the rabbit ears btw
 

mjr

Comfy armchair to one person & a plank to the next
In my case the efficiency thing comes more from having my foot in the right place, also less chance of me sticking a size 12 into my front tyre or chain stays!
That may be because your pedals aren't big and grippy enough to keep your foot in the right place, your bike has too much toe overlap and a chainline too close to the cranks... or something else. But each to their own. Whatever works for you.
Would be interested to see the study btw, I like things like that.
https://www.thieme-connect.com/products/ejournals/abstract/10.1055/s-2008-1038374 - not perfect, but better than most I've seen.
 
The issue with 'studies', is that they are normally largely conducted under controlled conditions. Usually a turbo trainer, or parabolic rollers, or some such thing, in a controlled lab environment. As long as the author gets his / her funding / qualification / whatever they were doing the study for, that's all well and good. These studies are only valuable as a rough guide, when you throw real world conditions / variables into the equation. A marginal difference in the data under lab conditions, can be a lot bigger when live conditions are taken into consideration.
 

mjr

Comfy armchair to one person & a plank to the next
The issue with 'studies', is that they are normally largely conducted under controlled conditions. [...] A marginal difference in the data under lab conditions, can be a lot bigger when live conditions are taken into consideration.
Is that the good old anti-science argument trying to persuade people to believe anecdotes rather than data you dislike?
 
No, not at all. I've spent a large amount of my life marking / grading / binning , lots of papers, theses, dissertations and the like. These have been at all levels, from G.C.S.E. projects right up to PhD level theses. Most of them (although academically robust, and adequate to fulfil the requirements of the author's goal) tend to be trying to prove black can be white (given the right conditions), or that you can see from the data contained in the submission, that you can dangle an elephant from a cliff, by a blade of grass, or that a bumble bee cannot possibly ever fly.Try telling the elephant / bumble bee that. Point being, it's very easy to prove a hypothesis, if you control the conditions to favour the required outcome. Getting back to the flat versus clipless argument. The proof of the pudding is very much in the eating. If the differences were only marginal, experience would provide data, that could be used by pro cycling teams, to allow them to do away with the far more complex, and expensive clipless systems. They don't, what does that tell us? Shimano developed the SPD system for a reason.
 

rd83

Senior Member
That may be because your pedals aren't big and grippy enough to keep your foot in the right place, your bike has too much toe overlap and a chainline too close to the cranks... or something else. But each to their own. Whatever works for you.

Unfortunately I didn't have any input on the design of my bike!
Agreed though, whatever works for the individual. I had my worries when I first screwed in the SPDs, but wouldn't go back now.

Thanks for the link.
 
Location
Birmingham
Ive had 4 clipped moments. I use spd type pedals on 2 and spd/flat combo pedals on hybrid around town.
pick a quiet location to practise such as a park.
polish up your coming to a halt drills and make sure tension is lower to startt with so a modest dorothy "theres no place like home" heel twitch unlocks your shoe.
I ride off road too and prefer being clipped in and it makes me read the route harder.
Yes i fall off clipped in but usually noone sees me !
 
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KQuinn

KQuinn

Member
I am going to prove my pudding tomorrow, as I'm getting my flats today. I shall give you a rundown of my first flat spin later on. Wish me luck people! BTW I have downloaded STRAVA to my phone to track what I'm doing, anybody using it? Any good?
 
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OP
KQuinn

KQuinn

Member
Hello and welcome. I'm a relative newcomer to road biking an I'm still using flat pedals. Not got round to really spending some time looking and trying on shoes to take the next step. But I will do as soon as I can.

I've been road biking since about March.

Love the rabbit ears btw
Hello to you fellow relative newbee. Good luck with your future clipless, I hope to switch back to them in a couple months too. The bunny ears are me protesting the Christmas tunes already on radio. I'll swap to a witch's hat next week.
 

Big Nick

Senior Member
I am going to prove my pudding tomorrow, as I'm getting my flats today. I shall give you a rundown of my first flat spin later on. Wish me luck people! BTW I have downloaded STRAVA to my phone to track what I'm doing, anybody using it? Any good?
Strava is great for rides less than a couple of hours but it really drains your phone battery so make sure your phone is fully charged up before you set off
A lot of people (me included) get a Garmin cycle computer when they start going for longer rides and then upload their rides from that, I have a basic Garmin Edge 200 I got for £70
 
I Strava most of my rides. It's pretty good for making new routes, although the numbers it comes out with aren't always completely accurate they are close enough to be useful. I don't tend to worry too much about segments / KOM's / times etc. but I do the charity and / or distance challenges.
 

rd83

Senior Member
I usually load my data in from a garmin watch for accuracy, particularly for runs. I'm more concerned with my running segments as I can get CRs/KOMs on runs. No chance on a ride with pro peloton locking out the local segments, bottom third if I'm lucky! It's nice when it tells you you've improved your effort on a segment from last time.
 
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