Looking for advice regarding clip-in pedals...

[Mike_P]

They may well fit but the quality of the Lidl shoes was such that no amount of tightening would secure the cleats. I could twist my foot and the cleat would twist in the shoe. Getting Shimano shoes made me realise what all the fuss was about.

Mine from a decade ago are fine.

 

[PaulSB]

And if you do go down it's best to do so with your foot clipped to the pedal. An extended limb can end up a broken limb.

Interesting point which makes perfect sense to me.

 

[PaulSB]

Oddly enough, on the mercifully rare (two) occasions that I have crashed using SPDs my feet have become detached from the pedals. I don't know how. Maybe reflex. I dunno.

This is what is supposed to happen if everything is set up correctly. Every time I've crashed my cleats gave disengaged.

I'm not sure road cleats do the same. Only this week on our gravel ride a friend went down. Against our advice she's using road cleats on a gravel bike. We had to unclip her as the cleats didn't disengage and she couldn't do it.

 

[Drago]

How does the make of shoe avoid a clipless moment?

They have anti gravity properties.

 

[Jenkins]

I have SPDs on the road bikes but flat pedals on the flat bar bikes (and the MTB when I had one) and find no difficulty in swapping between the two, although it may take a bit of faffing to get the comfortable foot position when setting off on the flat pedals which I don't get with the SPDs.

There is the occasional moment when I find myself automatically 'unclipping' from flat pedals...