mountain bike pedal question

[jvp]

I ride an older (2006) SS rigid 29r (raleigh), geared mostly for climbing (32/22). My current pedals are shimano style clipless, and work well on my rides. Most all of my riding is on smooth flowy trails with moderate climbing and the occasional all-out attack climb. I have noticed now that large platform pedals seem popular which is sort of appealing for ease of use. How much efficiency would I give up if I switched out pedals?

[Alistair]

I swap from SPD to flats for winter and I can’t tell an efficiency difference at normal JRA pace. At race pace, I can tell. Good flats (with screws) and sticky soled shoes keep you in place pretty well.

[p nut]

Flats are good for winter riding, casual jaunts, or really technical trails where you need to bail before going OTB.

I ride clipless everywhere on my MtB (which is also a singlespeeed rigid).

One downside of flats is, the pins will trash your soles and your shins.

[mtbmoose]

On flat sections of trail I don’t notice a great deal of difference. But when I’m climbing, I feel much less efficient with flat pedals. Average climbing trail ride is in the 2000’ range. If you want to progress into more jumping and big drops, then switch to flat pedals. If you’re mostly an XC rider, I’d stick with those SPDs.

[sparky33]

Pinned flat pedals need proper mtb soles.

Give it an uninterrupted try for a few months. Once you recalibrate your balance and pedaling, you can learn what flat pedals have to offer for mtb.

[buddybikes]

You say that you are comfortable. Why change?

[echappist]

Any recommendations for flat shoes and pedals (say at Shimano 105 level)?

Most of the ones I find seem to be intended for downhill purposes, and just want to make sure I'm not missing anything.

[dolface]

Originally Posted by echappist

Any recommendations for flat shoes and pedals (say at Shimano 105 level)?

Most of the ones I find seem to be intended for downhill purposes, and just want to make sure I'm not missing anything.

Five Ten Free Riders and Race Face Chesters. If you want to keep your costs to a minimum pick up used pedals: https://www.pinkbike.com/buysell/lis...r&category=106

[echappist]

Thanks!

[jadmt]

on another note to piggy back off this topic. I ride old shimano xt spd pedals with mountain bike shoes would there be any benefit of going to road shoes and road pedals for 50-100 mile fitness rides?

[tellyho]

Originally Posted by jadmt

on another note to piggy back off this topic. I ride old shimano xt spd pedals with mountain bike shoes would there be any benefit of going to road shoes and road pedals for 50-100 mile fitness rides?

I use spds and MTB shoes on all my bikes, for all types of rides. Unless your MTB shoes are not stiff, I don't think you'll see an advantage.

[Alistair]

Originally Posted by jadmt

on another note to piggy back off this topic. I ride old shimano xt spd pedals with mountain bike shoes would there be any benefit of going to road shoes and road pedals for 50-100 mile fitness rides?

If you’re using a stiff “XC” mountain shoe, the only benefit to using a road shoe/pedal is a slightly broader, more supportive pedal platform. SPDs rely on the shoe tread to provide some of the support, where road shoe/pedal interface is all hard plastic and more stable.

I also run SPDs on all my bikes.

[crownjewelwl]

i dont think platforms are the way to go unless you're getting rowdy on the bike...sounds like you're not...i would stick to SPDs

also getting a peg in the shin isn't fun

[duff_duffy]

I’ll use flats until they put me in the grave on both mountain and road bikes. For me I like the bigger platform pedals, the Speedplay Drillium are very, very nice. I tend to hop off during rides and hike/run around a lot off the bike and like the freedom of wearing just about any shoes. I was big time bmx and freestyle rider growing up and like being able to hop around on pedals as well. Also, I saw no changes to my efficiency when riding, but I don’t ride for speed just enjoyment so might not be best judge of that.

[benb]

I've tried flats a bit the last couple years after 20 years of SPDs and for me it just doesn't really do much for me.

I may put the flats on my fat bike here for the winter, we just got our first real snow yesterday. I might just do that cause I can ride in my winter boots and I think they'll be overall better than my 45NRTH winter shoes, and warmer, drier... I'm not real happy with the winter shoes or the booties.

But I climb a lot worse on the flats up technical stuff with the flats. Usually if I ride MTB I'm going to want to ride a place I climb 1000ft every 10 miles or so at least.

Downhill the flats seem pretty good.. however it also seemed pointless if you have to go buy a special set of shoes just to get the flats to feel good. Trying to use them in sneakers/athletic shoes absolutely sucks because the shoes are so soft and floppy. Things like hiking shoes are better if you have them.

But if you already have a real nice set of MTB shoes designed for clipless you're just going to buy a bunch of stuff to get back to where you were and still end up probably not as happy when going uphill.

And even then, if you're mostly XC/Trail how much time do you want to dedicate to retraining on the flats to get back to where you were?

It's a bunch of effort/time/money to basically be fashionable. If you're happy on your clipless pedals the flats are not going to instantly make you a better rider or turn you into a gravity style downhiller overnight if you weren't already that kind of rider.