Flat pedals - a first!

[Hobine]

I like flats on my commuters and bikes I use to put around on. Sometimes I use them in the winter so I can wear warm boots.
I keep trying to like them on mountain bikes, but just don’t care for them. My feet bounce off too much and I tend to wheelie more instead of hoping or manualing.

[vqdriver]

i'll say that i've had great luck pairing pinned pedals with some five10 shoes. the soles aren't even the stickiest out there, but for some reason, it has a tenacious grab on those pins.
i won't go so far as to say that they'd replace clipless for climbing, but it goes a long way.

[ColonelJLloyd]

Originally Posted by vqdriver

i'll say that i've had great luck pairing pinned pedals with some five10 shoes. the soles aren't even the stickiest out there, but for some reason, it has a tenacious grab on those pins.
i won't go so far as to say that they'd replace clipless for climbing, but it goes a long way.

Yeah, I'm using Xpedo Spry and Five Ten Aescent which are "approach" shoes and not cycling specific. The grip is ridiculous and I was amazed at how much "retention" there is. FWIW, I use clipless pedals on my road bikes, but being new to a MTB I went straight to flats.

Highly recommended combo. FYI, the Five Ten soles are not "non-marking" much to my wife's chagrin.

[AJosiahK]

ive been wanting to try it lately. But decent pedals are a chunk of change so ive never gotten around to it. I know they offer alot in terms of riding technical stuff and bailing safely rather than crashing appeals to me. But man i love to climb too, new challenge accepted !

[Ken Robb]

Originally Posted by AJosiahK

ive been wanting to try it lately. But decent pedals are a chunk of change so ive never gotten around to it. I know they offer alot in terms of riding technical stuff and bailing safely rather than crashing appeals to me. But man i love to climb too, new challenge accepted !

Try some cheap flat pedals. You will be surprised how well they work. Flats are simple devices and there's not as much difference in performance based on price as there is in clipless designs.

[NHAero]

Last Saturday I pulled the Race Face Atlas flats from my MTB and put them on my Anderson all-road. I rode a 40 mile ride I often do and my average speed was up at the high end of what I usually ride. I'm not convinced in my type of riding (not racing, often by myself) that the clipless pedals confer an advantage. It's certainly more convenient to ride in normal shoes. This may be a permanent change, but I need to ride them some more to be sure.

[PapaScottsy]

I haven’t run clipless since I was racing BMX 20 some odd years ago and even then I reverted to flats after about half a season; I’ve been on Spank Spike platforms for over a year now and really enjoy them. The Vans I ride in most of the time are pretty chewed up I noticed after some recent rains and it had me considering clipless again... but I’ll probably just get a new pair of Vans.

[colker]

Originally Posted by Ken Robb

Try some nice boat shoes.

Yes.

[vqdriver]

plastic platform with metal pins are light enough with the same grip. race face chesters are fairly common alternative to the hi priced pedals out there. plastic pedals are also colored throughout so it looks nice when anodized aluminum platforms get scratched or banged up. what you give up is thinness. they're fairly thick so pedal strikes can be an issue

Originally Posted by AJosiahK

ive been wanting to try it lately. But decent pedals are a chunk of change so ive never gotten around to it. I know they offer alot in terms of riding technical stuff and bailing safely rather than crashing appeals to me. But man i love to climb too, new challenge accepted !

[redir]

Once ya go flat ya never go back

I went to flats a few years ago and will never use clipless pedals again. The problem I was having was in going UP hill. So many times I'd try to power through a rock garden or rooted steps and fall over and not be able to unclip. So what I would do when I got to very technical stuff is simply unclip and walk through it.

Now with flats I can push it to the extreme and when I start to fall over simply put a foot down.

And I know what some of you are thinking, that I just need to learn to unclip. Well maybe but I've been racing cat 2 cyclocross for 20 years now and unclipping and clipping back in has never been a problem. I think when you push the extremes in mountain biking it's different. Sometimes you are about to fall over and you know if you jsut give a bit more power you can get through it so you stay with it.

But anyway that's why I went to flats but then I come to realize that my downhill speed went way up too. IDK why that is but I feel so much more comfortable going fast down hill on flats.

The only thing I miss is being able to bunny hop by pulling up on the pedals. Of course the good mountain bikers will say that's the wrong way to do it anyway. So learn the right way which is J-hop or some other techniques. Danny MacAskill for example doesn't use clipless pedals.

With a good pedal that has spikes in it and a good shoe like a 5/10 it almost feels like your are clipped in.

[jrsbike]

I am an old man and my knees are even older. I found that riding clipped in all these years was finally exacerbating issues with my knees so I went flat. The ability to make micro adjustments on the fly has resolved most of my issues and I no longer have aching knees after a ride. Don't laugh but I have actually gone back to toe clips for casual road rides. One of the biggest issues for me as a cross country rider was finding a good pair of shoes. Five-ten has come a long way but their origins and their kind were based flatter downhill designs intended for parking your feet on the descent. I have felt that a more biometrically shaped shoe would work well for cranking up hill and fast cross country peddling. I have contacted Five-Ten, Shimano and Bontrager about this and only the Bontrager people seemed to agree. So I glued some Five-Ten soles to some old Shimano road shoes and these work well for my style and conditions. Ironically Five-Ten used to offer technical hiking sneakers with great grip and a stiff sole and a running shoe type of shape but I no longer see this being offered. I think they were acquired a few years ago and their product line has changed.

[NHAero]

This may seem like a Princess and the Pea issue, but I have Race Face Atlas pedals on my MTB and Xpedo Spry on the Litespeed, and the RF are more comfortable because they are more concave. Has anyone else noticed something like this? Are there other good flat pedals out there with the same slight concavity to the pedal body? The Atlas is a great pedal but it's also something like $150!

[Kirk007]

I like flats for Pac NW wet side mountain bike riding a lot but you gotta get the right shoes to make it work really well. 5.10s, Shimanos, anything built for a flat pinned pedal make for a really nice system.

Another caution - those pins can wreak havoc on a shin so beware.

[macaroon]

Unless you're riding very rough/extreme downhill tracks, skate (or BMX) shoes really are the best. Something with a nice waffle sole.

Five Tens are hell really, your feet get stuck to the pedals and it's difficult to move them; kinda defeats the purpose of a flat pedal!

[72gmc]

Originally Posted by Kirk007

Another caution - those pins can wreak havoc on a shin so beware.

See, I figure that's going to happen so I get it out of the way fast. First demo ride, first 10 feet, unweight off the curb, slip off the pedal. My wife and kids complain about my ragged shin for the rest of vacation.