Definitely not too tight. Getting out of them is no issue. For setup, I rubber band them to the front mech and rear skewer respectively. However, the opening is so small that when I mount, I don't slip my feet right in. That would be ideal I guess, but I also like to get away from the bike mount line ASAP, so I pedal with my feet on top of the shoes. By that point, the rubber bands have broken, obviously. From there it is pretty tricky to get my toes in as the shoe is dangling. Mostely due to the size of the opening which creates another problem...... when I try to get my toes in, the shoe just spins back towards me with the pedal. A heel loop might help, but I think my major issue is the size of the opening. Some of the zipper mods seen on here are cool, but I have a pair of factor techlace's that I would modify before I went that route. Like Boris Steins, but I would probably remove the laces too.