flat pedals with toe cages should replicate pyro's rather well

Enjoy - FBN is by far the best race in the World.

As for your question, most people will be using their tri-shoes and the FOP will have them attached to the bike the entire time.

Prepare to feel the hurt. The 1'st run historically has a blistering pace and it never lets up.

I still have a trusty pair of Pyros I use in all my short du's.
Id say get some flat pedals and put some of those neoprene straps on them.

Power Grips Standard (295mm) with Hardware Black – The Bike Hub

I hated those plates and got rid of them after one use. Use to do a similar Formula One duathlon: mile run, 6 mile bike, mile run, 6 mile bike, mile run. Top competitors just keep shoes clipped in, but some people just use flat pedals and toe cages. Running shoes just don’t have enough stiffness for the bike even for short distances.

GCN and others have done numerous tests comparing flat pedals to clipless and they pretty much all show that there is little difference. In the all out sprint/climbs the clipless are a bit of an advantage but for TT efforts it is minimal.

Are Flat Pedals Actually Just As Fast As Clipless Pedals? (youtube.com)

Back in the day I think they were a great bit of kit, after all our racing shoes were nothing more than a thin slice of relatively firm foam. Now we have the much thicker/soft/bouncy super shoes, I'm not sure the platforms would be as good?

I definitely have trained my hips and legs to take some of the fatigue off of always mashing the pedals. When one muscle group gets tired, I'll often take a short brake and change up my pedal stroke a little bit and it makes a huge difference at being able to actually increase power in the midst of a section of the ride where I feel like I'm fading.

I think these tests are basically just looking at the difference between mashing your pedals when clipped or in flats. Ok, if you employ the exact same stroke/pedal dynamics between the two pedal types I expect there's not much difference. It's like asking a one legged person to hop on one foot for a distance and asking a two legged person to hop for a distance. No surprise to see there's no much difference. But ask the two legged person to employ both legs and it's no contest. I'm not sure how making use of more of the total pedal stroke rotation isn't going to be better. At least in my case my cadence and power goes up, and the amount of pressure exerted by my muscles goes down (if I explained that right).

I definitely have trained my hips and legs to take some of the fatigue off of always mashing the pedals. When one muscle group gets tired, I'll often take a short brake and change up my pedal stroke a little bit and it makes a huge difference at being able to actually increase power in the midst of a section of the ride where I feel like I'm fading.

I think these tests are basically just looking at the difference between mashing your pedals when clipped or in flats. Ok, if you employ the exact same stroke/pedal dynamics between the two pedal types I expect there's not much difference. It's like asking a one legged person to hop on one foot for a distance and asking a two legged person to hop for a distance. No surprise to see there's no much difference. But ask the two legged person to employ both legs and it's no contest. I'm not sure how making use of more of the total pedal stroke rotation isn't going to be better. At least in my case my cadence and power goes up, and the amount of pressure exerted by my muscles goes down (if I explained that right).[/quote]
Totally agree with everything you said. My one F1 with four transitions only solidified my belief that cycling shoes/pedals > flats/platforms. Watching guys struggle up the rise in the course that was not even a hill made that point quickly for me. I think that controlled studies, in a lab especially, but even the GCN hill climb, are very simple and allow a person to focus solely on pedaling. I know for me, in a race, when I'm oxygen deprived and starting to see double, and trying to avoid other riders and trying to avoid bad bumps then there is no way I would not have bad things happen if I was not connected. My race was 2 miles, 6 miles, 2/6/2. Certainly, at that distance, I was faster. I still think at 1/3/1/3/1 it would be a wash, so the race would have to be some sort of super sprint for flatforms to be faster.

Unless you are not doing a flying mount and putting your shoes on while moving. I regularly 'win' transitions because I spent about five seconds at the rack not moving. From the first run, it is "kick my shoes off while putting my helmet on" and then I'm gone. On the way back it is take off the helmet and pull on shoes. The only gain for platforms would be easier running through transition, in some cases, and the five or so seconds I'm not pedaling while moving, that I am pulling on each shoe.

I would highly recommend more practice with the shoes you have (to the OP).

I used platform pedals with the toe clips my first 2-3 years in Triathlons. All of those races were 70.3 and I general was fine on the bike, posting some of the top bike splits in my AG, but never ran well off the bike. I don’t know if cycling in running shoes had anything to do with my run leg off the bike though. When I crossed over to clipless pedals I said I might go back to platform pedals if I ever did a Duathlon because the T2 was fast at those triathlons with platform pedals. My T2 might be 20-25 seconds where everyone around me was 40-50 second. When I finally did do a Duathlon I was out of practice with the platform pedals and didn’t have time to practice with them since I first saw the race 6 days before the race. It was a super sprint so transitions were big. I practiced putting on and taking off the bike shoes and did it fast. The 5-6 seconds to change shoes wasn’t going to hurt me much. I did get off the bike in 3rd place about 20-25 seconds behind second place. I was out of T2 about 3-4 second behind second place. We traded places twice on the run and I finished 3-4 second behind 2nd for the 3rd place finish. I think having the bike shoes for the 12 mile bike ride was a bigger advantage than the 5-10 seconds I might have picked up in transition. Everyone else at the race used clipless pedals so we were all even.

I am signed up for two standard distance Duathlon this summer. I will be wearing bike shoes on the bike for both of them. I am considering adding a super sprint Duathlon and am wonder how my alpha flys shoes would perform on platform pedals with toe clips. The idea concerns me. I will likely do some testing in training over the next two months to see what the difference is in controlled Duathlon simulations. I am guessing this is one of those things like aero helmets and wet suits where the faster option for one person may be the slower option for someone else.

Ive raced both ways, cycling shoes and platforms and truthfully the only place I save a few seconds is in T2. I ride the platforms mainly out of convenience. I hate to change shoes and also I race quite a few times a year where the run through transition is a LOOOONG one and having running shoes on is nice. :)

Great race event.
Last year was Porsche track weekend and had the opportunity to watch some sick cars before they opened the track.

Make sure you get down to the gate early to get a decent spot on the rack
I had my ultegra r8000 pedals and elastic laces foe the running shoes.

I think my transitions were all under 50 seconds even with the run back out.

It's super fast pace. Some of the AG 35-39 were averaging mid 6min paces.

Good luck.

---

2019 Felt IA3
2022 Giant TCR Pro
Find me on strava
https://strava.app.link/HoaJ6fq5AHb