somebody I know (name witheld to protect the innocent) would like to go clipless, but they are afraid of falling down and would like something a bit more ‘incremental’ (as in, cycling shoe, but foot not firmly clipped in to begin with).
I thought that giving them my old look pedals and shave the plastic cleats so that the pedals barely-barely-barely clip in (if at all) would work, of course they wouldn’t be able to ‘pull up’, but at least they ought to be able to pedal normally and start getting used to having their feet fixed in a position and not moving around on the pedal platform: hopefully shaving the back so it doesn’t clip will still make the pedal reasonably fixed left-to-right. And yes, I had them try my bike with the release set as ‘loose’ as it goes, and it’s still ‘too much’ for them, they just want to be able to ‘step off’ the pedal as if it was a platform.
Is this someone that you are/want to date? If so, then yes, sounds like it should work, much like when the spring in your Speedplay cleat breaks. Your on the pedal but not attached.
If the above answer is no then tell them to suck it up, stop being such a sissy, and deal with it.
saying to ‘suck it up’ is not an option here for a number of reasons, I’ll try and find some old cleats and get working with the exacto knife and see what I can do, I thought it ought to work but I figured I’d ask here in case somebody had to do this at some point…
Have them practice on a trainer first, and then graduate to a mtn. bike on the grass.
they’re fine on the trainer, and they’re fine on the grass on a mtb, the issue is that they freak out about riding in traffic and getting to lights and so on. It’s just psychological, it’s not really lack of skill at all, I figure that starting with a nearly completely cut cleat would get them used to the feeling of the pedals, then do a second set with a little more on so they have to start doing the unclipping motion properly (but that would still work if they just did a ‘panic lift’) and then go to normal cleats after that.
I am surprised bike companies are not offering something like this out of the box, it would definitely make it easier for a lot of folks to ‘acclimate’ to clipless…
Shaving cleats sounds really sketchy… Get an old skool set of slotted cleats to go with some roadie/track pedals & cages. (Not the mtb style plastic cages with flat pedals - the old road pedals had a flat bar at the back that would engage the slotted cleat, and then the strap cinched everything down) Leave the straps pretty loose, and the slotted cleat will still keep the shoe in the pedal fairly well - but not make it too difficult to pull out if necessary.
Don’t forget to mention to them that they WILL forget to clip out and will fall over when they stop at least once.
My personal favorite for this is when I was spending a week in February hanging out in Miami (I’m from Columbus, OH). I meet up with someone I only know from the internet to go for a ride along Ft. Lauderdale beach and further north. I met this guy about 5 minutes earlier. We come down towards the beach, I spot 3 young ladies wearing almost nothing crossing the street as we roll up to the light. All of my concentration is on them when I tip over, water bottles rolling away, me rolling around with my bike on top of me, still clipped in. Great fun, still cracks me up.
I think that would still be too hard to get used to, as they wouldn’t be able to ‘just pull the foot out’ due to the cage and the bar. I personally find that getting your feet out of clipless pedals is super easy (heck, I have clipless on my mtb and I go in fairly gnarly xc areas and only once I ended up failing to unclip before falling) but this person doesn’t at all, to give you an idea they are so uncomfortable with clipless that the few times they tried it on the road they rode with mtb kneepads and elbow pads…
I know shaving the cleat is not perfect, but I know they aren’t going to sprint out of the saddle or anything like that…
Don’t forget to mention to them that they WILL forget to clip out and will fall over when they stop at least once.
they did the first time ever they tried clipless and it was a bit traumatic for them, hence the additional ‘no way, I don’t want to do that anymore’ issue.
I feel like telling them to just suck it up, but then I remember how long it took me to get comfortable with aerobars (and even now, after several years, I am still not capable of descending with them or in general being on them over 22-23mph) and I try to sympathize, which in this case is not easy as I’ve always been fine with them (I only fell down twice, both times because it was a steep uphill and I clipped in too early, but never had issues at stop signs or anything).
It seems to me that it would be more dangerous to accidently pull out because of the weak cleats, than to not clip out. In most wrecks, unclipping is pretty natural. The only time most people don’t clip out is the slo-mo driveway falls.
It seems to me that it would be more dangerous to accidently pull out because of the weak cleats, than to not clip out. In most wrecks, unclipping is pretty natural. The only time most people don’t clip out is the slo-mo driveway falls.
that’s what I think as well, but once somebody gets in their head that they are ‘trapped’ they can’t really enjoy the workout or stop thinking about how they’re gonna crash. It also doesn’t help that in a panic they can’t seem to do the proper unclipping motion but just keep trying to pull ‘up’ which of course doesn’t work.
Everybody please believe me, I’ve tried everything in terms of talking, showing, practicing, you name it: I am about to just say forget it and tell them to just use platform pedals forever even on their tri/road bikes, this is basically the last thing I thought about trying to get them on the clipless bandwagon (I really don’t like seeing people on nice tri bikes with platform pedals)
I don’t know if you can find any, but Time used to make a mtn. bike pedal that was clipless on one side, and just had the front part of the mech. on the other side. That way you could easily ‘clip’ your toe in, but your foot would come out the back easily. It’d be exactly what you are looking for (and not some hacked up frankenbike piece).
I don’t know if you can find any, but Time used to make a mtn. bike pedal that was clipless on one side, and just had the front part of the mech. on the other side. That way you could easily ‘clip’ your toe in, but your foot would come out the back easily. It’d be exactly what you are looking for (and not some hacked up frankenbike piece).
hmmm, that looks like what I need, I’ll look around, thanks