Are Flat Pedals Actually Just As Fast As Clipless Pedals?

it seems as though anyone who wants to take cycling seriously and wants to go faster on their bike they use clipless pedals it gives you a secure connection and in my mind they just look better do they when you're clip Clapping Your Way on the cafe floor or Sliding Away to your bike until they actually make you look cool but got a Tui ever look cool a little bit of inconvenience off the bike is worth it because they perform better how much better though do you actually know the difference of reducing pair of flat pedals and shoes not really but in this video we're gonna find out [Music] for those of us that got in cycling in the last 30 years it seems like Clippers pedals and performance have always gone hand in hand but actually only caught on in the mid to late 80s before that Pros always use toe clips and straps in fact Stephen roach won a 1987 Tour de France in such a setup now it has to be said this is an experiment we have done a few times a few years back Dan aside did this experiment in a controlled environment at bath University and then recently mana and I attempted to shed a bit more light over the difference so as under that video that you guys left us a whole heap of comments so we felt it was only right so listen to the gcn audience and swap out a pair of rubbish flat pedals for these yeah and a pair of running Trainers for a pair of specific cycling flat shoes which well have a lot more stiffness to them yeah they do and as you can probably sell from the size of them I'm going to be the guinea pig today conduct a few experiments yeah I would actually be able to row a boat in there [Music] so this is my normal setup my all bear road bike with clipless pedals and it's what I'm going to be using for our experiments today they're going up against the flats from a specific flat pedaled shoes bit different to What Hank and melon used in during their experiments so the shoes I've brought today they've got a much stiffer sole they've got ankle support and they're designed for this purpose the pedal is made of metal rather than plastic so super stiff they've also got these pins in which will keep my foot firmly in place while I'm applying the power I'm probably wondering right now what experiments we've picked today we can probably judge from the side he's about to get steep so our first test is on the Steep gradient of 12 how do you think he's going to get on he's heading off first in the clipless pedals and then on the flats right good luck Connor right then I got my heart rate strap on we've got my power meter fitted so we're going to attract a load of metrics including things like my Cadence across all the different efforts but right now there's only one thing for it time to give this climb a while starting off on the clipless pedals what I'm used to here we go three two one let's go straight into it outside the reason I like Clippers pedals so much is my position is the same every single time I got on the bike just don't need to think of it and it is what I'm used to and in fact I really do believe carbon soil cycling shoes one of the biggest upgrades I ever made to my Riders [Music] oh something a while I've gone hard like that so that's first run done and while Conor's taking a breather so that we get a good test so he's well rested I'm gonna change his pedals onto the flats now I think it's worth mentioning that in the last video we spoke to Brian of the bike the body and he was saying that the efficiency in the pedaling technique isn't actually that different it's not as different as we first thought I guess because us like this don't actually use the upstroke of the pedal as much as well I thought in the first instance so putting a pair of grippy and stiff pedals should mean that he actually has quite an efficient pedal stroke within with good pedals all good flat pedals foreign [Music] for the flats First Impressions not that bad and see if I feel the same on the climb here we go three two one okay all right a little bit different finding my position a lot a lot stiffer than running shoes though [Applause] Focus now Connor you know proper effort here [Music] right I'm on the Steep a bit now as the saddle for the most part I think this is where the flats will struggle it's a little burner of a hill that one nice little kick at the top one of those ones you just don't notice on the way down but you do on the way up she thought remarkably uh probably better than I expected actually it's time I caught my breath though examine those two runs and see where the differences lie so Connor's first two runs are complete and the results are in and they make for interesting reading Connor okay okay hit me with it so you did the first uh 800 meter run on clipless pedals he did it on a time of three minutes and nine seconds okay yeah interestingly you did it on the flats in three minutes and seven seconds so that's faster a little bit faster two seconds faster so ninjaable but still fast which is which is interesting we could go into a little bit more detail on that your average power was four two nine on clipless and it was 415 your Cadence was pretty much similar 69.68 and then you average heart rate was 145 on the clipless and 150 on the flats meaning you have to work that bit harder your max heart rate was 158 on the clips and one six five on the flats so it shows I think you are having to work that bit harder but the interesting thing is you did less power but yet he went faster yeah so I think I think the key takeaway from this is quite a short climb I think I've got going a lot quicker on the flats go straight into it as soon as I set up no clipping in I actually had a bit of a bad moment getting at the bottom of this one and it just wasted a bit of time so I had to work hard and then get back on top of things time ended up being roughly the same I was working hard as you can see from my heart it felt it felt hard I felt like my muscles were in the right position I had to think a bit more about where to put my legs so when I got out of the saddle especially I felt like I was losing my foot a little bit but must be said specific mountain bike flat pedal shoes a lot better than running shoes plus with the with the pins on the pedals it did feel pretty solid when I was in the saddle well I think this still opens the door it is still really quite close so I think this means we have to do another test yeah I think we need a longer effort okay I've got an idea follow me mate done right you're gonna have to walk there second test let's go [Music] so our second test now this is a rather longer effort it's around five kilometers in length and to start off with Connor's gonna head off in the flat pedals how's it going okay you ready yes it's a bit different to the climb because that was an all out there for there was no hiding whatsoever here any differences are going to become really apparent any discomfort is going to be Amplified so on that note count me in three two one off you go ah straight out of the gates as on the climb no messing around clipping in [Music] got the tail in now time to embrace the mountain biking shoes and Sydney [Music] three right look at that oh Harley headwind didn't feel too comfortable in it felt like I could have done with being a bit more secure and the potatoes just felt a little bit all over the place in terms of my form crushed it on the way back then the Tailwind I think I was hit about 54k an hour felt fine there so nonetheless time to Salt the potatoes now back on zippers oh Jeepers it'll be a recovery first [Music] three two one [Music] being back to my usual shoes every pedal stroke feels so responsive definitely don't feel like a wasted energy at that top of the pedal Revolution [Music] legs hurt just the same though [Music] oh keep this done [Music] I was hurting I felt way more comfortable but I'm really not sure if it was any faster I've actually forgotten what my time was in the first run so how to turn it down you get the data from that run catch up with him and still saw a conclusion we can draw from experiment number two before Hank revealed the results of Test 2 however he had one final challenge up his sleeve for my big feet a max power test meaning we should cover a climb flat run and Sprint in today's comparison hopefully not a ham and cheese sandwich all right three two one [Music] [Music] foreign pedals are back on let's see what magic they have in store okay yeah get myself up to speed roll into it and then hit it like a coconut at the fair foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] so the results in that it's the moment you've all been waiting for thank you so much for being my pleasure thank you so let's kick off with the 5.5 kilometer flat run out and back you start off on Flats you did it in nine minutes 22 seconds interestingly on the clip this nine minutes and 20 seconds so there's only two seconds so close nothing really isn't it Max Speed you look at 54.5 kilometers per hour 53.8 kilometers per hour you did on the clipless pedals so you did faster on the flats okay normalized Power you know your average power you did 355 on Flats three seven one on clipless so a little bit high on the clipless pedals max power 725 on the flats and you did 853 Cadence quite similar 83 on the flats 86 on the uh it's a bit higher on the clipless then Max Cadence 108 on the flats one one three so high and then heart rate 166 for the flats one so one on the clip list so you're actually working on on the Clippers that's pushing on there yeah Max one seven eight on the flats one eight two I'm gonna click this yeah which is mad can you believe how close that is interesting I really thought the clips would smash it on that run but I think once I got up to speed the shoes felt surprisingly good and the power chairs were felt good as well I probably lacked a bit on the kind of little bits of gradient to keep top and getting back up to speed on the turn um but when I was up to speed it I felt you know it wasn't a huge amount of difference that is absolutely crazy let me know in the comment section below if you thought these were gonna be as close as they really are and we we genuinely did not expect it so we set him out again on some power tests but this time we did it up to 20 seconds this is your max power where the clipless should be the one so they're three sprints on each pedal and as well as hard as I could for 20 seconds and now I just do the best values from those Sprints best overall values I think I was better on the clip yeah tell us tell the audience three seconds one one eight nine one thousand one 189 Watts on the flats 908 so it's a big difference there yeah five second power one one five four clipless 906 another big Power difference and then the 20 seconds 880 on the clipless and 740 on the flats so then it was getting a little bit closer but still it's quite a big difference I think it must be said as well when I was doing those Max effort outside Sprints I did feel safer in the Clippers mainly because when you're you're trying to put that high case you're going quite fast your feet isn't secured to the pedal it does feel a little bit Twitchy um but yeah it was easy for the Paradigm the clipless for sure because I could pull up I could use all of the Power Stroke whilst I fatigued after 20 seconds I could still really whack it down when I needed to but yeah in those first two tests it was just so close so clearly close than I was expected I think there's two important caveats to make which I've been thinking over since we've completed this one I've been riding with fellows my whole life so about 20 years in my cycling life and running through those photos and I think I'm so used to that pedaling action now but when I came across to these flat pillars or the pins and the the shoes which are actually stiffer than normal running trainers must admit um I just went back into my normal natural and pedaling technique so it wasn't that different on the longer climb and on the on the long graph on the flat on the Sprint you saw the differences emerge because I just couldn't I couldn't get that putting up the feature so I guess you can put that power down because you're just more connected to the bike you're more at one when you're clipped into the uh to the bike I think so but I also think that if you're a beginner Rider and you're coming across to you know riding the road back using flat pedals I'm so used to that pedaling technique whereas if you're not quite used to it then you might find it a little bit harder um plus I do think on the flats over a really long distance you'd waste a bit of energy because I was always finding that I like I like being solid on the bottom like being stuck on that position I like feeling myself connected to the bike and you always having to think about getting your foot back in the right position keeping it and you're probably using muscles to try and keep your foot in the opposition yeah so you probably wouldn't if you're clipless I think if you added up these tests over a longer ride four five six hours you really will start to reach fatigue point a lot quicker and what you talk about cramp and things like that I I think but we must say this is really blowing off with your Concepts out the window and the fattest really did hold their own quite considerably today and I think interesting you say that on the longer rides could this open up to more tests we've done Tessa up to 5.5 kilometers but if you would you like to see something longer for four hours maybe even race or even a hard challenge let us know in the comment section below and as the day draws to an end so does the video so give us a big thumbs up if you enjoyed it I hope you did we enjoyed making it we surprised ourselves in it too so uh let us know the conversation below what do you think and uh well thank you to my guinea pig thanks for having me I'm going to switch back to the equipment so to ride home see you next time [Music]

Channel: Global Cycling Network

Views: 620,557

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Id: aVLfqjcTbnU

Length: 17min 16sec (1036 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 21 2023