Clipless Pedals Explained | How To Use Clipless Pedals

in this video we're going to show you how to choose and then use cliplist pedals which are what so called proper cyclists use now they are by no means essential of course to riding a bike but they should enhance your level and also your enjoyment of cycling unfortunately though they can be the source of pain and huge embarrassment both for new users and also slightly below average ex-professional cyclists i miss the beanbag now in order to teach you out there how to use clipless pedals for the very first time i'm going to teach somebody right here how to use clipless pedals for the first time my pupil forward slash guinea pig today is my beautiful intelligent talented and um i've forgotten again what's everything you want me to say sophisticated yeah is my beautiful intelligent talented and sophisticated wife larae now my younger son jude used clipless pedals for the first time around about a year ago when he was eight and rather annoyingly like all things with youngsters he picked things up very quickly indeed however using clip-plus pedals for the first time can be a bit daunting when you are um when you're when you have a little bit more life experience shall we say so we're going to go very carefully on this one so that a lorraine doesn't get hurt and in turn b i don't get hurt either before we get on to the practical let's start with the theory firstly yes it is a bit weird to call them clipless pedals when you clip into them but that name comes from the fact that they superseded toe clips and straps back in the 80s there is a huge amount of choice out there when it comes to clipless pedals but they generally fall into two categories they being road and off-road and i've got two examples of those here from our partners for this video shimano who generally are the gold standard when it comes to pedals first up here in my hand i have got the pded 500 these are mountain bike pedals as you can see they are double sided which means you can clip in on both sides and they work in combination with some fairly small cleats which look like this a two bolt design and they will need to be used in a specific mountain bike pair of shoes however as lorraine is using a road bike i decided that she should be using road specific pedals so these are the pd rs 500 their entry level clipless pedal on the road and i've chosen them for a couple of specific reasons firstly they have a wider platform and secondly they have a lower spring tension both of those things make it easier to clip in and to clip out also they have a spring adjustment screw here at the back which i've loosened off to make it even easier for the rain to clip out of the pedals now road cleats look quite a lot different to mountain bike ones first as you can see they're a lot bigger secondly they have a three bolt design which means you'll need to use specific road shoes and you have three options when it comes to shimano cleats first up these red ones they have zero float which means you are engaged and locked in float being how much you need to twist before you disengage from the pedal next up you have intermediate blue ones they have two degrees of float and then finally you have yellow ones they have six degrees of float they are ideal for beginners really because you've got a bit more freedom in the pedals and getting the position of them spot-on on the shoes is not quite so vitally important now talking of the shoes this is what lorraine will be using look rather snazzy don't they these are shimano's women's specific rp5ws they have the three bolt design at the bottom for the cleat and they're reasonably simple to mount all you need to do is put a small amount of grease on each bolt tighten them up with the cleat facing forward and then you're ready to go [Music] okay all done okay darling so what's next well babes the temptation is going to be to go straight out on the road your brand new pedals and your nice new shoes but you want to resist that urge because it's much better to start static preferably using a home train like the one you see here but if you don't have one you can just use a wall inside or preferably two walls like a corridor so you can't fall off in either direction reason being is you want to spend at least 20 minutes getting used to them before you head out so it's time to clip in for the first time all you do is have your lead foot crank near the bottom of the pedal stroke here engage the front of the cleat with the front of the pedal push down you should hear a loud snap at which point you are clipped in uh do you want to give that a go yep okay [Applause] oh straight in and then all you need to do to disengage from the pedal is twist now you can do it either way but preferably you want your heel to come out so if you just twist like that and we're out that's it getting the hang of it uh once you've done that a few times with your lead foot clipped in and out at that point you can clip it back in and then we're going to get you on the saddle so put it back in with your lead foot oh that's it then get yourself on the saddle and you might start pedaling oh you're already in so both feet clipped in now and lorraine would tend to stop at a junction and put her left foot down so it's best to start practicing by taking that foot off to start with putting it down and just practicing like that and as i said a good 20 maybe even 30 minutes of practice indoors is preferable before you head outside and even then not to the road but to the park [Music] how much longer do i have to do this dad oh a few more minutes and i'll be uh you'll be ready to go out i think well we're 20 minutes into our practice now lorraine doesn't seem to be really getting the hang of it which is really important because you want it to become second nature that twisting gets you off the pedals before you start to head outside and i do also want to point out that this is genuinely the first time that lorraine has ever tried clipless pedals before albert were kind enough to loan us this orca road bike a couple of weeks ago we've been out for a couple of road rides haven't we dude with flat pedals but you've never used these clipless pedals before how are they feeling now yeah great i mean it was quite challenging to start with but it's definitely got easier um and i'm not sure if that's because they've loosened up a bit or whether i've just got used to the technique of doing it yeah well i think you are now ready to go outside not onto the road though we're gonna head into the park right here we are it's the big moment uh there are a couple of reasons why you might want to search out your local grassy park the first of those that obviously there's no traffic you might also want to wait for when it's quiet so there are no spectators either but the second one is that of course it's a much softer land and if heaven forbid you do come off and actually a much wetter one at the moment because we've just had a torrential downpour now what you want to do is very similar to what we've been doing already inside i.e practicing clipping in and unclipping a lot but there are a couple of differences now the first of those is that when you push off same lead foot so that was the right one for you clip that in before you push off and then you want to pedal a couple of times to get up some speed before you attempt to clip the other foot in now the reason for that is that you're probably going to have to look down to engage that left foot and it might take you a couple of goes if it does you're going to lose a bit of speed and of course with that you'll also lose a bit of balance as well and finally you want to unclip well before you want to actually come to a stop so that you're ready i know you're feeling quite nervous now aren't you i am a little bit yes yeah it goes you come off mainly it is quite soft it is quite soft but you will get wet right you ready yep okay get onto the bike clip that one in there we go the other thing i forgot to mention is that you also want to consider what gear you're in this one's actually pretty good but you don't want to be in too hard of a gear because it'll be hard to get going but also not too easy because you'll be pedaling so fast it'll be difficult to even get into the next pedal on this left hand side are you ready yeah okay so remember to just pedal a few times before you then look down to try and clip into the left one so you can just need to change gear no you don't have to i think just concentrate on the pedals for the moment okay i've got my fingers crossed are you in already [Music] all right remember to unclip before you want to stop [Music] clip now that's it now you can also if you want unclip both pedals because i have seen a couple of people who've unclipped the left and then balanced off to the right in which case they can't get the pedal out so when you're first starting sometimes it's an idea just to twist both out so that when you can go either way basically at that point then it's just a case of continuing to practice around the park i'm afraid before i'm going to let you out on the open road okay [Applause] sit peddle a bit peddle a bit a bit pedal pedal pedal pedal that's it oh i'm too high you don't so whilst you can twist out of both pedals to release them you don't have to take both feet off the pedals if that makes sense so you can still you can um disengage the right one as well but just leave it there so you've got that to still sort of press on is your heart going you're doing well [Music] well we've been practicing for about half an hour now should i say lorraine has and you are getting much more used to it aren't you but did have a tumblr i promised i wouldn't say that we didn't get it on camera which lorraine is chuffed to bits about but i'm slightly disappointed about we're not going to go out on the road just yet though i think i'd rather that lorraine came out and practiced here in the park a couple more times over a couple more days before we did that um firstly just to get more used to the pedals before we go on to tarmac but secondly just to get used to the whole bike really because you've only done two rides on it so it's a lot to think about with the electronic gears and the clip these pedals etc so i just want you to be much more confident really before you go out because the worst thing you can do is lose your confidence by coming off a couple of times when you go out on the road and i don't want that to happen but hopefully i'll be doing some filming with my phone out on the road in the next couple of days which we'll put in this video so you can see lorraine and all her glory out on the open road [Music] one more time before we get out there [Music] straight away incredible seats [Music] all good yep good that was a hard time main thing is you unflipped i would say then that that is mission accomplished wouldn't you what do you think about the coach by the way have i done yeah you've been good um but i've heard that top athletes aren't usually very good coaches so i shouldn't be surprised was that a compliment probably not about my athletic career but i'll take the compliment about the coaching anyway i hope you get on the right with these tips in using clipless pedals for the first time at home if you've already started using them and you've got your own tips that you want to leave in the comments section below please feel free to do so so that other new users can read them there and if you've enjoyed this video please give it a big thumbs up by clicking on the icon just down below

Channel: Global Cycling Network

Views: 1,215,457

Rating: 4.9310503 out of 5

Keywords: clipless pedals, clip in pedals, road bike pedals, cycling pedals, clip in, unclip, crash, shimano, road pedals, mountain bike pedals, mtb pedals, spd, spd sl, spdsl, beginner, cycling tips, newbie, first time using clipless pedals, pedalling, unclipping, GCN, Global Cycling Network, Sports, Cycling, Bike, Bikes, Bicycle (Product Category), Road Bike, Cyclist, Road Bicycle, GCN Cycling, velo, dan, lloyd, sec-feature, gc21s, ඃ, ଐ, gc11sas, n1, ཋ, ោ, ሙ, ସ, ホ, ゲ, ዩ, ළ, Ա, Ժ, Լ, Ծ, Հ, ፕ15, ヅ, ዎ, 4006

Id: wXgqsQlFDsA

Length: 12min 28sec (748 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 24 2020