Clipless Pedals Vs Flat Pedals - Which Is Faster? | GCN Does Science

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It's the first I've seen of this video, but not the first I've heard of it. Obviously, it's not meant to come across as hard science. However, I've come across many here who outwardly reject the efficacy of "pedaling circles."

In my own experience, I shaved 10 minutes off a previously 35 minute commute simply by reinstalling clipless pedals. I deduced the primary reason was acceleration; I simply regained cruising speed quicker.

As far As I could tell, the GCN boys used a rolling start to measure sprint watts, not 0-60 times (so to speak). Had they tested a 200m sprint from a dead stop, the results would be clear: automatic pedals are substantially faster.

πŸ‘οΈŽ︎ 5 πŸ‘€οΈŽ︎ u/Wants-NotNeeds πŸ“…οΈŽ︎ Jul 24 2017 πŸ—«︎ replies

Im backwards.

I like flats for road because of things like traffic and just being able to walk around without changing shoes, and I like clips for MTB because it gives me more control of the rear.

πŸ‘οΈŽ︎ 4 πŸ‘€οΈŽ︎ u/[deleted] πŸ“…οΈŽ︎ Jul 24 2017 πŸ—«︎ replies

Watching this video it's clear neither one of them have the skill to ride flats effectively. They are comfortable on clipless because that's what they know how to ride with.

Also, this wasn't scientific at all. No science was done.

That being said, I do feel clipless are better and appropriate on road bikes.

πŸ‘οΈŽ︎ 16 πŸ‘€οΈŽ︎ u/[deleted] πŸ“…οΈŽ︎ Jul 24 2017 πŸ—«︎ replies
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- Many moons ago, we went into the laboratory at Bath University to find out any difference in efficiency between flat and clipless pedals. And to our surprise, there was hardly any difference at all. - So why are we bothering to use them? I mean, surely there's gotta be some benefits to clipless pedals. So we have come to the real world, or at least the paradise that is Alta Badia, to find out what it feels like to go back to riding a bike like we did as kids, with flat pedals and cool shoes. - [Matt] Dan, are you really gonna use those shoes? - Yeah, got flat pedals on. Gotta have cool shoes on don't ya? And these are pretty cool. (funky electronic music) - [Matt] Our laboratory testing involved Si riding at a steady state for 10 minutes at a time. So let's start with something completely different. Sprints. Surely there will be a significant difference in peak power when you can't pull up on the pedal stroke. - [Dan] Or is there? Let's find out. We are each going to do five maximum effort sprints and analyse peak three second power and five second power for each one. The numbers should tell their own story, but we're also going to be talking about subjective feeling. (funky electronic music) Well, I think it's safe to say Matt put his all into that last sprint judging by the noises he was producing. I am personally really hoping that the flat pedals are reducing my maximum power output. Because Matt beat me in all five. Results to come later. - Okay, it's time for the first sprint back on clipless pedals. Hopefully, I'll be back to my former self in terms of sprint numbers, we'll wait and see. Certainly feels better to be solidly in again. All right, here we go. (funky electronic music) Yes. Beauty. Right, three seconds and 1139, way above the flat pedals. More importantly, better than Matt. Let's do it again. (funky electronic music) - Right, next up, let's do a climb. We are going to do a 10 minute segment of the Passo Valparola each, measure power and heart rate and compare the two. But again, also talk about any difference in feeling between the two petal systems. (upbeat music) - So Dan, we're just over seven minutes in. How's it feeling on the flat? - Well first up, 300 watts is feeling quite hard. - Yeah. - I've got a feeling that has nothing to do with my pedals. I mean, surprisingly, there's a load of grip on these. More than I was expecting. You really can still swing your foot back, at the bottom of the pedal stroke, and over the top. Even though obviously you can't pull up. I mean, you can feel it's different, but it certainly doesn't feel as alien as it did for sprinting. - Sure. (upbeat music) - Three, two, one, lap. Oh, it's hard. - Yeah. (upbeat music) Okay, it's now my turn on the flats and straightaway it's worth mentioning we haven't actually adjusted our saddle height. And I reckon there's about a centimetre or two difference in stack height but over 10 minutes, it shouldn't be affecting us too dramatically. But foot placement, straightaway is absolutely crucial. (upbeat music) (crowd cheering over music) - All right 50 seconds and our 10 minutes is up. About the same average power so far. - Cool. - Steep, this bit, isn't it? - My legs are hurting more this time up, so far Dan. (crowd cheering over upbeat music) We're going to finish in exactly the same place. Two, one. Okay it's time for the fun bit now. The descent. Let's see how these babies feel down some hairpin bends. - I love descending. But, Dan, you need a lid on mate. You can't descend - Yeah, I've got one - But I've see this on Red Bull TV. If you've got flat pedals and really cool shoes like this, you need to use one of these. - A full face helmet? - Yeah. - With Lycra? (Dan grunting) - Whose is this? They've got a small head. - No you've got just a massive head. (Dan grunting) (rock music) - [Dan] So if some downhill mountain bikers prefer the freedom that flat pedal give them, could they be of any benefit to us on road descents? Well it is going to be a hard one to quantify, but what we're going to do is a couple of descents of the Valparola and see how it feels. (rock music) - Ow. (Matt laughing) (rock music) - Let's carve some tarmac. (rock music) (clicking) (rock music) - Right, the results are in, in terms of power numbers, et cetera. We're also going to be talking about how we felt. So for the sprints at the start, Matt you had a 15% greater power when you were using clipless versus the flats, which is quite a big difference I think you might say. I had a 30% difference. - Wow. - Which is an immense amount - No way. - Yeah. But I could tell right from the very first time at which I kicked using the clipless pedals that I had so much more power there. I obviously used the pulling up stroke when I kick into sprint, perhaps slightly more than you. But it just goes to show you why BMX's downhill mountain bike is now generally preferred to use clipless pedals for that sprint from the starter house. - Definitely, I mean I had a bit of trouble getting my foot in the right position. Normally, on clipless pedals your feet are dialled in, you don't even have to think about it. But my thought process was thinking about positions of my feet and also, because I couldn't pull up in the sprint, I was recruiting my thighs a lot more as well. So I felt like I was using my thighs like pistons rather than kind of pedalling in circles, like I'm kind of use to. So it didn't feel too bad, but it definitely felt different. There was a certain level of compromise, I just didn't feel like I was getting the power down as I would have done with the clips. - Yeah, you really had to concentrate. We're obviously used to using clipless pedals now, but even though I was consciously concentrating on not pulling up, there were still a couple of occasions when I sprinted flat out where I could feel that my foot moved because I was pulling it up slightly. One of my feet came off of the back end as well. Yeah. And then next we did the climb and for that we tried to average about 300 watts. Or I did, and you just rode next to me. When I had the flats, you had the clipless we averaged 303 watts for me, you had 315. I got a bit excited when I put the clipless pedals back on and networthed 305 watt average, only two watts above and you had, of course, running 318 watts, so you were three watts above. The climbing, I didn't notice much of a difference certainly as I did on the sprint. I'm still more comfortable, for sure, using the clipless pedals. It does feel like, when you're able to pull up, it does spread the load of that 300 watt power over far more muscle groups and when you've just got flats and you're only able to push down. - Yeah I tend to agree. I found that my thighs were getting fatigued, although my heart rate was pretty much the same, I felt more of an ache in my thighs. Less recruitment of the calf muscles than I normally would on clipless pedals. And, the most interesting I found was when I was riding out of the saddle, I felt that I almost like peddling squares, again, similar to sprinting when you're out of the saddle, couldn't pull up at all, so although I was delivering the power, it was for far less of the pedal stroke, so it was almost like pedalling and bottoming out, so I didn't particularly like climbing out of the saddle, but sat down wasn't too bad, although I tended to just recruit one muscle group. - Yeah. Neither of us, though, had a difference in heart rate for the two runs which is quite interesting, quite similar to what we found in laboratory all those years ago. I did find that there's quite a lot of grip on those pedals, although you can't pull up, you can sort of push through the top and scrape through the bottom of the pedal stroke but I think that was down to my cool shoes as much as the pedals. And finally the descent, which we didn't take any numbers for. That was purely subjective feeling. I was concentrating more on the fact that I had a full-face helmet on. Perhaps I should have used a normal one. It did give me a greater sense of safety, bit like the difference between wearing a seatbelt in a car and not, I'd say. - Yeah, well, I felt the same in terms of the helmet but the pedals themselves, the couple of corners when we banked it over, I think you experienced this as well, where I actually clipped the pedals 'cause they're far wider. And actually, on one of the corners that I didn't quite get right, I was able to take my foot out like a speedway rider as well, so not a lot of difference but just subtle nuances in terms of your positions on the pedals because accelerating out of some of the hairpin bends, my feet moved which is a little bit disconcerting so, again, I preferred descending on clipless. - Yeah, as you said they are wider so you are much more easily able to hit them on the floor which could be quite dangerous. And I think going back to the sprints, you could feel that there was as much power when you sprinted outside of the corners to get back up to speed. So I would say on descent, I'm gonna be faster on clipless. - [Matt] Same here. - Right, well I don't think either of us are going to be swapping out our clipless pedals for these, which as you can see, we've taken off our bikes pretty quickly after that experiment. You could certainly get around a sportive with them but I definitely think it is going to be more efficient overall, to be using clipless pedals on a road bike and probably for most mountain bike situations too, although I'll leave that to GMBN. Right, if you haven't yet subscribed to the Global Cycling Network, you can do so by clicking on the globe. If you'd like to buy a camelback GCN water bottle, head to shop.globalcyclingnetwork.com and now coming up, are a couple of videos fairly related to what we've been talking about. Just down here is how to choose clipless pedals. Or, for the original clips versus flat pedals, with laboratory conditions with Si Richardson and you as a pundit, click just down here.
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Channel: Global Cycling Network
Views: 1,810,681
Rating: 4.8296666 out of 5
Keywords: clipless pedals benefit, clip in pedals, flat pedals, using clipless pedals, GCN, Global Cycling Network, Sports, Cycling, Bike, Road Bike, Cyclist, GCN Cycling, Cycling Tips, Bikes, Bicycle (Product Category), cycling workout, cycling training, velo, cycling shoes, cycling science, Passo di Valparola, jul17, sec-feature, plsc, gc21s, b1, gc11shs, gc04s1, c3, r1, c1, h3, gc11sas, Ꮋ, p1, e2, Υ‚, Τ², ΤΈ, ΤΌ, Ձ
Id: AkMCYYNTWUY
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Length: 11min 34sec (694 seconds)
Published: Sun Jul 23 2017
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