The Flat Pedal Revolution Manifesto

[horsefarmer]

Sometimes I get a bit distracted on the web. Today I started on this thread, http://ratrodbikes.com/forum/index.php?threads/home-depot-sells-bike.96986/#post-967506,which led to me checking out the Hollandia bike on Amazon, http://api.viglink.com/api/click?fo...27d9-4712-4a98-a4b9-4415692a560b&rewrit=false and the reviews and questions.
One of these got me wondering,
"Question: I am a 5'8 woman, would I still be able to reach/ride this bike comfortably?
Answer: I'm 5'8" as well and ... there is never 3/4 leg extension with the pedals located directly under the center seat post.... My knees go so high because of the short length of the frame that I can't pedal and turn the handlebars left or right to make a turn. My size 9.5 foot hits the front fender with the toe of my shoe (very dangerous) if I'm not careful when turning. That's even with proper ball-of-the-foot placement on the pedal when pedaling. Always pedal using the ball of your foot on the pedals,, not the arch of your foot."
Now this got me, cause I don't pedal with the ball of my foot ! So I googled it and it led me to this:
http://www.bikejames.com/strength/d...he-ball-of-your-foot-when-you-pedal/#comments and http://www.bikejames.com/strength/t...-how-to-improve-your-riding-with-flat-pedals/ .
Food for thought, and I agree with the "Flat Pedal" concept because it's all I ever knew. Anyways comments please.

 

[Bendix]

That was really interesting!

I'd like to get my wife ( an elite 'age group' du/triathlete ) to do a comparison in her computrainer class sometime to see the wattage figures. Probably couldn't talk her into it though... ;-)

 

[wheelbender6]

Clipless pedals take the stress off my knees.

 

[Bicycle808]

I hate toeclips. I used to ride trails with clipless, til i realized i kinda hate those, too. It's great in the best cases, but uncomfortable to walk in those shoes, plus inconvenient for rides with regular shoes, plus i've seen folks experiencing "clipless crashes," although i've not been the victim of anything like that since my first or second ride with clipless. But, yeah, i typically use caged pedals with snea.kers; much better for me, although the weakness is "Hot spots" during long rides, at which point, i miss clipless. All that being said, the balls of my feet are the point where driving force is transferred from my legs tom the pedals....

 

[horsefarmer]

From a safety standpoint, I would not want to be constrained to my bike by any mechanical attachment.
Its the same reason riders don't tie themselves to the saddle when riding a horse, "freedom to bail". When the situation warrants I want to be able to get clear.

 

[5speed]

i like electras pedal forward design

 

[Raoul Dude]

From a safety standpoint, I would not want to be constrained to my bike by any mechanical attachment.
Its the same reason riders don't tie themselves to the saddle when riding a horse, "freedom to bail". When the situation warrants I want to be able to get clear.

For several years I rode technical trails on a mountain bike with toe clips -- if the straps aren't tight it's easy to just yank your feet out of the back if and when it's time to bail off the bike! I did it dozens of times, including once when the bike and I were in mid-air.

Of course, it probably takes a couple of hours of practice to learn when the straps are so loose that you aren't really getting much benefit out of the toe clips at all, when the straps are so tight that you can't just pull your foot out, where that "happy medium" is, and which shoes (that you already own) work best. Once you find that happy medium with one pair of shoes, wearing another pair with thinner or thicker soles or a more- or less-aggressive tread means starting all over again.

Luckily for me, I came from a casual "roadie" background back before there WERE clipless pedals, and I watched firsthand with a mix of awe and horror as co-workers who were hardcore roadies "went clipless" and then came to work on Mondays with various scrapes and bruises and (I'm pretty sure) at least one broken wrist. "But clipless is AWESOME! Except, okay, this one time I couldn't un-click and then...." and it seemed like every one of those guys had three or four "this one time's."

Once I started riding trails seriously and reading magazines, I asked the guys at the bike shop what they recommended, but more importantly, what they WORE. Back in '94 or so they advised me that "clipless is great if you live out west, where the trails are dry. Here where it's muddy, clipless pedals just jam up with mud -- stay with toe clips!"

Being clipped in DOES offer some advantages on- and off-road, but after I stopped riding for years and then tried mountain biking again, the clips seemed to be more of a nuisance than a help. My foot never got caught in the clips, but the dangling clips would get caught in rocks or roots while I tried to pedal forward and get some momentum to flip the pedal right-side-up and slide my free foot into the clip, so I'd come to a halt and have to start all over again.

About the same time, I started hanging around here and riding cruiser style bikes, and started getting plantar facsiitis from (I'm pretty sure) mixing cheap tennis shoes with thin soles and standard-sized pedals. I solved the problem (and healed my feet) by mixing rigid-soled MTB shoes with nice, large BMX platform pedals, then last year I put platforms on almost every bike I own. I mostly rode them with better-quality tennis shoes and my feet are back to normal and pain-free!

All three systems have their own advantages and disadvantages, but right now for my rat rods I'm happiest with platform pedals. I like the much larger surface area, I can wear whatever shoes I want, and there's a huge variety of styles and colors of platforms. The one exception is with my "gravel grinder," a mountain bike with drop bars -- I'm tempted to put a pair of strapless or "half toe clips" on there so it feels a little more like my old road bike on the road AND to help keep my feet on the pedals when I'm off-road.

 

[horsefarmer]

You know I may have a touch of that "plantar facsiitis" myself, I know I prefer shoes with good arch support, And platform pedals.

 

[Bendix]

Plantar fasciiitis is absolutely horrible. Those first few steps out of bed and down the stairs... Strangely enough, more motorcycle time helped tremendously, apparently my feet on the pegs produced the perfect stretch! Go figure.

I too think certain platform pedal/shoe combos can contribute. In my case I think it was Suntour XCIIs- not much support inside the beartrap. Modern platforms seem to be more 'level' all across.

I ride clipless on the road for 2 reasons- the stiffer soled shoe, and pedal float made all the difference in the world to my knees. This is on bikes that are never ridden in other shoes.

I haven't really done much 'real' offroad in years, always felt, for me, early 90's XTs with clips and straps were hard to beat, but will try flats next time.

I still like toe clips/straps on commuter/touring type bikes. No practical reason, I suppose, just used to the feel (not cinched down tight like in the old slotted road cleat days though). It's kind of like a spray skirt on a kayak- even if you know you don't need it, the feel is still comforting for some reason.

 

[Duchess]

I was resistant to clipless, but once I tried them I loved them. I don't use them for town cruising because I hate sounding like a tap dancer (who am I kidding?—people hate roadies even more), but they're great for longer rides. I have loose joints that have recently made themselves known with my advancing age (I'm older than I've ever been and now I'm even older . . .) and the clipless help to involve other muscle groups to both distribute the load, to rest other muscles, and strengthen the area around my knees for better stabilization. They also let you power through the whole stroke. I like the SPD M540 which can also pass as platforms in a pinch. I have never fallen because of them (stumbled once or twice forgetting I had them) and I'm not particularly athletic. I can, however, track stand reasonably well. I find them much better for mountain biking as my skills in the technical (basically this whole area) are poor and the clipess let me pull up when I misjudge/ride too slow to get over a set of rocks that nature invariably spaces the same distance as my wheelbase, meaning I sometimes have the power to get over them. But for short, casual rides, I stick with rat trap-like platforms (I like the spikes at the outside ends because they grab the soles of my sneakers to prevent slipping).

 

[deorman]

Plain old platforms are my preference. Decades old habit. Strapless clips are good for airborne or steep off-road work, but my aging bones don't do that anymore. I'm not denying that retention systems can be beneficial if you can get used to them, I just don't like them.

 

[metalchewy]

Plain old platforms are my preference. Decades old habit. Strapless clips are good for airborne or steep off-road work, but my aging bones don't do that anymore. I'm not denying that retention systems can be beneficial if you can get used to them, I just don't like them.

Me as well, platform or like platform for me, even for the hairy downhill or airborn stuff. I prefer to be able to 'set' my feet vs tying them to the pedal... of 10 working bikes at the house, 7 of them have platform style or almost flat. No clips, no straps, no funky shoes.

Building... riding...

 

[Bicycle808]

Not to be pedantic--actually, let's be honest---this post is totally about pedantry-- it's more likely that y'all are using caged plain pedals or quill pedals than it is that you're using true platform pedals. I rock some platforms on my Schwinn SS; they're a pair of mks gr-9

To be honest, pedal nomenclature is all kinds of jacked-up; it can easily devolve into a semantics discussion, where the merits of the various options can take a back seat to the language used to classify them all. Which is probably why i enjoy discussing pedals so much.

 

[deorman]

Potayto, tomahto?

 

[Raoul Dude]

Not to be pedantic--actually, let's be honest---this post is totally about pedantry-- it's more likely that y'all are using caged plain pedals or quill pedals than it is that you're using true platform pedals.

If Wikipedia's and Niagara Cycles' definitions are to be trusted, I used all-metal track- and quill-style pedals on my '70's and '80's road and mountain bikes, with and without cages, and in the past two years have bought six or eight sets of big ol' BMX platform pedals like these:

(So, ARE those "platforms"?! )

Of course, Wikipedia calls these things "simple platform pedals" while other sites call them rubber or plastic "block" pedals:

...which I suspect are the pedals that a lot of people here are using, since they're standard equipment on a lot of cruisers and older bikes.


As far as my sore feet were concerned, the larger the surface area of the pedal, the better my feet felt -- I'm not at all concerned about what they look like. BMX pedals may not look "vintage" or "period correct" but then neither do most of my bikes.

Plantar fasciiitis is absolutely horrible. Those first few steps out of bed and down the stairs...

Yeah, those first few steps in the morning are apparently one of the biggest hints that something is wrong. Sore feet at the end of the day can be many things, but when they feel pretty good at bedtime but then are agonizing with those first steps in the morning, that's a big clue as to what the problem is.

 

[user 135]

Pedal Museum....awesome gallery and poke around the other gallery's http://www.speedplay.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=pedalmuseum.quill

 

[Duchess]

By a less general definition, I guess I prefer quill pedals for the regular riding bikes. The only bike I have with true flat pedals are wood block pedals (were fake rubber block pedals with plastic or rubber that I replaced with oak).

 

[deorman]

Alrighty then, rat trap, no retention, and platform.

 

[Bicycle808]

If Wikipedia's and Niagara Cycles' definitions are to be trusted...

View attachment 18726


(So, ARE those "platforms"?! )

Of course, Wikipedia calls these things "simple platform pedals" while other sites call them rubber or plastic "block" pedals:

View attachment 18727

Wikipedia can often be trusted; i'd look to a site with all user-generated info as a place to look for clues, rather than definitive answers. It's often correct, but often not, and it's best to cross-reference any info you find there.

Niagaracycle is a great site to get deals, but a terrible site for getting ANY kind of info or specs, EVER. Usually, there's no info. What little info you might find is, as often as not, incorrect.

That BMX pedal is definitely something that I'd call a platform pedal; Sheldon Brown and old-school roadies in general would vehemently disagree. (The "elegant" set feels that platforms are one-piece body pedals, almost always intended to be single-sided, that are intended to be run with toe clips--which describes my GR-9 pedals to a tee, although i choose to eschew the toeclips b/c i hate them.) From the second pic, the block pedals would be called "plain pedals" by most definitions.

At some point, probably right when clipless got big, folks basically startd acting like pedals were either "clipless" (meaning, you click-in with special shoes w/ cleats) or "platform" (meaning "Not clipless").... Toe clips can be worn with many styles of pedals, but not all. Cages, as far as pedals go, refers to a separate piece around the periphery that bolts to the pedal's body; platforms tend to be one-piece with the guts hollowed out for any bearings or bushings which allow the body to spin around the axle. So, basically, a rat-trap or bear-trap pedal is a caged quill pedal. The all-nylon rectangular jawns that use bushings instead of bearings, and break right away? The technical cycling jargon for those is "POS."