Clipless Pedals Vs Flat Pedals - Which Is Faster?

- 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
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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.

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

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