Learning Clipless

Tom Keats said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

Tom Sherman said:

Quoted message said:

It would take a total schlemiel or somebody with duck feet
to get his flat-soled, uncleated street shoes hung-up on
my plastic, wide toe-box MTB clips & cordura straps.
<shrug> What can I say?

When did flat soled, street shoes come into the picture?

When I put them into the picture, 'cuz that's what
I normally wear. I'll allow treaded soles on
shin-biter pedals equipped w/ clips might cause
probs.

Yep.

Quoted message said:

But I haven't experienced any foot extraction
problems, even with my work boots -- which, incidentally,
fit (more or less) into my clips-&-straps combination.
The only problem I have experienced in that regard is the
straps chafing away at the boots' uppers. That could be
the result of my abnormally high instep.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

They work, and they work safely
for me. And the clips provide the additional advantage
of serving as armatures around which I wrap lengths of
cut-off inner tube (attached w/ small zipties) to keep my
feet dry in the rain, and warm in the cold wind, so I don't
need to buy special shoes which need special booties in
adverse weather.

But the clips provide poor foot retention unless the straps are cinched
tight.

Not mine. I just leave the straps set at a certain tautness.
I can slide my shoes into and out of them with ease, and they
still provide good enough retention to at least one-leggedly
pedal up a 3 or 4% grade. If I had the leg strength, maybe
I could one-leggedly pedal up even steeper grades with 'em.

Not enough retention for "honking", certainly.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Clips and straps are obsolete technology, and with good reason.

There are various kinds of clips/straps. My MTB setup is nothing
like those double-whammy track arrangements, or those old-skool,
roadies' narrow, pointy, metal clips w/ "little leather belts"
for straps.

The old road clip at least provided positive foot retention, when used
with a slotted cleat. Of course, unlike SPuDs, that mean a shoe that
could barely be walked in.

Quoted message said:

My plastic-y/rubbery clips & cordura straps have
a certain amount of stretchy "give". That give allows me to
easily slide into or out of them, but once my shoes are in 'em,
they clamp around my shoes more eagerly than the antibodies
which surrounded Raquel Welch in "Fantastic Journey." But
not quite as tightly, and I don't need Donald Pleasance to
pull 'em off (thank goodness.)

Why not get Power Grips then? Easier entry and exit, better foot
retention, compatible with any shoes AND lower cost?

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
The weather is here, wish you were beautiful

In article <[email hidden]>,

Tom Sherman said:

Quoted message said:

My plastic-y/rubbery clips & cordura straps have
a certain amount of stretchy "give". That give allows me to
easily slide into or out of them, but once my shoes are in 'em,
they clamp around my shoes more eagerly than the antibodies
which surrounded Raquel Welch in "Fantastic Journey." But
not quite as tightly, and I don't need Donald Pleasance to
pull 'em off (thank goodness.)

Why not get Power Grips then? Easier entry and exit, better foot
retention, compatible with any shoes AND lower cost?

I already have all that with my current setup.

I don't need solutions to probs that don't exist.

I really wish I could acquaint you with what I'm using.
It /is/ good! It works! I realize you've had bad
experiences in the past w/ clips-&-straps, but I think
what I have is something radically different from what
you've had the misfortune to deal with.

cheers,
Tom
--
"Roger -- go with throttle-up."
-- last words from Space Shuttle Challenger

Tom Keats said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

Tom Sherman said:

Quoted message said:

My plastic-y/rubbery clips & cordura straps have
a certain amount of stretchy "give". That give allows me to
easily slide into or out of them, but once my shoes are in 'em,
they clamp around my shoes more eagerly than the antibodies
which surrounded Raquel Welch in "Fantastic Journey." But
not quite as tightly, and I don't need Donald Pleasance to
pull 'em off (thank goodness.)

Why not get Power Grips then? Easier entry and exit, better foot
retention, compatible with any shoes AND lower cost?

I already have all that with my current setup.

I don't need solutions to probs that don't exist.

I really wish I could acquaint you with what I'm using.
It /is/ good! It works! I realize you've had bad
experiences in the past w/ clips-&-straps, but I think
what I have is something radically different from what
you've had the misfortune to deal with.

I still have a hard time imagining that clips and straps could work
better than my Power Grips, which are cheap and hold my feet tightly.
Heck, one could make do-it-yourself versions of Power Grips from a worn
out tire and a couple of dollars worth of hardware.

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
The weather is here, wish you were beautiful

John Everett said:

I'm currently reading a book called "Deep Survival - Who Lives, Who
Dies, and Why" by Laurence Gonzales. The following is excerpted
(without permission).

.. Generally, after

Quoted message said:

that second experience, you have developed a deeply ingrained
emotional bookmark. Then, whenever you start to relax those muscles,
you get a really bad feeling, like somebody's going to drop a safe on
you, and those muscles tighten right up. You never have to think about
it again."

Quoted message said:

I'm wondering if this is typical. Is Gonzales on to something?

It's usually called "muscle memory":
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_memory>
, trauma tends to "burn" the memory in, very effectively.

There's a related phenomenon that's been recently discovered -- "mirror
neurons" (or something like that). Apparently when just watching someone
do a activity that you're familiar with causes your own neurons to fire
in a way almost identical to doing the task yourself. I feel the
combined effects when I watch somebody mishandle a knife, I'll feel
sting of old cuts.

Some people can apparently learn a new muscular task just by watching. I
knew a guy who claimed to have done that, learning horseback riding just
from TV.

Nothing like mountain biking to train muscle memory. Skids and falls are
much more common than road cycling, but the muscle memory carries over.

Some people seem to be more natural with clipless. Very often, when
first learning to mountain bike, my wife would come out of a crash on
her feet, running. Never being able to do that myself, I asked her what
the trick was, but she couldn't explain it.

Peter Cole said:

[...]
There's a related phenomenon that's been recently discovered -- "mirror
neurons" (or something like that). Apparently when just watching someone
do a activity that you're familiar with causes your own neurons to fire
in a way almost identical to doing the task yourself. I feel the
combined effects when I watch somebody mishandle a knife, I'll feel
sting of old cuts.[...]

My knees hurt when I see someone riding a bicycle with the saddle WAY
too low (currently in fashion among early teens for some reason).

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
The weather is here, wish you were beautiful

From: [email hidden] (Peter Cole)

Quoted message said:

Some people seem to be more natural
with clipless. Very often, when first
learning to mountain bike, my wife would
come out of a crash on her feet, running.
Never being able to do that myself, I
asked her what the trick was, but she
couldn't explain it.

When she figures it out, you will remember to post it?

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