If one person tries something unusual and counterintuitive, you probably want to ignore it until you see what the outcome is. (Especially if the one person is me. I'm pretty unreliable.)
If two people try something, you probably still want to ignore it, because it's likely they have some kind of bizarre two-person conspiracy going on that won't stand up to too much investigation.
But if three people are doing something, that might require some investigation. Most of our club riders use "clipless" pedals, pedals with cleats that attach the riding shoes to the pedals for the duration of the ride (and sometimes a bit longer, as those of us who have fallen on the bike due to "failure to clip out" incidents can attest*).
*This means pretty much everybody who has ever been a new user of "clipless" pedals.
I've seen three club members, though, who ride well (and reasonably quickly) riding on flat pedals on their road bikes. Now, I'm always foolin' around with the mechanicals on the bike, so I bought myself an inexpensive set of flat pedals with spikes and put 'em on the Yellow Maserati, my titanium bike.
In the picture above, you can see 'em on the cranks. Next to those are the SPD-style knock-offs that I've been using (and with which I'm still pretty happy, and to which I intend to return, sooner or later), and the Look Keo's that I had to give up because the only cleats I could find were the ones with the extra pads for walking, that get misshapen so soon and make it impossible to clip in.
I'm going for a short solo ride later, and if they work out, I'll try 'em on my group ride Sunday. I've been warned that I might fall off 'em when I'm going up a steep hill... but I know I'll never have a problem with "clipping in" with these, and it may be worth the tradeoff.
Or it may not. But it will be fun to experiment, nonetheless. And the experiment is also consistent with my interest in keeping bikes affordable. And you can be pretty sure I'll report on my experiences.
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