Cornering: clips Vs flats

[mr636]

So I have ridden bikes forever with flat pedals, and made the switch to clips on dh and xc a while ago now. Noticed a bit more difficulty cornering, but then forgot about it.

After recent knee surgery is was riding flats again and found cornering so much easier. I don't think its all mental either, I feels like there is subtle twisting or adjusting of my feet on flat pedals.

Going back to clips this week was very strange. Felt like I needed a lot more "body English" to get the bike round corners.


Anyone else notice this? Any suggestions?
Does the angle of the cleat make a difference?

 

[Quintin]

how tight are your clips? mine are on the loose side and i have plenty of movement left to right - in fact WAY more than you get from flats with good pins and a pair of 5-10 shoes

IMO clips are the best for any style of riding because if they do nothing else, at least they locate your foot in exactly the same spot each time

 

[JonnyT]

It may be worth trying a pedal with a bit more float. CB Mallets let you make small adjustments without clipping out.

 

[teK--]

When I switched from SPD to crank brothers mallet my knees loved the extra float...

 

[PhSyCoMoToxX]

Always found with Shimano SPD, they have a 6 degree float and it has always been comfortable for me through Trail and DH riding

 

[mr636]

immm interesting. seems that im just a wierdo.
I hate CB pedals, because my feet felt disconnected haha.

 

[Lantern rouge]

I've only ridden SPD for XC and I like it, but I am not fond of the locked in feel when I get sketchy, I was contemplating flats to see how it felt but you'd lose a fair bit of oomph on hills wouldn't ya?? I'm fairly new to MTBing.


XXXX is better than no X

 

[Nautonier]

I don't think its all mental either, I feels like there is subtle twisting or adjusting of my feet on flat pedals.

I had never ridden flats until about 6 months ago, when I gave them a go on my DH bike. In the space of only 3 or 4 runs, I felt like I was cornering better than ever before, but the downside was definitely the rock gardens, drops and gaps, where I hated not being connected to the bike. Those subtle foot position tweaks you speak of are definitely awesome for things like cornering, as they put you more in touch with the bike, but the tradeoff is having your feet bouncing around all over the show in the rough and sometimes on jumps and drops. As everyone says though, it's best to learn on flats, where you will never have this problem.

In conclusion, if you've learned to ride on flats, they will always feel better than clips (sans hill climbs and XC riding), but if you've only ever ridden on clips, they will win out overall. I can still manage to clip out for certain situations and back in no problem, so the slight lack of movement on the pedal (fore and aft as well as side to side) doesn't bother me.

 

[powermutant]

I suspect it's because flats force better technique. You can't be lazy and are forced to weight the pedals or have your feet go flying. But then in complete contradiction it's easy to pike and not corner feet up.

 

[driftking]

flats have virtually never given me issues of feet bouncing around even in the roughest terrain and poor shoes. Growing up on flats you learn to ride with the bike and that has eliminated any issue even in the wet, if you fight the bike against the pedals that's when you get kicked, of course sometimes your just unlucky and feet come off but its not even a issue to make an argument out of for me personally its happened maybe once in a rock garden and once on a corner in the wet in all my years of riding. That said I find the most often times when the feet feel a bit dodgy is when your not going fast, if your at that point of going fast but not fast enough to make it smooth you take a beating and its always messy, once you break that track speed where everything just becomes super smooth and you start skipping and floating everything its nice.

Back to the point OP

Consider your shoes too, spd shoes tend to be stiffer and will give you less side ways rotation. it may not be a pedal or clip issue but the shoe itself.
clip tightness etc are all good tips to test too.

 

[melonhead]

I rode for about 10 years clipped in on TIME pedals. About a year ago I went to flat pedals and 5 10 shoes. TIMEs allow plenty of float but I still used to often get a sore left knee. Since riding on flats I have not experienced the sore left knee. My cornering speed, confidence and general skill level has risen substantially since switching to flats. I now ride flats for XC, downhill and everything in between.

 

[Mr_hANky]

apart from the float which you can get rid of by running mallets, clips and flats should feel the same when you have them setup correctly. When I first went to clips it felt weird, was told to slam my cleats all the way back as far as I could and now I don't notice a difference going from flat to clips. Try it, at this stage you are probably riding around on the tips of your feet where as when your on flats you ride around just behind the ball of your foot. It makes a huge difference.

 

[Wiffle]

I rode for about 10 years clipped in on TIME pedals. About a year ago I went to flat pedals and 5 10 shoes. TIMEs allow plenty of float but I still used to often get a sore left knee. Since riding on flats I have not experienced the sore left knee. My cornering speed, confidence and general skill level has risen substantially since switching to flats. I now ride flats for XC, downhill and everything in between.

Similar to my experience; switched to flats about 2 years ago and after the month or so of settling in I've never looked back. Can't imagine what it would take to tempt me back to clipping in...

 

[Zac Hinton]

Clipped in all the way, only thing I find is a downside is getting back in after a drifty corner. Sometimes I clip in perfectly and power out but other times hunting around. I swore I would never go to cleats but had a go and never rode flats again. Remember the pain of pedals in shins? No longer! Hit less pedals on rocks too as they are smaller in width than flats. Only ever used spds, never tried other brands. On XT trails at the moment.

 

[Aerosmith]

I grew up racing BMX on flats and racing MX. Always run flats on mtb and love cornering with a foot out. Never crunched a shin or been bounced off. Like another MX riding mate said about clips, would you ride a moto clipped on?

 

[F-Bomb]

I swore I would never go to cleats but had a go and never rode flats again. Remember the pain of pedals in shins? No longer!

Definitely. My chins thank clip pedals very much for that!

Like another MX riding mate said about clips, would you ride a moto clipped on?

Would you also pedal on your dirt bike?

I think that a strength of clip pedals is that you can still pedal hard, even going through rough ground. That said, I think will try to go back to flat soon and see how that feels now that I am used to being clipped.

 

[BorisBC]

I gave clips 6 months on my xc bike, but got sick of falling over. Back to flats and I only fall when I get too sketchy. Feel faster too. Weird.