S.P.D. Pedals on MUNI?

Hi Has any one tryed S.P.D Pedals on a Muni?
I thinking that pedaling up hill would be faster and on down hill you can turn pedals over and be uncliped. as Pedal in photo!:slight_smile:

Somebody on here (Ascenxion I think) is a big advocate of SPDs for muni. There was a lengthy discussion about it recently. A quick summary of the thread is that a lot of us use them on bikes and can see the advantage of using them for muni, but are too worried about potential injuries from getting feet stuck in a UPD. He says that in his experience disengaging (or lack of) wasn’t a problem.

I can’t remember what thread it was in - possibly in the middle of another thread I think.

Rob

That’ll be the one - thanks. I forgot it had all been moved into one big thread.

Rob

If you’re going to go clipless, I would recommend the Crank Brothers system, which is superior in pretty much all dimensions to SPD.

The Mallet is a very nice platform pedal with clips; I’m using them on my commute bike, and they feel like platforms, which I think would make them a lot easier to ride on uni.

The primary difference that I know of between SPD and Crank Bros is that SPD has a multi-directional clipout option in the cleats. SPD’s can be clipped out twisting in, out or back-and-up. CB’s don’t have the back-and-up option.

waiting for Ascenxion to arrive here in 3…2…1 :slight_smile:

I was going to try similar pedals for XC - half clipless and the other side a platform, BUT a bicyclist friend brought up a very great point: riding on the platform side with clipless shoes is not going to be all that stable. If you are going to go clipless…go clipless, don’t think that you are going to switch halfway on a ride. You could always just use the platform side when you wanted to wear sneakers, but using the platform side with cleats, even the MTB kind, seems like a bad idea.

Why would you want to be uncliped on the down hill? I prefer spd to cb.

On the other hand, some of us can see the advantage of having them on a bike, but do not think that advantage will translate well to the uni. All it takes is one bad fall clipped in to ruin your whole day. Or collarbone. Or wrist, face, etc. Though there are people out there who have used clipless and reported being happy with it, I don’t think I have ever seen on in a sprint race. Longer races maybe. So there may be potential for it, but I don’t consider it worth the risk.

Can you even do back-and-up on a a unicycle? Remember, they don’t coast. The times you really need to get out are when you don’t have time to change speeds…

I’d think the back-and-up release might come handy in a flailing situation… yet 1 more way to avoid the faceplant. :astonished:

Hello! AscenXion, were are you?

Ok

I’ll test the S.P.D Pedals than thanks. :astonished:
Note: I will NOT use crank bros pedal because 1. the bearings suck. and 2. I have 2 or more sets of new Time Pedals thanks to a MTB race team i ride for years ago.

This really depends on your shoes. SPD cleats are recessed by design, but if you have shoes that have aggressive lugged soles the recess doesn’t seem to make a difference on a flat pedal. I have a pair like that and if it was my only pair I would agree completely with the statement above.

On the other hand I have a pair of shoes that look more like a mid hiker, and the soles are a little flatter, thicker, and the lugs are a bit more frequent. The rubber is a little softer as well. I have used these with flat pedals, and SPD without a problem. They aren’t nearly as grippy on the flat side as skate shoes, or 5.10’s, but they work.

You are mostly right that you won’t switch during a ride, but occasionally there may be parts where you aren’t comfortable being clipped in, and riding clipless pedals not clipped in is a real pain.

I loved Mallet C’s on my b*ke.

I think clipless is a fabulous idea and I’m going to try it, but then I’m a newbie that accepts upds and faceplanting as part of the everyday unicycle learning experience - seems to me that you seasoned riders have become so used to staying on your uni’s you’re not prepared to take two steps back in order to improve.

It happens a lot. I ride my horse bareback and bridleless because it’s more challenging (and kinder to the horse) whereas seasoned riders never take their saddles off their horses backs or bits out of their mouths - if you’ve reached a certain level of proficiency you get comfortable and complacent, you don’t like falling off and you don’t like getting out of your comfort zone in order to improve, in other words you’re good enough to think you don’t need to get better.

You need to overcome obstacles to continue to improve - what I’m hearing is a lot of scared expert unicyclists talking themselves out of trying clipless pedals. Stop being such a bunch of cowards - you didn’t get to be as good as you are by being scared!

clipless action

I definitely recommend giving it a try for yourself, it is an interesting experience. I also recommend making sure you have wrist guards, a helmet, and pads on when you do. I went the spd route, mostly just on the 36er, and didn’t have any gnarly consequences. I also used them on my 6’ giraffe, and had a pretty hairy fall while clipped in as I was retrieving my headphones from a tree limb :astonished:

Anyway, I haven’t tried them on any real mountain bike trails yet, but I can see that in my future. I’m just now getting into MUni with my new 26er and also my 36er. There are some nice mountain bike trails at Chicopee (Gainesville, Georgia). About two weeks ago I was cranking up a steep hill on my 36er there when my Sinz dual-hole cranks snapped off at the place where they were modified. They were square taper with holes at 150 and 125, with the Mountainuni disc brake rotor. I bought some new Sinz cranks with the length at only 140, and so far so good. The Mountainuni disc brake set-up is working great. If anyone else reading this has the same cranks, I’d have to recommend not drilling them. Okay so I guess I’m off topic, but it all kind of relates.

So, tell us of your experiences as they happen with the clipless action, I am sure I am not the only one that is interested in details.

PeterG, did you ever end up doing any experimenting with it?
And Acsencion, feel free to rejoin the foray if you come across this thread!

From reading the past threads dealing with this subject, I know that bungeejoe has tons of experience clipless unicycling on the road, but don’t know if he has tried it down a mountain bike trail yet…

I tried them for muni and did not find that they offered any advantage, in fact they actually made riding harder due to a loss of control.

In muni we use a lot of foot/pedal manipilation which requires friction. Clipless pedals/shoes are designed to float, which takes away the friction. I found that float made controlling the uni much, much harder.

If a clipless system exists that “depresses” into the platform with pressure allow the shoe to friction, then floats when the foot is lifted, that might work, but I have not found one designed to do this…

Maybe for a 36er, but off road, nah.

I considered trying clipless pedals on my uni, and still might on my 36er for the road or light XC riding. In these situations I can see most of my riding is benign enough that I can probably take a little more risk, plus I can see with enough use one could get quite used to riding with clipless pedals. I have the CB Mallets already on my fixed gear mtn bike and can see that they’d probably work very well on my 36er. However, my main unicycle is my KH24 geared unicycle and I think clipless wouldn’t help at all because I have to shift my feet around on the pedals quite a bit to get into change gears on the hub with my heel. So for unguni I can see the use of clipless, but on a guni? Not so much. I’m willing to experiment with the 36er, but not until I get through this race through Death Valley this summer… :slight_smile:

the broken crank I mentioned…

I now have some new Sinz cranks that only have a spot for the pedal at 140mm. I hope nobody else has any problems if they have the dual-drilled cranks. I put hundreds of miles on them before they broke at the hole that was drilled for the 125mm position. I only did about 15 hours worth of MUni on them, no big drops, just a lot of roots, rocks, etc. I’m guessing they aren’t robust enough to be adding extra pedal positions.

The Mountainuni disc brake rotor is once again working great on my new 140’s. I miss that little extra torque that I got from the 150mm position though. Maybe I’ll have to put some clipless pedals back on to even things out…

Yeah NurseBen, that floaty effect takes some getting used to. I don’t mind it too much on the road though.

Munisano, Death Valley is crazy hot. I lived in Lake Havasu, Arizona for about 8 years and it would get to 125 degrees sometimes. Good luck on your race!

Looking forward to the stories from everyone’s clipless experiments…