How to nail clipping into race pedals without looking?

Question

I was persuaded to switch to race SPD-SL pedals after losing the old MTB pedals to theft (along with the bike!). They're one-sided, though, unlike the MTB pedals, and I find that coming off of a red light full stop, I either pop my down foot right into the pedal, or I miss and have to toe it across the intersection while trying to get the cleat in. It's too dangerous to look down and watch the pedal when this happens.

Is there a strategy that makes this easier and more consistent (and therefore safer)?

Answer 1

When stopped, you'll tend to always put the same foot down and leave one clipped. For me, I unclip my left foot. And in preparation to take off, my right foot and pedal are just over the top of the pedal stroke to get the maximum push when I launch.

The catch, at least for me, is to get my left foot off the ground ASAP and get in contact with the pedal before the left pedal comes up over the top of the pedal stroke. Up until that point, the heavier back end of the pedal should be hanging below and slightly behind the spindle. And if you can get your foot up to the left pedal before the down-stroke, where the heavier back end of the pedal starts wanting to swing over the top, and around and around, it's just a matter of sliding your cleat over the spindle and down into clip position.

All of this obviously means gear choice is a big deal when stopping. If you have it in too easy of a gear, there's no way you'll be able to get your foot off the ground onto the pedal before it's on the down-stroke. On the other side, if you're in too hard of a gear, you may not get enough momentum with the first push to go anywhere.

Answer 2

The best way is to practice, practice, practice!

Do it enough times and it'll become second nature.

When I was first starting with my road pedals (Keos, but they're pretty similar) I would push my shin against them after setting off to steady them before trying to clip in.

Answer 3

Take some time when you're not in traffic to have a look at the way the pedal hangs naturally, when you're unclipped.

In my case, my one-sided Shimano SPD-road pedals always hang cleat-side down. So to clip in without looking, I put my toe underneath and roll up from the back, staying in contact with the pedal the whole time. This doesn't always work, but it's more reliable than guessing and stamping.

Take extra care in the rain as I find the (metal) non-cleat side of the pedal can be very slippery when wet. I've learnt through painful experience that staying seated until cleated is best!

Answer 4

With one-sided road specific pedals there are a number of factors to nailing the one pedal stroke clip-in. Depending on how the manufacture has weighted the pedal this differs from pedal-model to pedal model, so you will need to experiment. (I personally use Time, which are weighted well, but have a pair of Shimano SPD road pedals on my commuter where the the weighting makes this more difficult). Typically, most single sided road pedals will flip up (aka clip surface to the rear) when not engaged to a shoe.

The key is to spin the crank at a fast enough speed so that the clip-in surface presents its self at top of the pedal stroke. At this point you have one chance to hit the clip-in target with your unclipped foot. The force from the ensuing down stroke will engage the cleat. If you spin the crank to slow at the start of the pedal stroke, the unclipped pedal may remain with the clip surface down making it impossible to clip-in.

Nailing the starting crank speed is easy to figure out with some experimentation and ensuring you start in a low enough gear. Hitting the target needs to be become an automatic/learned response. If you are thinking about it, it is not automatic and you will likely mess it up. This takes a while to master, so I suggest practicing in low risk environments so you can relax and not over think it.

Answer 5

Practice is pretty much all you can do. If you had regular SPD, they make two sided pedals, which solves some problems (this is probably what I'd use if I wasn't on Look [because I got the pedals for free...] already), but this may require changing your shoes (or Shimano SM-SH40 like adapters) and will require new pedals. I don't see the point in SPD-SL over SPD for most riders. There are SPD+SPD-SL compatible shoes though, but typically these aren't good for walking in, so if you have to walk a decent amount in the shoes, switching to SPD may be a good idea. In any case, you'll need to practice if you aren't used to clipless pedals. Note that the adapters for 3 hole to 2 hole will make it harder to walk, so if you choose to switch to regular SPD with a 2 sided pedal (or a 1 side platform, 1 side SPD which is OK for transitional periods but you do end up with the wrong side to some extent a decent amount of time).

Also, are you racing, or did you just buy race pedals? If you're not racing, I don't see the point to owning the SPD-SL in the first place (much like owning a race bike for commuting).

Answer 6

If you're using LOOK Keo pedals or something similar it's obviously down to practice, but I also found this little tip useful:

Don't just push your foot down onto them, you have to slide it forward to engage the nose then press the back down.

The act of sliding forward also puts the pedals the right way up so you don't try to engage them upside-down!