- For anyone starting out in cycling or triathlon,
one of the first things you're advised to buy for your bike
is a pair of clipless pedals like these,
and some cycling shoes.
- Yeah so that you're more powerful,
you're more comfortable and more efficient
when you're using pedals that you're clipped into,
as opposed to flat ones like these.
- But given that we're triathletes
and we're transitioning to the run,
then it could make a lot of sense that
she'd wear running shoes
and then simply jump off her bike and run off.
- Yeah it does and I think that's enough of us
chatting about it.
It's time we went to investigate.
(upbeat music)
- Well to start with,
I like to take a look at an area
specific to triathlon,
the transitions.
Now I think this could be
a really interesting comparison between
clipless pedals and flat pedals.
- Yeah I mean most of us use bike shoes
on the bike with clipless pedals,
and then we come into T2 and change
and put our running shoes on.
But why not?
Why trainers for all of it
so you can wear your trainers on the bike
and then you're ready to go straight into the run.
- Now aside from it perhaps affecting our cycling,
could actually change our transition time.
So we thought this could be
a really interesting investigation.
We're gonna do some transition.
We're going to do a T1 from here.
We're going to grab our bikes.
We're going to run out.
We're going to mount our bikes after this mount line here.
We're gonna do a quick out and back
on our bikes around the cone up there
before dismounting before the dismount line here.
We're gonna drop our bike off,
and then we're gonna run off across the line again.
Now we're gonna do two runs on this.
We're going to do a run while we're wearing
our bike shoes on the bike
before pumping our running shoes on.
And we're gonna do another run
where we're wearing our running shoes throughout.
And we're gonna time all the runs and compare.
- Go! Go Mark.
(cycle spokes clicking)
Nice, come on.
Nicely on the shoes.
That's quick, yeah.
That is a good job.
- Nice!
Okay Heather's run on the flat pedals.
Let's see how she gets on.
She's looking very focused.
You ready Heather?
- I'm ready.
- Alright three, two one let's go.
A step too fast.
Running shoes on.
Helmet on and she's away!
And a mount.
Around the cone,
good work Heather!
Ready for T2.
Nice work coming into your own here.
Helmet off and she's away!
Awesome 46.7.
Good work.
- Okay Mark you ready for your flatless pedal run?
- Yep.
- Three, two one go!
Right, pick up right there.
I'm so excited to see how he gets on.
Come on go, go, go.
And he's away!
To make up for this time.
Smooth on this lap.
Nice!
Alright it's gonna be seedy here.
Go, go, go, go, go!
- What was it?
- It was 34.6
Only half a second quicker.
- A little bit quicker.
Interesting.
Well I was gonna say that the running shoes,
staying in the running shoes throughout
was going to be a lot quicker.
But going by my runs,
it was only marginally quicker.
So there a little bit of sceptical
on our own run so,
we'll just have to see.
- Well it's been a long time since my
flying mount practise.
So I've never actually done a transition
with bands on my shoes.
So yeah.
I don't expect it to be faster.
But we'll see.
- Okay Heather's turn for the clipless pedals
and bike shoes.
Are you ready?
- I am ready.
- Three, two, one let's go!
Helmet on and away!
Into the mount.
Back in T2 dismount.
Running shoes on.
Good work.
Okay that was 53.7
- A tad bit slower.
- That's really interesting.
I was surprised actually how
little difference there was between
the flat pedals and clipless for myself.
- For you yeah.
I wasn't surprised at mine
because I've not cycled with my feet
and took off my shoes before,
so that's going to make a difference.
- Yeah but then admittedly we weren't actually
putting our feet into our bike shoes.
So that could add more time again.
- Take me a lot longer
because I've never even done it.
So for me the difference would be much bigger.
- Yeah so this has been really interesting.
I think next step now,
we need to head out and get cycling
and see the differences there.
- Okay well interesting results so far.
But before we can make any real conclusions,
I think we need to consider everything.
And especially the bike.
We're gonna use triathlon bikes because
that's what makes the best with race so.
- Yeah now I think I actually benefit
quite a lot from pulling up on the pedals
when I'm using clipless pedals when I'm clicked in.
But it's not actually something I've really compared before,
between clipless and flat,
so I think this can be really interesting.
- Well we're going to experiment.
We're going to have 10 minutes
of riding at a set power.
We're both going to do it
once with clipless pedals,
once with flat.
And then we're going to measure
the difference between our heart rates,
the speed,
the distance we covered,
and also just how it felt.
- Okay run one on the clipless pedals.
Here we go.
(upbeat music)
- Okay this is my first run of 10 minutes.
I'm starting off with my bike shoes
and my clipless pedals.
So here goes.
(upbeat music)
Okay this already feels a little bit silly,
but we're gonna see how riding in trainers
and flats feels compared to clips.
So here we go.
(upbeat music)
- Okay next run with the flat pedals.
And this just feels very wrong.
With flat pedals and trainers.
But anyway here we go.
(upbeat music)
Okay so that's all of our 10 minute runs
done both on the clipless and on the flat.
I tried to hold an average power of 285.
And you held 200.
- 200 yeah.
- 200 perfect.
Now for the clipless results,
I had a heartrate of 150 beats per minute.
A speed of 41.5 kilometres per hour
which gave me a total distance of 6.9 kilometres.
- Yeah now I held to the rest as I've said,
so my heartrate was just above Mark's
at 151 beats per minute
which gave me an average speed of
35.4 kilometres an hour,
and I covered 5.9k with clips.
- Okay and then on to the flat
and things are interesting
because I actually held the same power, 285.
But I had a slightly higher heartrate of 154.
And then my speed was quicker.
42.9 in kilometres per hour
and it gave me a total distance of 7.1.
Now Heather, yours.
- Yeah and again I managed to hold the same work
so I was pretty much right on 200.
My heartrate raised just a couple of beats though 153.
But this time I managed 36 kilometres an hour.
And that gave me 6K
so I ended up going .1 of a K further as well.
- Yeah I mean
I have to say,
when I actually finished the test
I felt a lot worse on the flat.
It just didn't really feel comfortable.
I felt like I was having to,
almost like work harder with my quads
because I wasn't able to pull up.
So I wonder whether I was overcompensating on my quads,
and almost like powering a bit more.
Maybe we had a slight tailwind to play in.
- I think the wind picked up slightly
and we definitely do have a tailwind on this stretch.
And maybe sometimes you know doing a second run,
you're more familiar with where you're heading
and the rode and things so.
There's the little things like that
that could maybe favour a second run.
- But then our heartrate was higher,
which might suggest that we're working harder
in certain muscle group.
I'm not sure.
But either way it's pretty close.
It wasn't as an obvious difference as we maybe expected.
So I think we need to look into this a bit further.
- Okay that surprised us
and thrown us off slightly.
But could it have even more of
an impact on shorter distances races
especially during our fleet
where it's less of a pure timed triathlon.
- Well this isn't actually anything new.
In fact if you take a look at our dual athlon friends,
you will occasionally see athletes using
a slightly advanced flat pedal
with a toe clip,
which is what they call a Pyro pedal.
And it makes a lot of sense
given they're going from run to bike to run.
So it's kind of two shoe transitions.
They can just wear their running shoes
for the whole race.
Now we are taking a slight trip down memory lane with these.
And I did try to acquire some and I failed.
So I've just got some standard flat pedals
with a toe clip.
And personally,
I actually think this makes a lot of sense.
But why don't we see triathletes using this?
Particularly for the short distance events?
- Well is it maybe something by the fact that
it's because everybody else uses clipless pedals,
so you're going to use them?
But then especially in group racing
when you've got the power surgers,
you need to be able to put that power down.
And you've got that extra security.
Or maybe people just prefer using clipless pedals.
- Well I think we need to do some sprints.
Let's lay some power down.
So we're doing three 10-second maximal sprints
and recording our peak powers for each.
One with clipless pedals,
another with the flat pedals,
and also with toe clips.
(upbeat music)
Okay so that is the sprints done
and many triathlons in a sense,
but the bike leg at least,
and quite noticeable difference for me.
On the clipped end I had power of 1,050.
And then a significantly drop off
with the flats.
It was around 775.
And then with the pedals with the toe clips,
I was somewhere between 915.
- Well I didn't have the same amount of work sadly as Mark,
but I still had the same pattern that I had.
My highest by far when I was clipped,
and my lowest with the flats.
The clip pedals were somewhere in the middle.
- The significant and quite obvious difference
with the flats is just when you start to get going
on the sprinters,
yeah it was almost like pulling my foot off the pedal,
so I clearly pull up a lot in a sprint.
So if I was doing a triathlete race,
I don't think I'd be going for flats.
The toe clips did help on that.
Obviously there was still a bit of a drop off.
- Yeah I got a bit of a side of that as well.
Not just the fact that my foot was coming up,
but I felt like it wasn't completely stable.
So even once I got going with the flat pedals,
I still didn't just didn't feel quite as secure
like handling the bike.
- But then again we are using it for the first time.
So perhaps we could try it a little bit more.
So I guess the jury is still out there.
We're not complete converts.
I think personally
I'll probably still stick to cycling shoes
for triathlon for now.
But I was quite impressed by the toe clips.
So I think we need to investigate that a little bit more.
- I think we do.
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And if you'd like to see our video on
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- And if watching this has made you think
you want to practise your format
and you want to be as good as Mark
and a lot better than me,
then I have actually made a video
on it from Maserati just here.