The Rise and Fall of the Clipless Pedal
The modern cyclist, as they enter the sport, will find themselves purchasing a set of shoes which contain a cleat that clips into the pedals on their bike. It should come as no surprise, then, that the term we use for the action of engaging shoe to pedal is “clip in”. Obviously, this style of pedals is thusly called the “clipless pedal”. Such a seemingly counter-intuitive name owes itself to the history of the pedals which preceded it.
The name “Clipless Pedal” comes from 1984, when ski binding manufacturer Look invented a style of pedal from which you could release your foot with a sideways twisting motion. Before the Look pedal, riders rode with metal toe clips which were secured to the pedal platform, and lashed their feet to the contraption using a leather strap, named the “toe clip strap”. (Apparently, the same guy who named the toe clip strap wasn’t available when Look was divining the name for the clipless pedal). Since the toe clips were screwed to the pedals, the rider was similarly screwed should they need to disengage from said pedal unexpectedly; Jesper Skibby might have a note or two relating to their safety in the event of a crash on, say, the Koppenberg with cars whipping by.
But somewhere in there lies the secret to the name of these pedals; when Look’s pedals appeared in the peloton on the bikes belonging to Bernard Hinault and Greg LeMond, they were missing the distinct metal toe clips – they were indeed clipless pedals.
Some rides were quick to adopt them. I’m guessing Skibby was among this group, but I’m not sure and finding out would require work. Others were more reluctant; Sean Kelly was the most stubborn of these riders, though I’m guessing that lashing your feet the pedals is more critical when you’re able to scare the cranks off your bike by dispatching an icy stare.
Nevertheless, it raises the question of when the tide turned and the new style of pedal became mainstream. Either the last Grand Tour or last World Championship to be won aboard the predecessor is as good a measure as any, so that brings us to 1987 when Stephen Roche dispatched both the Giro and the Tour – in addition to the World Championships – with the sunlight glinting off his toe clips as he crossed the finish line with arms aloft. In fact, he was also the last rider to take the treble of the Giro, the Tour, and the World Road Race all in one season. Coincidence? There are no coincidences. By 1988, the clipless pedal had risen.
You can get a fairly good gauge of how long a rider has been involved in the sport by their comfort – or, indeed understanding of – the term, which upon contemplation is quite conflicting. With the clipless pedal having fallen into ubiquity, riders who have begun cycling anywhere in the last 15 or so years could be forgiven for calling them “clip-ins” or “clip pedals”. But for those of us who lived through the change, there will always be some part of us which is ever aware of the lack of metal and leather lashing us to the bike. For us, the pedals we ride today will forever be the clipless pedal.
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@wiscot
Through the sides, but inside of the outer quill.
Plastic button (blobby thing) always, preferably with Cinelli logo or similar.
I like a bit of trim.
Yes, if possible.
Naturellement!
I concur on Charly’s coolness…
@wiscot Aluminium toe clips were crap – they’d bend and crack after the first few minutes of them being on your bike, especially if you accidentally stood on them while trying to flip your pedal. They were freaking light compared to the steel Christophes though…
The king toe straps were the Binda Extra, with the nylon reinforcement sandwiched between the leather.
@DavidI He’s not in that shot.
@DavidI
Strange how in every other language (or at least latin languages) these are called automatic pedals. Such a simple name, no? When Look launched, I know they used the term “pedales automatiques” as the official name in France. Didn’t know they had used used “clipless” in english-speaking countries.
The improvement in technology was immediately telling.
Number of times falling over at a stop sign, unable to get a foot disengaged from the pedal:
Clip era: 3
Clipless era: 3
If we went the other way, with Frinion…
@frank I also rode pedals with toe straps and did the “twist thing”. Road my first Death Ride in them in 1992. 130miles and 15,000ft with thunder lightening and cold rain on the last pass. wool jersey was my good fortune.I guess that was my first flandrien in training experience.
@wiscot
Montrose as any ful kno is in Angus. People from Montrose used to go on holiday to Fife as it was seen as exotic and distant.
@unversio
I had the the blue Factory pilots and my brother had the black ones – last worn in 1995 when they were looking retro in a bad way. Searching the Man Cave for them tonight after riding.
@Marcus
I too wondered why there was a song about a seal, named Alex. FML
“The only way is up” was written for cycling to…
@the Engine
Went down into my Man Cave and dug these glares out for show and tell;
Pilots were red originally, and I had a red steel frame – too much red overkill, so a painted them white.
Razor Blades – if I had a dollar for every arm I had to replace on those things, I’d have $5!
Frogskins – I might keep wearing them, just give them a clean.
Some more for ‘Show and Tell’, or more like ‘Show Your Age’ to get back on topic, my collection of clips-n-straps dug up from the depths of my ‘Man Cave’;
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I had started on straight out steel clips, but I had bad toes for riding. Curved, thin and brittle and always ingrown with granulation tissue. So I tried the leather wrapped clips, no difference, then Nylon clips. I had so much cotton wool packed between the toes. BTW both friggin big toes had the same problems!
Along came LOOK pedals but I couldn’t see how they were any better. Lots of guys tried to ride them on the track and kept clipping out when starting handicapped races or IP’s. Then Keywins landed at my LBS was given to me to try and have never set foot in a toe clip since. That was ~1986/87. More in #173 of Reverence Speedplay Pedals.
The good thing about clipless, that is with out toeCLIP, the front of the shoes wern’t damaged by the clips, but the bugger with the Keywins, you had to drill holes in the soles of your shoes, and you only got one shot at getting that right! I have a pair of Lakes with screws going into the inside sole of the shoes!
Earlier in this post, there was a Q & A, and @DavidI pretty much answered as I would have in #35. Most straps I had lying around ended up tying up branches in the garden or holding something back onto a wall.
@Oli
Through the sides, but inside of the outer quill. – Ouch!
@sthilzy
That Light!!!
I had one of those!!
@Oli
I’m missing a few Winning mags do you have the ones in between these?
@mouse
Likewise – except in the UK they were white and branded “Ever Ready”. There may be some in my late father’s Man Cave but I’m scared to go in it without a flaming torch and a priest.
@mouse
I had a pair of those P.O.S. look carbon pedals as well. Rode them 4 or 5 times and took them back the bike shop for a refund. They were too slick and I had a hell of a time getting clipped in. damn near crashed twice from my foot slipping off the pedal.
@unversio
Not sure it’s Breukink. I think it’s Theo de Rooy. Looks too tall to be Breukink.
@the Engine
Ah what do I know about the Far East, I’m from Bishopton in the fine county of Renfrewshire! Apologies to all Fifers for giving them Montrose. I do hope Rangers enjoy their visits to Angus this season!
@sthilzy
Those clips with leather pads are awesome. THAT’S old school right there. As for the Wonder Lights? Pish. One wee friggin bulb and a bad tendency to go very dim at the most inopportune moment. Kids today with their LED lights, they just don’t know about generator lights run off the tire or lights that took two D batteries. Where’s that list from Beloit College when you need it?
@unversio I don’t know who it is but I know it’s not Breukink.
@sthilzy No, it was comfortable (as comfortable as toe straps ever could be, anyway) as the straps wrapped around your foot so well they didn’t need cranking up until you got near the sprint – I always found running them outside meant you had to tighten them down so much you’d get pressure points. I do have narrow feet though, so perhaps that has a bearing on it.
@mouse Wonder Lights! They were crap but at least they were better than the Berec lights…
@sthilzy No, I don’t have as many as you – that’s a great selection. I think I’ve got three or four random issues that survived. I’ll take a pic tomorrow.
@wiscot
Post was saying that Hampsten would be riding against Panasonic. Namely Erik on the Gavia where he froze his fingers. The rider in the image is neither Hampsten or Breukink. But he is Panasonic!
@Oli
Breukink was Hampsten’s rival on the Gavia. The pictured rider is not Breukink. Just a misunderstanding.
@wiscot
Aye – Montrose, Brechin, Forfar and Arbroath may be able to afford new boots after the end of the season. All in all the perfect result.
@Marcus
Here is the video of which you speak…pedal incident occurs at 7:36.
@Oli
Wonder Lights – yes that’s what they were called.
LED they may not have been but they were a lot better that those Pifco monstrosities that looked like an old acetylene lamp had donated its casing for some electrical bits that gave off too little light to worry an Air Raid Warden.
@unversio
For sure it’s Panasonic. The Post comment may address the Giro of 88 when Hampsten effectively won the Giro with his heroic ride over the Gavia on a stage won by Breukink. See this for details: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnJvU0ofskc
Wanna get over a bad breakup? Buy yourself something nice. And thus I went clipless the summer of 1996 – albeit on my MTB. The guys at the shop said to screw the cleat in lightly, ride around until you got the thing where you wanted, and then tighten up. Tooled around my neighborhood until I thought I got it right, wheeled into my garage, twisted my foot out and…nothing happened. With my speed approaching zero and any balance fading, I realized the awful truth – with the cleat barely screwed in, there was no torque being applied to clip out. And then I crashed directly onto my hip. Even had the fun of untying my shoes from my feet (whilst still attached to the pedals) to extricate myself. Learned the feel of unclipping and made the mistakes while on the MTB – thus never having to learn those same lessons on my road bike – say in front of a car full of people at a stoplight. My wife on the other hand…
Panasonic rider (far right) could be Allan Peiper
Clipless vs clip-in — Fignon wins stage 21 on LaPlagne, 1987
I remember how PRO I felt when I got my Sidi Revolutions.
@the Engine
First laugh of the day, grazie mille.
@unversio
My thought too. Looks tall for him but he must have ridden with the hard Belgian men of Panasonic.
@wiscot Sheeiit, you must be almost as old as I am!
Did you thread the strap straight through the sides or (if possible) through the back plate, thus providing a tighter hold on your foot? I never saw the back plate trick, we were simple folk. Straight through was good enough for us. But we were happy. Lucky to even have straps. My Da would lash his feet to the pedals with wire fencing…
Did you twist the strap as it went through the pedal? Love the twist
Did you leave the strap “bare” or attach a wee plastic button so you had something to grab a hold of to tighten up? Love the buttons too.
Did you trim the straps or leave them as bought? No trim
Did you color coordinate the straps to the bike frame color? Oh hell yes, red Bindas. And I did like the woven nylon ones too, you could get those super snug because they were more flexible and they didn’t wear. Feet went numb faster.
Did you use an old strap to hold your spare tubular or spare inner tube under the saddle? but of course
@wiscot
I think you are right — here’s Theo De Rooy (Team Leader) 1987 Paris Roubaix
Damn! A shitty-all-shit-fuck cobblestone video of Paris Roubaix
Eric Vanderaerden — badass… Panasonic!
The last time I’ve ridden on clipless I was on a Legnano equipped with Campagnolo. It was a great ride.
@unversio
It’s Steven Rooks from Panasonic on Roche’s left. Anderson had a bad Tour that year and was sacked by Panasonic at the end of the year. Vanderarden as BADASS as he was would not have made it far enough in the mountains for the likes of Roche et al to be making twisted faces of pain. De Rooij was a career domestique best documented in the below video link starting about 4:30. Anyone who doesn’t remember toeclips and straps will surely appreciate the mellow-drama style of John Tesh. Man how I lament losing my Winning Mag collection. Having to wait till September to see those pictures made starting back to school not so bad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlYuwXDbTys
@ten B
And the sweat sponge at the top really soaked up the sweat to the point where it went over capacity and just douched you in a torrent of salty goo. Felt great on the eyes.
My helmet does that right now; the front pads fill up and then if I look up with my eyes, the change in my forehead squeezes the pads and sends their payload down my face. Loverly.
@jimmy Thanx. I had to know who that was — for no apparent reason. Thanx again.
@TBONE
Yeah, basically, I use it mean, “make it up”.
That, right there, is what Mountain Biking was always supposed to be about. I loved the big, plastic doube toe straps that came on my first mountain bike. Man, those things were tits.
@sthilzy
Oh, man! You guys are KILLING me! You KEPT YOURS???? I wish I’d have done the same…
That Classics Special with Van Hooydonck on the cover was my favorite edition ever. All the pages were sticky by the time I was done with it…In his Flandrian Best, no less.
@brianc
But the therapy did its trick, right? After laying in the oil puddle in the garage (oh, wait, what? You don’t own a land rover? Oh, no oil puddle then…) untying your shoes, your breakup was a ways off in your consciousness, n’est pas?
@Gianni
Not allan pieper…not Uncle Phil. Also not Breukink – he wore blue Sidi’s in ’87. It must be some domestique of no fame whatsoever if none of us have divined the name by now.
@jimmy
@jimmy
I don’t think its Rooks either…the hair is much too light and his upper body too burly…He was a skinny little fucker. But I agree its also not Vanderarden as he would have been ditched long ago with the climbs…
@frank
Eddy Planckaert?
@frank
Yup – I have now taken to actually wearing my helmet it the shower to get the sweat properly wrung out – if I don’t my scalp breaks out – mmmm.
If I recall the foam strip in the Pilots was a thing you put in after you’d bought them – I had better results without the foam pad.
@the Engine
In fact wasn’t there a version with holes punched out along the top of the lens?