On Friday, July 3, 2020 at 1:47:27 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 7/3/2020 3:08 PM, Ted Heise wrote:
On Fri, 3 Jul 2020 12:21:57 -0400,
Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 7/3/2020 9:03 AM, Ted Heise wrote:
On Thu, 2 Jul 2020 13:01:58 -0400,
Frank Krygowski wrote:

Our tandem (like most bikes here) is fitted with Lyotard
Mod 23 pedals or their MKS Urban Platform clones. Sheldon
agreed with me that these, with toe clips, are the easiest
pedals of all to slide into. The opening is like a big
funnel. I can get my foot in faster than my friends can
clip into their pedals.

Well, my hat is off to you. I'm pretty practiced, and it
still takes me an extra go-round or two to get the second
pedal flipped so the toe clip is up. Maybe you don't mind the
toe clip dragging on the ground for a stroke or two.

The Lyotards are amazingly easy to get into. I just checked to
see how it happens, so here are details:

The pedal naturally hangs upside down, and the weight of the
toe clip means the pedal surface is not exactly horizontal. The
toe clip makes it tilt back a bit.

When astride the bike and ready to go, my habit (now decades
old) is to touch my left foot horizontally to the underside of
the pedal, so the pedal pivots from its equilibrium position to
horizontal and inverted. When I take my foot off the underside,
the pedal swings forward and presents the long rear tab of the
Lyotard to my toe. That swing seems to be the key. I slide in
easily.

So are you saying the pedal does a roughly 180 degree rotation
after you lower your foot from its underside? That doesn't sound
right, so I'm probably missing something.

I think my technique may be somewhat similar. I place my foot on
top of the pedal (toe clip side downward, where it naturally
hangs), and when I take my foot off the pedal it swings forward
just enough for me to get the toe of my shoe over the other face
of the pedal. If I catch it right (maybe 60-70% of the time?), I
can then get it pulled around far enough the same direction to let
me slide the toe of my shoe in.

It sounds to me like we do exactly the same thing. Except these pedals
are so easy to get into, I slide in well over 90% of the time. Probably
about 99%, actually.

Maybe that curved tab on the model you use helps a lot. I've got
Campagnolo Superleggeri pedals, so they are pretty much flat with
both edges the same.

It really does help a lot. FWIW, the pedals on my touring bike are
different - they're the original quill style pedal that came with the
bike. I added "Toe Flips" to the back edges of those pedals - a thin
steel accessory that works similarly to the scoop or tab on the
Lyotards. Here's a link, although you can't see the shape very well:

https://aroundthecycle.com/products/...=8757518827580

I see that MKS markets something with similar intent, but very tiny:
https://www.jensonusa.com/MKS-Spin-Pedal-Flips I'd be surprised if
those helped as much.

And the 'decades old" practice makes me wonder if it was really
that simple when you began with it.

Yes, it might have taken a while. Can't recall.

That's how I get my left foot in while stationary. When I
pedal, I normally do one or two strokes with my right foot on
that pedal's underside, but same swinging action makes it dead
easy to get my right foot in. Toe clips almost never scrape.

How can you take one or two strokes without scraping? This
doesn't make sense to me, but maybe you angle the pedal somehow.

No, I don't even think about it. There is some ground clearance between
the toe clip and the inverted pedal. Remember, it's not hanging loose;
my foot is on it as it sits inverted. It's not that it never scrapes;
but it is seldom.

I just measured about 1.5" ground clearance. Obviously, that would vary
with crank length, bottom bracket height and toe clip contours.

I used to blow through Lyotard platform pedals because they were relatively cheap and had poor/non-existent seals. Cones would pit and bearings would fail, particularly since I wasn't that diligent repacking them every time I rode in the rain. Anyway, this points out another benefit of the M520s or better -- they have great seals. I repacked a set of pedals that were a decade old and that had been ridden in endless rain, and the grease was still intact and in good shape.

Speaking of rain, another benefit of clipless is that your booties don't get beat-up by toe clips and don't hang-up on the toe clips when you're getting in to the pedal. My booties are not cheap. Back in the toe-clip days, I sewed my own booties. They were junk, but riding in California, they were rarely used and good enough.

-- Jay Beattie.