SDP vs Flats - Which is better?

My School work was starting to get so mind numbingly boring I decided to incorporate mountain biking into my English, and I don’t mean drawing bikes and tracks down the margins of the page, but by doing a discursive essay on SPD's. Now my teacher doesn’t have a clue... so it’s not that accurate in small bits, but the rest is pretty true. So enjoyUp until recently, if you took part in Downhill racing you used flat pedals and flat shoes. But nowadays another option is slowly emerging, the use of "Shimano Pedal Design" (otherwise known as SPD's) shoes and pedals. In this essay I will discuss whether flat pedals or clips are better for Downhill mountain biking.

Until the last few years the idea of hurling yourself down a slippery track covered in rocks and roots whilst being stuck to a 20kg lump of metal was unheard of. But due to the advancements of technology with SPD's it has now become possible to do downhill when being clipped in. But both types of pedal have their own advantages, yet the majority or riders still choose to ride on flats. But who could blame them? When you fall on a bike it’s nice when your feet come with you and not the bike.

Also just like Marmite, you either love it or hate it. There is next to no-one who 'doesn’t mind it'. The reason for this is that they feel that they would lose time not being able to quickly dab their feet in case they lose traction whilst cornering. Or they might not be able to get clipped back in because of mud or the lack of balance. But this is no longer the case, because of research done by "Japanese multinational manufacturer of cycling components" (Shimano) and other companies, you can now have an SPD shoe and a flat sole combined, likewise with the pedal. Also the newest clips have been designed to reduce the likely hood of mud getting stuck in it.

So why do people still choose to use flats? Because with SPD's you get much more pedal power per revolution, and you can’t slip the pedal when your foots stuck to it. One reason for downhillers always choosing flats, is the fear of change. It’s silly, but it’s true, it’s quite a big change going from having your feet free to move around to then having them stuck down. Another reason is price, a good SPD and shoe combination cost over £100, whereas flat pedals can be used with any shoes and they cost less than half as much as the SPD's. The biggest reason of all is probably just because of what the 'pros' do. When Sam Hill won by 4.57 seconds at Maribor in 2008 everyone wanted flats with 5.10's (Type of shoes) because then they would be as fast as him. But when Greg Minnaar won at Canberra by 4.67 seconds everyone wanted SPD’s, since he had won on them.

So as you can see it would be very difficult to say whether SPD's are better than flats for Downhill because there is no solid evidence proving that one is better than the other. There is also no fair way to test it either because there are no two similar downhill tracks in the world, some may be better with flats and some with SPD's so it is impossible to say that the new SPD's are the way forward and if you use them you will win, and the same with flats. At the end of the day it all comes down to the choice of the rider and what they prefer.

By James Robertson