clipless pedal woes

[DMB]

Talk about dumb. Took me a while to figure out how to get back here. More great posts and suggestions, thank you all so very much! Well, I guess my biggest fear of going clipless is an injury. I'm enjoying this way too much and an injury would probably send me into a deep depression if I couldn't ride every day. I'm also old, and an injury would take forever to heal. Seriously. Riding has become an addiction, and I don't care - as far as I'm concerned it's a good one to have.
Anyway - many of you are mentioning "clipless is especially good for hills" - well, I'm in southern CA, Canyon Country........and you might as well call it Hill City. My rides have been limited to where I can go because of my bike and the hills. I've been test riding a lot of bikes but because I'm small (5'1, 115#) they're giving me all these WSD bikes to try and it's like....WHERE'S THE BIKE?? they're tiny, squirelly, wiggly - and these are the Intermediates, not entry level bikes. I'll just have to keep looking. So - I'm thinking of putting narrower, slicks on my Raliegh Venture 7 speed bike for now - and going to clipless - hopefully, less friction, more speed and easier climbs, no? Going to REI to see if they have the frogs and the Cranks? that were mentioned. I'm pretty sure I can return the shoes. thanks again everyone!

[VeloVT]

Don't assume that you automatically need a WSD bike because you're small. If you have a relatively long torso, you may be better on non-WSD bike if you can find one small enough.

I have noticed that a lot of WSD bike come stock with very tiny stems. (80mm and smaller sometimes). This can make a bike twitchy feeling -- you might pay attention to that and ask if you can try a bike with a stem that is 90mm or so (I would guess most of the bikes in your size won't come stock with anything much longer than that). Remember that this is something that is easy and inexpensive to change. What you might find on WSD bikes that might be important for you -- short-reach shifters and shorter cranks.

But otherwise, fast bike + quick handling = good ! With the 5-10 lb weightloss and lots of extra gears, you'll fly up (and down!) those hills!

[DMB]

thanks Liza, so much to think about and learn..........what an adventure!

[SouthernBelle]

Define old.

[xeney]

I've yet to meet anyone who's tried them who doesn't like/love Speedplay Frogs.

My husband. He has a knee injury (with a huge titanium plate running down his shin) that makes it impossible for him to unclip from Frogs. They are supposed to be good for bad knees, but not his bad knee. He tried mine and literally could not use them.

He used SPDs for years and now uses Look style pedals, I think. He loves clipless pedals, but not Frogs (or other Speedplays).

I am a failure at clipless pedals ... I finally got them down, after an injury that scared me away from them for a while, but then I got pregnant, stopped riding my road bike for a while, and haven't gone back to them since my road bike is currently set up to haul a trailer and I'd just as soon have my feet free for that. Once my new trailer-puller is set up (probably with toe clips) I am going to put the Frogs back on my Bianchi and this time they aren't coming back off.

I did find Frogs to be a thousand times easier than SPDs, which I could never clip into, much less out of.

[Crankin]

Yes, define old....
I've had a few injuries, nothing major and it didn't take me a long time to heal. You just can't be afraid of getting hurt. I mean, I am a cautious rider, but i expect that as in any sport, there will be injuries. I have crashed pretty hard, once going down a 20% grade hill. Other than road rash and soreness (not to mention embarrassment), I was fine. I've learned to treat these things on my own. One of my first cycling injuries was when I was still riding the old Voodoo mtb on the road. I was going up a hill, when my son came down the hill on his cross bike, heading for the woods. He asked me to hand him my water bottle for a drink and I did. But when he went to give it back to me, I freaked and went down. About 5 days later I woke up with a huge lump on my knee. I did go to an ortho doc for that, but it turned out to be nothing but a hematoma. In other words, a huge bruise. I stretched, iced and took Advil and was riding again in 2 weeks.
I am going to be 55 in 2 weeks and while that might be old to some, it's not to me.

[SouthernBelle]

Yes, define old....
I am going to be 55 in 2 weeks and while that might be old to some, it's not to me.

I'm 53. We're just babies.