As a 49 year old who has recently started taking his health and fitness a bit more seriously I love this channel. Thanks Mark for the inspiration, information, honesty and laugh out loud moments.

MTB amateur racer here. I did start racing in flat shoes, and when I moved to clipped in, I did not find much difference. But then I read that being clipped in produces bad habits to pull the bike towards you, instead of real bunny hopping (that you can do with flat shoes), I decided to put flat pedals for the winter. And yes, I almost crashed a couple of times, trying to pull the bike with me. The main benefit of the flat pedals is going through rough stuff, where you can dab. You can also dab with clipless shoes, no problem. The problem is clipping back in when the terrain is steep and rough - more often than not I descended unclipped, just resting my foot on the clipless pedal. No such issues with flat pedals.

I didn't know there was such a thing as a Zwift nerd before I started watching this channel. Please keep on sharing dear Bike Wolverine. This is the motivation I sometimes need to ride on my trainer...

I love the amazing athlete comment, made me light out loud. Keep up the comedy in addition to the fitness influencing.

I ride enduro and use both, I sometimes use the flats on zwift as well and can get up to 100rpm no problem. It's what you're used to i guess.

Thank you for posting! GCN did a similar 'scientific' experiment measuring VOC and other data points and found that the difference was fairly marginal. You make a great point though about the perception of readiness and a general feeling of the bike. I am going to assume if we all rode flat pedals, we would get used to it. I recently switched to crank brother pedals when mountain biking and love them. Clipless pedals are definitely the way to go road cycling. But... that all may change when our hover bicycles become popular (ok invented) :)

Hey Mark, I ride barefoot on my bike! Consistent pushing like you describe.

Great video (again)! I used one my old roadbikes as streetbike and I had the XLC PD-R02 on there. More or less pedals being in the middle of being flat and clipless...

Another one of your videos just got shared by zwift insider on Facebook today! Keep up the interesting content.

Great video Mark. Running flats on my first duathlon and you just saved me from garmin pedals.

This has become my favorite channel on yt.. Also, always clipless.. Also when i wanna go shopping. The answer is eggbeater pedals

What aslan livingstone-ra said, except for the age part -- I am 59 years old. I about fell out of the chair when you said you can't fall off an indoor bike, then showed the clip I knew you were going to show! I think it is the sounds you are making as you slowly fall to the floor that really make that clip so darn funny! Keep up the good work!

You nailed it. Clipless allow for additional muscles to be used. Those additional muscles really come into play when you start feeling heavy fatigue and have the option of instead focusing on the "pull up" or "pull back" movements instead to get the job done.

If flat pedals were as effective as clipless pedals or offered any kind of advantage at all then both amateur and professional racers would be using them. Studies have shown that they aren’t mechanically any more efficient, it’s simply that they ensure a consistent and optimised foot placement and lower cognitive load - your feet can’t slip off the pedals and you don’t have to worry about foot position - you dial the position in once and then it’s perfect without having to think about it every single revolution

Mark, I use flats on my mountain bike, but I also have the old fashioned toe clips on. I don't bother tightening them up, but can easily swing into them. They do offer a small amount of support to allow you to apply power on the upstroke and keep your feet in place when you vary gears. Might be worth seeing if you can easily get in some with your runners on. Now, they will definitely make the bike look completely daft. Way back in the early '90's a company in the US actually made a flat plate that clipped in to pedals and allowed your running shoe to be locked in, for exactly what you were looking for, fast duathlon transitions. It was full shoe sized.

I use flats as a mountain biker. The most important thing is good pedals with long pins and good grippy rubber under your shoes, so the five tens look good but your pedals are probably the problem, Nukeproof horizons are good. If you have the wrong shoes on you will get the problems you described. So for duathlons or triathlons maybe the old style strap pedals would be worth a try.

Great video as always, would be cool to see you do a mini duathlon test comparing the pedals at a more steady power output and the impact that it has on your run after

I think the fact you were able to perform the same if not better with clipless after performing the same race just 24H before is a relatively conclusive result in itself. I have only been using flats since I started zwift - going to try clipless after watching this!

Hi Mark, new subscribers here. I've been checkin out your channel, which is just full of super information across the board, certainly has motivated and inspired myself. You have a superb collection of watches and gadgets, big watch and gadgety person myself, casio mudman, and did a I see a seiko prospec, as well as the Garmin's? Watch episode maybe in the making.. very cool indeed, keep up the good work Mark, great content and very much appreciated, big thanks to sharing your challenges. Best wishes from Dublin Ireland.

One thing I don't hear enough of...flat pedals are cheap (decent nukeproofs are like 35 quid) and you can use them with any shoes, given the extra 5kg people are carrying up climbs to coffee and cake so it's not the pedals. But if you're racing, yeah clipless makes sense