There’s a huge difference, because I occasionally ride other bikes without them. My feet slip off the pedals without the cleats. I wouldn’t ride seriously without them.
There’s a huge difference, because I occasionally ride other bikes without them. My feet slip off the pedals without the cleats. I wouldn’t ride seriously without them.
Can confirm. Last week, I got home from a ride, stopped in front of the garage, couldn’t unclip, and promptly fell over. It turned out one of the bolts fell out from the cleat during the ride, so the cleat just rotated, instead of unclipping. D’oh. Fortunately, I mostly landed in grass, though I did scrape my ankle a bit.
I don’t do much mountain biking, but I have clipless pedals on my old hardtail, too. When I ride without clipless, I have to constantly remember not to push too hard and be careful, lest my foot slip off. With clipless, I clip in and no longer have to think about it.
I don’t really care what other people use. I’ll stick with clipless, you can stick with flats or whatever you use, it’s fine with me. I use electronic shifting on my road and gravel bikes, and disc brakes on the gravel bike, and I know some people hate both of those things, too. Personally I really like both, but if others still want to use cable shifters and rim brakes, that’s fine with me.