Forum

After CwmCarn, I have thought about buying clips for the perp, mainly because i always seem to not get the best grip on whatever pedals i try, even with the 5..10's.
what are the best clips for freeride / downhill and what are the best shoes

In my opinion having gone from flats to clipless and back to flats, i much prefer flats. If you get the technique right your feet shouldnt come off the pedals and its an advantage if you get a little out of shape in a corner to dab your inside foot for control. Freeride and clipless pedals are a contradiction anyway as i cant imagine anyone attempting tail whips with them. If i were you i would persevere with the flats and maybe seek advice from Tony as he he has a lot of experience of freeride, he could probably point out why you are losing grip. In my experience i have found that all the tweaking around with tyres, rebound and other settings will never work if the technique is wrong. But its your personal choice so give it a go, but you will probably do a full circle in the end.

You can't beat 5.10's and flats in my opinion. I get tons of grip - too much if I'm trying to adjust my foot position, it's impossible to move without lifting my foot.

You cannot help loosing grip. Ive ridden HT downhill for 3 years now (as you well saw!) and you just need to learn to ride with your feet squew-wiff on the pedals, and bring them back when you can. I end up rididng half the track on my heel/toe/side of the foot.

Bearing in mind your on a full suss, Id say check your bike set up. Either your compresion on the rear is too hard, or re-bound is too fast.
What rear shock you running?
The times I rode full suss DH, I never really had a problem. The only pedals I i use is V12's with terror pins and never have a problem.

Another bizzare thing....how fast do you ride? As in, if you trundle slowly over the rock garden for example, you bump about all over the place. Hit it fast, and you skip over more of the bumpy shit making it smoother.

Brad its deffo a technique thing - 5-10 plus an average pedal will give savage grip - try and stick with them. What pedals are you running?

If you find your feet bouncing off its because your not weighting the bike at the right times or trying use ur feet to yank the bike up.

I shifted to using flats for all riding this year after using clips for years. I wont go back to clips until Im really really good on flats - lol that might be a while

Hi Brad. I ride a mix of flats and clips.
I used to allways ride flats for DH but the other year used some Shimano DX clips. My riding improved massivly, Could jump higher, hit rocky stuff fast coz I knew the bike would follow me.
Also I found with flats when ever I dabbed it put me off ballence and slowed me down. With clips I could still dub if it really got scarry but found I was more committed.

If dry and fast clips every time for me, Very wet and slippy would be more tempted to run the flats as you dont get much warning in the mud.

Thanks for the advice guys,

The rear shock is a fox van and the pedals are NC-17's, I find with them I can't get my footing correct even when riding basic terrain, this may be because the platforms are not large enough or my technique is just shit.

Try my V12's mate. Then make a decision from there. Also like we mentioned the other night. Use clipless on XC first and see if its for you.

I love my nc17's

only problem i find with regard to grip is if i set my foot off wrong in the first place and i cant move it while on the run!

I'm really stuck with what to do, I was speaking to a guy today who races at PORC and he suggests going SPD, and I tried them on and they felt so much more supportive, so im leaning towards clips ATM !!

Great article in this months MBR which gives a good overview of the plus points of riding flats - a much better explanation than I could ever give. check it out if your still deciding.

Cheers Jon, I shall have a read of the article but i think I will keep flats for awhile now seeing as I now have rear suspension

Now you have some pounce you might find your feet more planted.

Karve also mentioned on sun that he changes the pins in his flats and now they are like glue!

Cool, what pins do you change them to Jon?

I had 8mm pins on my wah wahs and changed them to these

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... K:MEWAX:IT

10mm ones - just measure what u have and get 2mm longer and it makes a big difference and costs bugger all

My superstar pedals on my other bike are all good out of the box so havent fiddled with them