Clipless pedals have some real advantages for XC, enduro, and downhill mountain biking, but are they right for kids?
Elo, age 11, has learned to ride, jump, and race on flat pedals. Learning on flats is important to establish proper technique. He's got that, and you sould too before considering a switch to clipless. But even still, will clipless allow better control of the bike? Will these pedals prevent crashes by keeping his feet firmly attached through rocky sections, or will they cause problems? We're going to find out!
In this video, Elo gets new shoes - Five Ten Hellcat, women's size 5. They're some of the smallest clipless-compatible shoes we could find. After installing the cleat, centered horizontally and towards the back for stability, he removes the flat pedals from his bike - HT Supreme. These pedals have been great, and the plan is that he'll switch between clipless and flats depending on the ride and terrain.
The next step is to install the clipless pedals, Crank Brothers Mallet DH off of my DH bike - at the time, he didn't have his own pedals. I only recently got these SuperBruni edition pedals, and they've been great.
His first attempt to get into the pedals fails - he's not able to clip in. We realized that this is because the pins on the pedals were too high (even though this same configuration with shim had worked for me). After lowering the pins, he was able to consistently engage and disengage - so we headed to the trail.
He did fall over once, because he unclipped the wrong foot, but otherwise came away really liking clipless.
Watch until the to learn how you can get these pedals too from ridebicycles.com.
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0:00 Intro and cleat installation
0:06 Trying on the shoes
0:17 Removing flat pedals
0:38 Installing clipless pedals
0:56 Safety gear?
1:36 First try to clip in
2:00 Lowering the pedal pins
2:08 Second try to clip in
3:11 Pedaling - eek!
3:27 In the woods
3:36 Oops!
4:21 Retrospective
4:42 New pedals from Ride Bicycles
