Flat pedals for short races

I thought about it once, then did some research and figured it was not worth it.  Here is the conversation we had about it a few days ago.

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Bottom line is, anything >1mile I would go clipless.

They are not that hard, just not as easy as runners with elastic laces. That said the hole where you put your foot doesn't open up that far due to only one velcro strap and they are quite stiff towards the back. They look like proper bike shoes but have MTB cleats. Not sure why. I bought them before I knew the difference.

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The shorter the course...the harder I'm going to hammer.  The harder I plan to hammer, the more I want clipless.

Oh, ok.

Would that make much difference then as opposed to 'proper' bike shoes in relation to power/speed etc?

I'd say these would be easier to run in as the cleat does not touch the ground.

These shoes even with the mtn bike treads and spd style cleats will work great, I have seen people podium in sprints with a similar setup.

I have MTB, road and tri shoes.

MTB cleats are more receded than road pedals and suppose to be easier to run/walk in. I race cyclocross which you get off your bike, run or jump over obstacles in MTB shoes.  But the bigger cleat and platform of road pedals and road or tri shoes are more comfortable for longer rides. I'm a slow runner in a tri but have fast transitions and have no problem running through transition with my bike or tri shoes.

Sounds like the design of your shoes is slowing you down. Have you played around with how to set them up to transition as quickly as possible?

I've only tried biking with running shoes once. It was in a small Try-a-tri race (400m Swim / 10km bike / 2.5km run) several years ago.  I won my age group for the first and only time (so far). I used my running shoes and pedal-cages/straps on the bike.

That result made me take a closer look at this question of using running shoes to bike:

That season I did 4 sprints and 1 olympic race. I averaged about 2.4 min for T1+T2 (using a wetsuit and road-bike shoes). For the race I used platform pedals and road shoes my T1+T2 time was around 1.33 minutes (most of that being T1).

This 1.1 minute savings (over the 2.4min baseline) equates to an improvement in biking speed from 30km/hr to 31.7km/hr.  There is very little hard data on the power benefits of clip-less bike shoes vs. toe-cages. But my experience is that for such a short race I benefitied more for the time savings in Transition than I lost in bike power.

I then did a simple regression analysis and found that my time in T1 and T2 have a strong corralation to my age-group ranking.  Basically the number say that  I make the top 25% of my AG when my T1+T2 times are better than average in my AG. This corralation is stronger the shorter the race.

I know I can improve my Transition times by being smarter about how I put on /off my wetsuit and bike shoes.  But when I do another short race (sub- 10km bike) I will seriously consider using running shoes again.

I would not suggest platforms pedals but if you have cages than I think you would be slightly faster with the time you save in transitions.  Once you get on the bike just strap them tight and go for it.  Just make sure you losen the straps before you stop.

I think the design is a bit of a problem. I have to wriggle my foot to get it in then run my finger round the top to straighten the bits that have folded over.

30% power loss sounds like numbers coming from companies that sell clipless pedals and $500 carbon soled shoes.