To Clip In or Not to Clip In? That is the Question.

The original article was somewhat longer than this but in the interests of not boring you to death I have edited it down. Hopefully the point hasn't been lost in doing this.

As mentioned in a previous post (or 3!), I spent 20 or so minutes at the exit of T1 at the Dambuster, and what I saw was absolutely amazing. So many athletes had their shoes pre-clipped on their pedals but only a handful made proper use of this potential time saver. In fact, I reckon many actually lost time. So why do they do it?

I watched one athlete do it properly and he was really slick. He ran out of T1 and managed a smooth running mount, landing very gracefully on the saddle (take note Jamie), his feet went straight on the shoes that were held in the horizontal position with sensible use of elastic bands and he pedalled away. He was out of sight before he even attempted to get his feet into his shoes but having got up some decent momentum I doubt he had a problem. And that's how to do it.

So why on earth did I see athlete after athlete running out of T1, stopping, getting on their bike and then trying to their feet into their shoes with barely half a turn of the pedals on an incline? Many did not have elastic bands holding their shoes so the shoe opening was facing the ground. What on earth was going through these people's minds? Not a great deal I would imagine! I lost count of the number of people that went into the barriers and one character even managed to go through the tape in the centre of the road and only just missed the barrier on the far side. One guy put so much pressure on the pedal trying to get his foot in that the shoe flew off the pedal and landed a metre or so behind him. There was almost total carnage as he stood astride his bike, trying to walk slowly backwards and bending over trying to pick his shoe up whilst other athletes attempted their own version of "The Running Mount". Even The Mighty Sags made a bit of a pigs ear of it - 4/10 could do better buddy!

I reckon people see the elites doing it and think that is what they have to do, but completely ignore the fact that the elites practice this over and over again to get slick at it. I'll be honest I don't do it. I tried and was rubbish at it so now put my shoes on in T1 and then run to the mount line wearing my shoes, get on my bike in the usual way and then pedal off. Yes, I'm slower than the super slick athlete I mentioned at the beginning, but I am quicker than many of those I saw (if we ignore my traditional "can't get the wetsuit off faff" and "I'm a girl and need to put my socks on") and I usually overtake a fair few in the first 4 or 500m of the bike leg who are still faffing about trying to get their feet in.

Coming back into T2 is a different matter. You have momentum and it is relatively easy to get your feet out of your shoes, place your feet on top of the shoes and pedal towards the dismount line. As you approach the line you lift one leg over the saddle and then execute a perfect running dismount. It is smooth and slick and takes very little practice to become reasonably good at (but a lot more to become very good) and save a bunch of time. You need to make sure you don't knock one leg onto the other or let the pedal whack the back of your calf, as this will guarantee a face full of tarmac - not pleasant! Not to mention embarrassing!

So there you have it. The benefits of pre-clipping your shoes on in T1 are potentially many seconds saved, but unless you are prepared to practice, practice, practice then consider very carefully whether it actually saves you or costs you time. From what I saw at Dambuster, I suspect for many people it was the latter.