New bike shoes

I was riding by myself this morning and trying out my new mountain bike shoes that clip into the pedals. I picked Interurban Road because I knew there'd be shade for at least the first half of the ride.

The shoes and new pedals aren't cheap, but I got a nice discount with birthday money. I'd been looking at the bike shoes and pedals for quite a while because as I've gotten into better riding shape I've noticed that under certain circumstances I was having trouble keeping my feet on the standard flat pedals. The worst cases would be when shifting gears at high speed. If my feet weren't in just the right position, sometimes they would just fly off.

Getting into and out of the clips takes little practice, but I didn't have much trouble getting the hang of it. It's not second nature yet, but I don't think it will take long. The big thing is getting out of the clips at the right time. The trick is to rotate your heel out. When you do, it forces the shoe out of the clip. It sounds simple, and it is, but it still takes a little practice.

I only forgot once that I was wearing the new shoes, and got into a situation where I had to take my feet off the pedals and put them on the ground. When I went to do that, they didn't come off the pedals like I expected. I was out of time and panicked a little bit, and that's when I discovered that with a little extra effort you can yank your shoes right out of the pedal clip even if you don't rotate the heel. It also answered the burning question: if I ride over a cliff, am I still going to be connected to my bike pedals when they find me at the bottom a week later? Probably not. That's a relief.

I don't know if it was the pedals or what, but I burned up the course, covering the distance in record time for me: 34.41 miles in 2:05:17, for an average of 16.48 mph. I even caught and passed three 20-somethings on road bikes on the way back. Score one for the old guy on the hybrid. -- Rob