Doth quoth the DaveM

New bike pedals

Monday Jul 02, 2007

I took off from work a couple of hours early on Friday, as I'd had it for the week. In my wanderings around north Austin, I came upon Performance Bike and remembered I'd been meaning to visit, so I stopped in. I looked around the whole store and then came back to the pedal section.

I've been riding with some pedals I bought for my old mountain bike years ago, with toe clips. This has been good, but I've been wanting to try the so-called "clipless" pedals. Really this means pedals with space for cleats, along with cleats on your cycling shoes. Problem is, the bike I ride is pretty much the only bike I ride, both for longer rides for training and transportation, and for riding to school with my kids. I really didn't want to add cleated pedals to my bike and be forced to ride with cycling shoes. I found what I think is a good solution for me: The Forte Campus pedal. It has the space for a cleat on one side of the pedal and nothing on the other side. This allows the best of both worlds.

To install the pedals I had to go buy a pedal wrench to get the old pedals off, and some grease for installation, as called for by the brief manual that came with the pedals. After installing, I added cleats to my cycling shoes. Then I tried it out on my block, worked pretty well once I got used to getting my feet in and out. Sam and I took a short ride in the neighborhood, and I was feeling pretty comfortable. On Sunday, I went for my third ACA ride, Pfinally Pflugerville, riding the 24 mile option. The pedals worked great, and seemed to help with leg fatigue, as I really felt good after riding 24 miles.

So far I'm pleased with my new pedals, and it was nice to find something really useful on my first stop at a new bike shop. I'm not so thrilled that Performance Bike is a national chain, as I'd rather spend my money at local bike shops, so I'm not sure how often I'll go back there. But so far I'm a satisfied customer.

Like this post?

Posted at 02:30PM Jul 02, 2007 by DaveM in Bicycling
Tags: austin bicycle bicycling bike biking cycling pedals rides

First ACA ride

Monday Jun 04, 2007

On Sunday I rode my first Austin Cycling Association group ride, the Cedar Park Fever. The newsletter said there was a choice of a 15 mile ride, but when I got there I was told it was only 13. Additionally, I drove the route on Saturday afternoon, based on a ride map from the ACA web site, and it certainly felt like less than 15, though I didn't time it.

Before the ride, the ride leader/organizer talked about all the places on the routes that might be an issue. The route I was going to take had a low water crossing with 6 to 8 inches of water over it, so the folks leading my route decided to skip that. So I actually cut off and turned about, and it turned out to be only 12.5 miles. On one of the longer routes, there was talk about water at about 24 inches over a low water crossing, so an alternate route was offered.

Only bad thing about the experience was I was the only person doing the 13 mile ride, so I rode back to the start point alone. Not a big problem, but not as fun either.

I've been looking at the ACA rides page for future rides I might like. I think the Tour de Austin on the 17th looks good (according to the map, it's 21 miles) but I'm not thrilled by the 1 p.m. start time. There's also the Inside Austin ride on the 24th at 8 a.m., which looks similar but has a different starting and ending point. And finally, Pfinally Pflugerville on July 1.

[2] Comments