Yesterday, I splurged and got the new bike shoes. Ho boy were they expensive and it wasn't the shoes that were the real problem but the pedals. I have to get two sets because I have two bikes that I spend about equal amounts of time on.
This is my first time with road shoes and road cleats. First of all, the fit of my new shoes is fantastic! I was pretty sure I was going to have the hack off part of the strap because it would dig me in the ankle but if I have it a bit loose, it doesn't bother me. This makes me very happy because the idea of buying $250 shoes and then immediately cutting them up makes me feel slightly ill. The clips are a little harder to get in and out of. This won't be such a problem on long rural rides but coming down Mass Ave stopping at stop lights, it was a bit of a pain. Good practice, though. Rustem also gave me the big talking to about doing a lot of walking in these shoes. Apparently, if I want to do errands, I need to bring a set of flipflops with me since more than a tiny bit of walking in the cleats will ruin them. For now, I'm going to look for a pair of packable, slip-on shoes that I can stuff in the back of my Camelbak and use if I'm running around the grocery store. The good news is that since I'm getting two sets of pedals, I'm getting two sets of cleats. When (not if) I ruin the first set, I can just change them out. Also, replacement cleats aren't that expensive. In the long run, I can see there being an errand bike (probably the one I'm riding now) with my old pedals and shoes and a fancy long distance bike with the new pedals and shoes.
I'm taking a long ride on Monday with Stef and our friend Kuen and I'm hoping, hoping, hoping that the new shoes don't make my toes go to sleep like the old ones did. I'm really concerned about developing nerve damage in my feet, not to mention how inconvenient it is to have to unclip all the time to shake some life back into my toes. I so hope the new shoes solve this probelm. It is the whole reason I bought them.
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I've been contemplating going the bike shoe route for a while--OK, five years--but I'm just too cheap. As a guy who remembers when toe clips were a cool innovation, I just can't see myself dropping that kind of money on shoes.
ReplyDeleteSo, do you think the shoes make a difference in the quality of your ride?
I'm a fan of the shoes and clipless pedals. I used bike shoes without getting the clipless for years and liked the stability of them. When I broke down and got the clipless pedals, it immediately added half a mile an hour to my average speed. Also, they are really helpful on the tandem because if your feet slip off the pedals, it's very hard to get them back on with the other person pedaling. I wouldn't ride without them single or tanem.
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