Clipping in: 5 mistakes I made so you don’t have to | Spd Pedals

Not that I’m in the market for light pedals myself, as I’m quite happy with my SPD’s for commute/CX duties and my Shimano 105 SPD-SL pedals on the road bike. Hard to beat when it comes to performace/durability/cost considerations.

Metro Phoenix was built for cars, with sprawling suburbs and dozens of miles of freeways looping through our cities. But as the Valley has added more public transportation options in the past few decades, we’ve mostly stayed in our vehicles.

Road touring was followed by mountain biking and a career racing in the mud that was as brief as it was unsuccessful.

With basic setup markings, the cleat attaches with Shimano’s typical four-hole cleat plate, allowing plenty of fore-aft adjustment. The cleat is protected with a two-compound rubber tread, with a more durable material used at the pedals’ contact point. Just past this, the tread is separated, allowing a more natural step instead of the usual flat-foot stomp of performance shoes. The tread height is generous enough to allow near-silent walking on a hard surface, whereas racier shoes often leave the cleat slightly exposed.

As an old roadie, I can’t conceive of riding flat pedals. It feels so wrong not being connected to the bike.

At 333g, these are some of the lightest — and priciest — pedals on the market. A titanium axle helps save 50g (but adds £140/$150) over the less fancy Stamp 7s. Otherwise, they’re more or less the same. 

Constant pressure on the button can eventually drain the battery of an electronic shift system. We’ve heard of this happening during air travel, the rider finding that the battery they’d topped up before leaving home was completely empty by the time they came to build the bike up before the start of their training camp. You can avoid this by unplugging the wires or removing the battery/batteries.

There’s more to buy if you go for Shimano Di2 or Campagnolo EPS. On top of the shifters, derailleurs and charger, you’ll need a battery and wiring.

Also into my third year but with EPS. Haven’t regretted it for a second. Effortless and trouble free gear changing especially when braking. I’m thinking of replacing my touring bike and I hope I can get it fitted with triple electronic shifting.

Ordinarily, when it comes to uninspired gifts, nothing underwhelms like a pair of socks. It’s the present that says, “You exist, and you have feet.” Cyclists, however, get genuinely excited about socks: they’re our “pieces of flair,” and sock choice is really the only way we get to express ourselves stylistically (unless you count really bad calf tattoos), especially if we’re on a team and all have to dress the same.

The North Downs are long, long way from Yorkshire. It’s long way down an ever-darkening motorway, with headlights on and rain blasting onto the windscreen, the wiper blades flick flacking a beat to the music on the stereo. In time, drifting out of time, in time, out of time. Eventually, the music ends, and I’m listening to the water on the road blasting up inside the wheel arches; trying desperately to find any inlet into the dry and the warm of the cabin. Motorway gives way to A-road gives way to B-road gives way to winding lane which snakes through infinite trees, and which seems impossibly remote, considering I must be something like half an hour’s (traffic-free) drive from London. And then, I turn a corner, down a long drive to an enormous old hotel. This, it seems, is home for the night. Crikey.

Ridiculous as that may sound, signs of change are a(bare)foot — beloved B-list Instagram cycle-touring celeb-influencer Ultraromance has done the seemingly impossible in raising Bedrock Sandals to a status of coolness in certain circles. Stranger things!