I got some mountain bike shoes yesterday - $10! They were store-brands on clearance (At "decathlon" if you have that sports store near you), and feel just like my sneakers (only stiffer in the soles).

Decathlon's some British store, so all the store-brand stuff is in European sizes, but for some reason we have a store in Massachusetts. http://www.decathlon.co.uk/EN/index.html I don't see the clearance ones here, but if you have an outlet nearby - check 'em out. I also got some cleats and the pedals with the clips for them.

I tried putting the pedals on myself, but apparently those nuts on the pedals are REALLY hard to loosen. 340 lbs/inch of torque - eek! So maybe I'll suck up the $7 charge for the bike-shop to change my pedals for me. (Or get a length of tube for my wrench...) But also each pedal is threaded differently, and the combination of steel/aluminum makes it prone to stripping... so I'd just assume get the bike shop to do it afterall.

It's SNOWING today, can you believe it? Wah!

--Janis

I brought my bike down to the shop so they could put my new pedals on. They did it nice 'n quick and didn't even charge me for it! Woo hoo! I felt guilty, because I bought the pedals somewhere else, but it didn't seem to bother them. Remember when local stores were small and about service?

--Janis

I'm so jealous of the deal you got on your shoes!!! Let me know how you feel now that you'll be "CLIPPED IN" I'm still a little nervous about that aspect. I felt well enough to make it thru the 45 min. spin class this morning. Think I'm back on track. Hopefully get more biking in this weekend.

Well, on the suggestion of the guy at the bike store, I've been leaning against a doorjam practicing getting in and out of the clips. He adjusted them to the easiest setting, too, so it's easy to get in and out. Then when I get the hang of it, I can tighten the springs if I'm so inclined. Mostly it's a matter of figuring out where the pedals are (in relation to the shoe-cleats) and how to engage them in the first place (getting your feet OFF the pedals seems easy enough). Now, to engage them while trying to starting up across a street and paying attention to other stuff...

Since the weather's going to be crummy until Sunday anyway, I won't be able to commute until at least next week, so I figure I'll take Sunday to play around with the clips out of traffic's way. I also found out that narrow-gauge trail extends a lot closer to home than I originally thought, so that's cool. (Also, it's not nearly as busy as the big bike-trail, so I won't be as prone to crashing into rollerbladers while trying to figure out how to get off my bike).

All in all, they're a LOT easier than I thought they'd be. I was kinda scared they'd be hard and I'd get stuck on them, but it's not hard, just a matter of getting the feel where they are. It's easier to get out than it is to get in.

Yeah - the bike shop owner said I got a great deal - you can't even get regular shoes at Wal-mart for $10!

--Janis

Good to hear the clips aren't so bad. Good luck when you practice outside. I'll be at the bike shop tomorrow picking up the wheel I dropped off this morning. Maybe I'll try some shoes on again. I seem to keep putting off buying them. Raining out here and getting COLD again. YUCK! We'll see what the weekend holds. Hubby has a duathalon on Sunday so he'll be riding regardless. I have to work Sun. morning but maybe in the afternoon I'll get out there.

Hubby and I finally got out for a ride this morning. We went for about an hour along the river trail and got in 13 miles. Not too bad considering hubby is exhausted from work and hasn't biked in several weeks. In addition, a storm is coming in and as we rode towards the ocean it was against a pretty strong wind the entire way (but going inland was nice!)

After paying attention to the effect of the toe cages on my legs, I really noticed how tired my quads were today. We don't have cycling shoes or special pedals on our bikes. They are actually pretty old mountain bikes (~ 10 years) with hybrid tires. We're saving up for road bikes with pedals that clip to cycling shoes and hope to really add speed and thus distance to our rides. But I'm kinda tempted to get shoes and pedals now until we can get new bikes.

There were a lot of "bike gangs" on the trail this morning. Talk about geeks in spandex ... I especially like the gangs that wear matching outfits!!

Janice, thanks for sharing in such detail your experiences so far with cycling shoes and clips. Glad to hear it's not as bad as you expected, and I am sure it will help us when we get around to taking that step ourselves. Hope your weather improves so you can commute.

tofat, hope your weather improves, too, and you're biking today!

Just got back from a nice ride. I can't wait till the new gravel gets crushed down. Most of my rides are on dirt roads cuz I enjoy the lack of traffic and being more out in the country. It is a beautiful day out here. I wish I didn't teach this afternoon. Then I could stay out and play. Oh well, off to clean up before students get here.

I tried replying yesterday, but my computer crashed (argh!)

Selling your bikes? Wah! I know how tough it is to find opportunities (and places) to bike in the city.

Yesterday (Sunday) I did 30.5 miles! I went on all the "off-road" trails this time. That is, the "proposed" bike-trail/rail-trails that haven't been paved yet, but at least have a dirt path through the woods (and negligible grade!). Except for 2 spots of 6" deep mud (with no way around) it was relatively pleasant.

Speaking of the mud - a tip for those of you with the cleat-shoes - if yours are like mine, you have holes that go right through the soles so you can mount the cleats. Then on top of that (inside the shoe), you have your regular shoe-liner foam thing. Mine came with this adhesive piece of paper or something to seal it off. I should've taken it to heart when the sales-clerk at the sports store said, "it mostly keeps the water out." I think I'll try duct-tape over the paper this time. While I didn't get soaked, water did make it into both shoes when I had to get off and walk through the mud. (I tried riding, but it was getting hairy. Rather than end completely down in the mud, I opted for just my feet.)

It's a good thing I had (long) jeans and the shoes on, because I would've been scratched up good and probably bitten by ticks and bugs from the swamp, too. (ew!) But, I got to see the back-side to the suburbs and hear what birds and frogs lurk in New England. It was really something, considering I've lived here for 4 years now, and don't know what the local birds and frogs sound like, because I've always lived near the highway or been in busy places. It was really nice, getting out in the woods. It's knowing that there's naturey-places near home that make me a little less homesick for my old house in the fingerlakes.

I made it 30.5 miles without cleat-incident. But by the time I got home, I was spent, and brain-foggy. I pulled right up to the front of my apartment, took out my right-foot, and started leaning the bike to the left, forgetting to remove my left foot. Down I went onto the grass... right where all the dogs relieve themselves. At least it wasn't the poo-area. Needless to say, everything went right into the wash when I got upstairs.

Other than that one minor mishap, I didn't have any issues with the cleats, and I was on and off the pedals probably 100 times throughout my trip. It really did make a difference though - whenever I'd get tired going up a hill, I'd remember, "Oh yeah - I can use OTHER muscles, too!" So I'd "pull" myself up the hill instead of pushing. Also, being "attached" to the pedals didn't feel weird - in fact, it felt really good.

When your foot isn't attached to the pedal, you're only able to use your muscles to drive the crank around from about 1 o'clock to about 5 o'clock (or less) because (not being attached) you can't really slide/drag in a horizontal motion, and you can't pull up. You're limited to a down-push. Being attached allows you to do work on 100% of the rotation, and using both legs to help each other out. My muscles don't hurt much (if at all) today, whereas last week my quads were killing me the day after. Also, my knees didn't bother me once yesterday (which they do when it's all pushing).

As for my new padded shorts - I wore them under my jeans. While it didn't feel like they were doing a whole lot over the bumpy off-road paths, I don't hurt (sitting at my desk) today, so they must've been working!

--Janis

Today was beautiful, but I didn't get up in time to ride to work, and I had to be at a meeting... so, I came home at 5 instead, and went for a ride. 129 miles down, 371 to go! If I can keep this up, I'll hit 1K by the end of summer! (something tells me I won't be so enthusiastic when the weather gets hotter and I've got too many parades each weekend... but I can try!)

--Janis

Oh, I'm jealous of both tofat and Janice who can ride on dirt/gravel trails close to home. We have to drive miles to do that. Oh well ...

wwpeggy, aren't there trails that you can ride? We live in a very dense, urban area of O.C. and do most of our rides along river and creek trails. Sometimes we ride along the beach, but it's much more crowded with pedestrians, skaters, strollers, dogs, etc.

Didn't make it to indoor cycling class yesterday, in fact didn't do any exercise yesterday, so I'm adding 20 minutes of cardio to today, Th, and F. Because cardio machines really bore me, I generally split my time between two or three machines. So today I spent 20 minutes on the stationary bike. I did the "random hills" program and set the resistance level to medium to get my heart rate up. According the the counter on the bike, I went about 5.25 miles.

Hope everyone has a terrific day!

You can try the trail-finder at http://www.trails.com/trails.asp to see what's in your area. Other stuff I've been finding by surfing google-earth and http://maps.google.com to see where there are some interesting paths around the area. It still feels pretty urban around here to me, though.

I think the only reason there ARE options around here are because everyone is so health-nut crunchy-yuppie. But even if the rail-trails weren't around here, I still made a pact with myself that I'd get my money's worth out of my bike. I bought it with the intention of commuting to work, or riding on the roads, and only after the fact found the trails.

Apparently my mom got a bike similar to mine, and has only ridden it 3 times. I didn't get the more expensive Cannondale, because I figured, "Let's see if I can stick to a commitment to ride before investing more into something more expensive." So far, I've got 129 miles on it, which isn't bad, but that's still about $2.75 a mile. (Not including all the add-ons and stuff). When I've got about 4400 miles on it, it'll have paid for itself.

My car gets 30 mpg/$2.50 per gallon = 12 miles per $1.00.
12 miles/$1.00 * $360 for the bike = 4320 miles.

So those of you who own cars with worse gas mileage than mine, your bikes will pay for themselves sooner!

--Janis

Hi guys, I just got back from a nice evening ride. Just about 10.5 miles. I go on much shorter rides than you! The gravel is getting pretty compacted on the route I did today so that was nice. I ride pretty much only on roads here. I haven't gotten out to the mountain bike trail yet but hope to do so soon. I guess the benefit of living in the boonies is less traffic on the roads so I'm more comfortable riding.

Janis-I love your reasoning for paying off the bike. I work out of the house so cant really implement anything like that. My hubby would love to do that but works about 45 miles away so its not an option right now.

Have a great one! Happy pedaling.

It's definitely harder to go father on "real" roads. The rail-trails absolutely spoil you, although they seem to have helped a bit, as they've encouraged me to go out for fun and distance.

I got to work (the tough hilly route) in only 27 minutes today, as opposed to 45+ minutes 2 weeks ago! Woo hoo!

--Janis

Way to go cutting your time down!! That's awesome. Its windy and rainy here so I did TurboKick for my workout. The sun poked its head out for about 5 minutes and I thought about a short ride. Thankfully all I did was think cuz soon after huge wind gusts started and more rain wasn't far behind. What a blah day!

YAY!!! today was absolutely GORGEOUS outside - although it was windy - which sucked...but it was just so beautiful otherwise!! so i FINALLY got out on my bike and i rode 8.7 miles today!! :-D just needed to post!