Gone Clipless
If you’re not someone that’s big into the biking scene, this makes no sense. It made absolutely no sense to me. In fact, I was told that it’s retrospective, and being so, I had to have it explained. As such, I’m going to explain it to you. But first, I have to tell a bit of my story.
As you know (if you’ve read prior entries) my friend Mark in MN is a massive biker (or cyclist, I’m not sure what he prefers to be called) and he told me that I needed to go clipless. I firmly explained to him that we had already had this conversation and that I was remaining clipless. Clipping into my pedals was not something that I wanted to experience again, because the very first time that I ever tried it, I unclipped the wrong foot and fell over. Falling over while still clipped into my bike was not something I wanted to experience ever again. Not only is it embarrassing, but it hurts. That’s when he said that the term was retrospective, I didn’t ask what that meant because as far as I was concerned, the case was closed.
But then, I decided that if it meant that I was going to exert less energy and tire not as quickly, I was going to get pedals to clip into and shoes to go with them. He ordered me pedals (crank bros egg beater sl’s) and some shoes (Answer - Speeder) and they came on Thursday.
I got to put the pedals on my bike and try out the shoes today. But first, it was important for me to know the logic behind going clipless (because as far as I was concerned, I was still clipping in). In my search for this all important logic, I found Graham’s site goclipless.com. And it was from Graham, that I got my logic. And I quote:
“Often you will see pedals that have a ‘cage’ attached where you put your foot to secure it in the pedal. Those ‘cages’ are called Toe Clips. I guess when the first pedals that integrated your shoe to the bike came out their major benefit was that you no longer needed toe clips. Therefore, they were touted as being ‘clipless.’ Of course, it is ironic when you end up clipping in to clipless pedals. A better name for them probably should be something like ‘integrated’ pedals.”
Thanks to Graham, I now had the logic behind my “clipless” pedals and install them on my bike. When I got done putting my sweet looking pedals on my bike I had to put on my “toes feel claustrophobic” shoes and take the bike for a test ride. (I really didn’t want to get stuck in my pedals on the trail) It was just a quick spin around the block and I didn’t have any problems unclipping. In fact, I had more problems trying to get clipped in. It’s exciting, I’ve gone clipless.