Clipless at last

No riding today(I'm still a little sore from yesterday... I'm calling it a recovery day- light climbing as some cross)but, with my bonus from work, I was finally able to get my pedals... they're crank brothers quattro's, which are freaking awesome.

Yesterday, after getting the new gear, which consisted of pedals, shoes, a new stock of inner tubes, and a pair of Mr. Tuffy strips (hopefully they'll save me some flats) I was going to ride down to the little park south of my apartment, then I started riding. What. A. Difference. After tooling around the neighborhood, I finally made it out to Guadalupe, and I just kept going. 15-ish miles later (my longest sustained ride) I was almost home, and stopped at a light. I had my left foot unclipped, and leaned a little on the bike. Losing my balance, I tried to take my right foot off the pedal with predicable results. The cleat did it's job and I just ended up pulling myself over. The biggest thing I hurt was my pride. In the end, I picked myself up, clipped in and rode the rest of the way home.

After cooling off I realized that I was out of some of the most basic foodstuffs (damn but I really can't start the morning without my cheerios) so I rode down to the far Fry's. I got there fine, and again, I was only a mile or so from home and the same thing happened. This time I was so flustered I had to walk over to the corner (from the left turn lane) and settle down.

What's interesting though, is talking to other riders about this... it's kind of like initiation into a club... everyone falls when they go clipless, and everyone says it's worth it. Damn but I agree


Lessons Learned:

1. You really can pull up on the pedals when you're accellerating hard
2. don't lean toward your unclipped side
3. Clipless adds a whole new world of stability to your riding... you can push the bike around much more with your feet

Pictures:
all tucked in... those are the new pedals on it
a close-up of the pedals... you can see how aero the profile is

a top view... the big blue spring is what makes the mechanism work
Side viewThis is what my new shoes look like... they're all shiny so I get hit by cars less


And the sole: having a hard, stiff sole keeps my feet from getting sore on long ridesa close up of the cleat, the surrounding hard plastic makes walking really wierd
This is what it looks like mounted up
and from the front

Starting out

Ok, here's the story. About 6 months ago, while driving to a triathalon to volunteer in my kayak, I heard a story on the radio about century races. After seeing all the people doing the various triathlons I'd volunteered for, I kind of wanted to to one... but with my knees I'm pretty sure the run would have me falling apart. Biking seemed to be the answer. Right then and there (it was 6 in the morning... don't expect me to be doing bright things) I'd heard "all about" biking from Kevin and Micheal... so I decided I'd do a Century race(mountain bikers fall too much for my tastes). Once I woke up a little more, I set a deadline of two years for me to get this done (but then again, most people know how I am with deadlines).
Well, it's more than 6 months later, and I finally got my bike last week... Thanks to the awesome guys at Paragon Cycling I picked out a Cannondale CAAD 8 Optimo 2 (Pretty much all he had to do to sell me on it was have me pick it up... it weighs like 2 pounds, plus the guy at Adventure Cycling tried to sell me something completely different than the other bike I was considering). I think I've decided on doing either the El Tour de Tucson in november... or it's sister race in phoenix in April next year. In either case, I'll ride ETDT, but maybe not the full century. I'm starting to realize EXACTLY how much I don't know, but what's the point of a life goal that's easy?
So far, I've logged about 30 miles on the bike (it'd have been more if it wasn't for that damned cold last week) and ridden to work once (5 miles there, about 8 back because I was exploring on the way back), which I currently intend to continue doing until I retire. I've also got a set of lights, a sweet insulated water bottle, helmet, and both road and mountain bike shorts(if I showed up to work in road shorts I'd never hear the end of it). I'm swapping the cheap loaner pedals out for Crank Brothers Quattros hopefully next week once work figures out whether or not they can do an "alternative commute credit".
Anyways, I'm starting this to hopefully hear from other people who are in similar circumstances, people who are experts, plus my mom will probably chip in from time to time (you know how moms are). For those who are not familiar with me on facebook... pictures of the bike follow.