Monday legs, clipless pedals, and other musings.

Hey! It must be Monday!

Normally, that's cause for a halfhearted groan and a slog to the local Diet Coke stash. In my case, it's sometimes cause for celebration. See, I generally use my commutes as workouts, and the biggest underlying reason for doing them is to keep my blood sugar under control so I don't have to go on meds. I also like getting in shape, and tend to measure that by my ride times on my usual routes.

Today I got a "two-fer". Sugar was 99 this morning, despite two days of not doing much about it. That's a good sign to me that the consistent workouts are keeping things under control. Then, my weekend-rested "Monday legs" delivered me to work in 28:36, which may be a record time for my 7 mile route. I'll probably be dragging on the way home, but it was worth it.

An astute reader was asking what are clipless pedals, so I thought in response I would give a brief and vague history of the development of bicycle pedal technology...

Back in the stone age, there were platform pedals. These were the relatively large, flat pedals that are still seen on kids bikes and many cruiser or hybrid style adult bikes (plus BMX and hardcore downhill rigs). The great thing about platforms is that they are simple. You can use them with any kind of shoe, and can get your feet on or off whenever you like. The bad part is that there is nothing but gravity holding your foot to the pedal, so it is hard to get a good, efficient pedal stroke. In particular, on the back (lifting) part of the pedal stroke, your foot is dead weight, and in some cases can simply fly off the pedal . Very convenient for "strolling" along the boardwalk, zipping across campus without changing shoes, or thrashing the local skate park on your BMX. Not so good for saving energy and/or going fast.

Folks who do like to go fast figured that if they could somehow strap their feet to the pedals, it would help their pedaling efficiency. So, they invented "toe clips." Toe clips are metal cages attached to the front of a pedal that are shaped to fit over the toe of your shoe. They are usually accompanied by a metal shoe plate that attaches to the bottom of the shoe and snaps into the body of the pedal itself. Couple these two things with a strap that runs through the pedal body and the top of the toe clip at about the ball of the foot, and you have a very snug, firm pedal attachment system. The good news: now you can pedal in "circles", getting the maximum amount of power transfer through the whole pedal stroke. The bad news: your feet are semi-permanently attached to the bike, so if you need to stop, you'd better know how to do a track stand!

Well, this wasn't good enough, as track stands are not so easy to learn. So folks invented what is known as the "clipless" pedal system. This consists of a spring loaded clamp on the pedal body that grabs a small metal cleat on the bottom of the shoe. The clamp and cleat are designed so that the rider can "clip in" by pressing straight down on the pedal, and can "clip out" by twisting the heel outward. These work very, very well, despite the inherent irony of "clipping" into and out of a "clipless" pedal.

There are several different flavors, all of which work on the same basic premise. The "clip" tension can be adjusted to suit the user. Road racers can set the tension very high so that they don't accidentally unclip when pedaling hard (say, at the sprint finish of a race...), while mountain bikers can set it low so that they can unclip easily when they're in trouble (say, slipping off a log they thought they could ride down...). The Shimano SPD pedal, like most things Shimano, is something of a de-facto industry standard, while the various Look models are popular with road racers and the Crank Brothers Eggbeaters are popular with mountain bikers (they shed mud very well). I use a Shimano "campus" pedal, which has the SPD clipless pedal system on one side and a regular platform surface on the other side. This lets me go clipless on my commute, but still use the bike in my street shoes to zip across campus when needed.

The one main downside to clipless pedals is the presence of the cleat on the bottom of the shoe, which makes it hard to walk in the shoes. Mountain Bike and commute-oriented shoes "solve" this by having raised treads which "hide" the cleat when walking but don't interfere with pedal engagement. Road shoes "solve" this by... well, if you're racing a road bike, you shouldn't be walking anyway.

There's a nice, if short, Wikipedia article about bicycle pedals, if you're curious.

Many first-time users are skeptical of clipless pedals, as they are afraid they will not be able to disengage in the event of a crash. In my personal experience, unless the pedal system itself is mangled, you will disengage during a crash. Practice is of course necessary, as with all new skills, but clipping in and out very quickly becomes second nature. Which brings me to my story for the day.

The first day I rode to work in clipless pedals (about 3 years ago), I had spent the day before diligently setting up and testing the system, and practicing clipping in and out. Unfortunately, I had neglected to tighten down the cleat on my left shoe sufficiently. When I ride, I'm in the habit of unclipping and standing on my left foot at stops. Since the cleat was not tight enough, when I tried to unclip, the cleat would simply rotate on my shoe and fail to unclip. Having already leaned to my left, I was thus doomed to a slow, embarrasing fall to the pavement. In traffic. I fell four times before I got to the office and figured out the problem. Once I tightened up the cleat bolts, I had a nice, smooth ride home.

The moral of this story: Always make sure your bolts are tight... and keep your sense of humor handy!