This week saw an exciting new addition to my bike collection! I have been scouring Gumtree, PinkBike and Ebay for a while now with the aim of updating my retro steel Peugeot to something more suited to road biking. And having tried a fair few bikes with varying degrees of success, I finally found the right match – a beautiful second hand Bianchi.
As you can imagine I was super keen to try it out as soon as I could… there was just one small hurdle… clip in pedals! For quite some time I have been mulling over moving to clip in pedals. I totally see the advantages and benefits of them, but there has been just one thing holding me back – I fall off a lot. However, when I discovered the new bike came with pedals, I thought there was no wimping out now! So I bought myself a fancy pair of Fizik R3 women’s shoes in the Planet-X sale and crossed my fingers.
In preparation for my outing, I read few great articles. This one in particular – Beginner’s Guide to Road Pedals – was both reassuring and helpful. I would recommend reading this if you are in a similar dilemma.
So the day came, and after a few attempts in the kitchen balancing against the counter top I was off. It quickly transpired that my biggest problem was not unclipping my foot or clipping it in… it was putting the right (unclipped) foot on the floor!! However, with only one fall, I made it back home. Riding victoriously towards my house, I was congratulated on the success of my first ride with clip in pedals. I agreed, swooping to a graceful stop I unclipped my foot and promptly leant the other way falling right on my hand! Humorous but painful!
That evening I went along to the Hope Adventure Film Festival to listen to an evening lecture by Mick Fowler one of Britain’s leading exploratory mountaineer with an incredible record of first ascents spanning nearly 40 years. I found the talk so interesting and humorous – he has some outrageous stories with great photos to match. If you get the chance to hear him speak go! Something I was particularly inspired by was that most of Mick’s adventures had been worked around a full-time job and family. This was so refreshing to hear and gives me hope I can save up my funds and holiday to go on similar sorts of expeditions one day!
This was one of my favourite clips in his talk:
Unfortunately, that evening my hand became more and more painful and swollen the next day was spent in Minor Injuries trying to decide whether I have a broken scaphoid! I am not amused – the x-ray has been deemed inconclusive so for now, I am in a brace until they review it on Tuesday. It better not be broken I have my first adventure race with Haglöf Open5 Series coming up soon…!
***
Note added later: – It’s not broken just badly bruised! Very pleased with the result – bring on the race!
1 Comment