OK, I’m going to do it!

For too long I have been excluded from the ranks of those cyclists who get to do that exciting clicking thing with their feet whenever they start and stop! I, too, demand the right to a new and creative way of spectacularly falling from my bike!

Yes, I have decided to ‘go clipless’! What possessed me, looking back, I am not quite sure, but it’s too late now. My budget was fairly limited, but a perusal of Wiggle while I was in the UK revealed a number of sale items that were also on a summer discount (now over, though they still offer 10% purchases over £100, I believe) and I eventually plumped for the following (and by the way, these choices reflected my budget as much as anything else):

Pearl Izumi Vagabond shoes (£23.99) - always risky buying shoes over the net, but it worked out great. They are meant for mountain biking, i.e. you can actually walk in them too

Shimano M324 Combination pedals (£27.99) - OK, OK, that’s copping out, but I’ll try and explain myself another time

Shimano SH51 Standard Release Cleats (£7.99) - as it happens I got cleats with the pedals too, but I wasn’t to know this, and it may have been for the best, because…

…as it turns out there are two kinds of SPD cleats (SPD being the standard introduced by Shimano)! Oh yes, you’ll learn all sort of things here, unless you happen to have been fully aware of this fact at least 15 years ago. One type are ’standard release’ cleats, the other type are ‘multiple release’ cleats, the former I bought, as above, the latter I got with the pedals.

History lessons

But let me go back a little way, in case you are even less bicyclically aware than me! At some point in cycling history, bikers realised that a lot of energy was lost during pedalling due to the fact that your feet moved around on the pedals, and the energy from the upward portion of the pedalling cycle was entirely being wasted, indeed the ‘upwards’ foot could even be working against the downwards pedalling foot. If only the foot could somehow be anchored to the pedal, this wasted energy could be put to good use.

To cut out the story of various dangerous devices invented to solve this problem, including the encouragingly-titled ‘death cleat’, a system was devised by Shimano which would allow you to clip your foot into the pedal with a simple pressing motion, and unclip it (hopefully) with a twist of your foot. This is made possible by a spring-loaded mechanism on the pedal which snaps over the cleat, the little plate screwed to your cycle shoes which are specially made for the purpose (you can’t wear, say, clogs, or stiletto heels).

Back to the present

So “going clipless” is kind of a stage in the initiation of a cyclist, a way of saying, “yes, I am into this all the way, now you cannot doubt my commitment. If I fall, the bike goes with me!!” (oh, or maybe it’s the other way around). So with the warning words still ringing in my ears from every web page I have ever read on the subject, “You WILL fall”, I am going to take the ‘plunge’. Watch this space!

Oh, and anyone know why the heck it’s called riding clipLESS…?!

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Posted on September 5th, 2007 by markowe
Filed under: Biking - general, MTB Serbia (All)