Grippy Tip for Slick Shoes

I love buying new bike stuff!  I like parts, clothes, tools, basically anything to do with cycling.  I recently had to buy new shoes, which didn’t bother me; it is just a bit embarrassing to admit why.  I was due some new shoes, as the old ones were showing their age and the effects of the crash last year.  The shoes I got were on a great sale and I had in-store credit to cover the cost.  Still I have to sheepishly admit that the reason for buying them was that I forgot my old shoes at home and needed to buy new ones if I was going to ride back home.

My old shoes are walkable touring shoes that have just enough rubber on the sole to keep the cleat from grinding into the surface I am walking on.  This includes a rubber heal that does not skid on smooth surfaces.  I have gotten very spoiled by these shoes and their nice rubbery sole.  Mt new shoes and full out rode shoes with nice slick plastic composite soles that turned smooth polished surfaces into a skating rink.  I like my new shoes, I just need to get used to them and in true wrench style, tinker with them.

I quickly realized how slick the heel was the first time I tried to stop and put my foot down heel first.  My foot went one way while my body and bike went another.  I didn’t go down, but I came close to doing the splits.  I now stop and put my toe down first.

The next issue was what happens when you miss clipping in.  With the old shoes, the rubber would generally grab the pedal and I could get a pedal stroke in and try again.  With the new pedals, you miss and the smooth metal pedal hit a smooth plastic sole.  This is a bad combination as your foot slides off, the bike wobbles, and the top tube meets your crotch.

I am trying a fix for both issues, but it seems to be working better for the second than the first.  I bought some anti-skid tape like you put on steps or ramps and stuck it to the soles of my shoes.  The heel area is small and the tape seemed to wear away very quickly, but the tape around the cleat helped a lot.  As you can tell by the pictures, I unclip with my left foot exclusively so it shows the most wear.  Even with that, I was able to rest the rough part of the shoe against the pedal and have enough resistance to pedal until I could get clipped in.

I will update you all later if I decide to do something different, but this does seem to be a quick fix for a slick situation.

The Old is New

I don’t know about you, but I am falling in love with the old lugged beauty of vintage steel bikes.  Maybe it’s because I am getting a bit longer in tooth and appreciate the things from my youth more, and sentimental nostalgia is setting in, but I really love old bikes.

My first real road bike was a black steel Schwinn, Circuit.  It wasn’t lugged, but it was sweet to ride, and beautiful!  Fast forward to last year when I was given a Univega 10 speed that a guy wanted out of his shed.  I took it home, cleaned it up and restored it.  Riding it through the neighborhood it felt like I was gliding on a glass surface.  I thought it would make the perfect neighborhood cruiser until a couple of months ago when a friend dropped off five vintage bikes for me to sell for him.  In the mix, there it was in all of its lugged glory, a lugged, black, Schwinn, World Sport 14 speed.  Call me fickle, but I fell in love.

I have sold three out of the other four bikes, but I bought the Schwinn for myself.  My son and I have torn it apart, cleaned it, and I am now in the process of putting it back together.  The tires were so dried out I had to cut the wire beads to get them off, but the frame is in excellent shape and there were only a handful of paint chips.  The rear rim was a little out of true and could use a rebuild to re-center it, but the hoops and hubs are in great shape. 

There will be a few minor changes as I rebuild it, so it won’t be a true restore.  I am putting on bullhorn handle bars because I like the way they look and feel.  Two sided pedals that will allow me to ride it with either standard shoes or SPD shoes will replace the old steel platform pedals.  I am not putting the kickstand or reflectors back on, but I found a tail light that will mount to the rear reflector bracket .  The rest will remain stock.

Here are some pictures of the project so far.

Stripped down

The Mud, The Fun, & The Boy

As I have mentioned before, my son and I like to go mountain biking.  We have been a little off our schedule the past few months, but we got back to it on Saturday and got our first ride in since Thanksgiving.  The morning was bright and clear, the air cool and dry, the trails open, and the bikes ready.  Carpi Diem!

 

We took off from the house around 8:30 AM.  The sun was slowly warming the air, but the temps were still in the low 60’s.  We had gotten a lot of rain on Thursday, but Friday had been dry and trails had dried enough to be open.  We got to our favorite course and discovered that the old parking lot was closed off, and the new and improved lot was now partially open, which is a great improvement over the old lot.  We unloaded and set the expectations, easy courses, 1 ½ to 2 hours, and a moderate pace.

 

We rolled down to the trail entrance, put our donation in the box, and headed for the easy loop entrance.  We soon discovered that the trails had not fully dried, as a matter of fact; it was still wet enough that one of the alternate trails was still closed.  I let Isaac know that he would want to hang back a bit unless he really wanted to get dirty.  We pedaled on.

 

Thankfully the course was just wet enough to give us some fun puddles to splash through, a few slick spots to test our handling skills, and plenty of mud to wash off the bikes after we got home.  We both realized just how out of shape we had let our legs get.  We were made aware that we need to talk about cycling less and “do cycling” more.  We also realized that Isaac had grown a bit as we had to raise his saddle about ¾”.

 

We only pedaled for around 8 miles of easy stuff, but we were on our bikes, having fun, and being together.  That is the great thing about cycling, there does not have to be a winner or a loser, you get some great exercise, and there is a shared experience and a bonding that can last a life time.

Winter was not kind

OK, so I have been away again for a while.  I took the winter off and got back to commuting yesterday and BOY! am I out of shape!  I am not really sure how it happened that I stopped riding, I guess I just got a bit burnt out, but now I am back.

 

The ride home last night kicked my butt!  The hills seemed longer and steeper, and the flats and down hills were way to short.  The weather on the other hand was very nice with temps in the upper 70’s and a light breeze.  Over all I was glad to be back out on the bike, but I was sad that I had let my conditioning go so far down.

 

The ride back in this morning was equally as difficult.  The only blessings in the morning are that I have less climbing and traffic.  The down part is that I was still recovering from my ride home the night before.  I was also out of sync with getting ready and making sure I had everything I needed as I walked out the door.  I only had to make one trip back into the house so my departure was not delayed too much.

 

The saddest part of this whole experience is that there was no excuse for getting out of shape.  I have a bike on my trainer in the basement and my company provides a gym.  I just stopped, and I would not recommend that to anyone.  I basically took a few months where I did nothing and I am now paying the price.

 

On a more positive note, I got a smart phone and loaded “MapMyRide” onto it and it is working great!  The app is simple to use and the tracking is spot on!  It does chew up battery so make sure you are fully charged before setting off on a 2+ hour ride.  My ride home and then back in both took about 1:45 and I had over 65% left at the end from a full charge at the start.  Now I don’t need to buy that expensive GPS unit that I have been looking at.

 

Well, that is all for today.  I will be posting pics and telling writing about my 14 speed Schwinn World Sport project in the near future.