SamP
Guru
Probably due to a crash, my left pedal started feeling rough and made grinding noises, so my intention to try clipless pedals next year was advanced to now! Some more details here.
So I changed the pedals yesterday and went to mount the cleats. Hmm... how are you supposed to know you've got the cleat adjustment right? Oh well, put it right in the middle of the adjustment ranges for now.
Next step, try to clip in. I sat in USS Yiggy, with the front of the wheel against a curb and balanced with a hand on my car. For quite a while I couldn't figure out how to get my foot located in the right spot. Eventually I took off the left shoe and looked closely at the cleat and the pedal. The light went on, I recall reading (on an anti-clipless article) that Look brought their ski binding technology to bikes to create the first clipless system, and I could sort of see where that idea translated. Get the front of the cleat tucked under the front of the mount on the pedal then push down to get the rear of the cleat seated.
Some more balancing, and I could eventually feel that the front was tucked in but I couldn't get the cleat to clip in. Another light went on, I remembered reading that clipless pedals were usually shipped with the tension at maximum. Pulled out my bike multitool and reduced the tension to minimum. Some more balancing, and eventually I found I could get the clip to click when the pedal was at "bottom" but not at any other part of the stroke.
So then I started off and riding around a nearly empty parking lot. I clipped in and out several times, getting better at clipping in but clipping out got harder and harder, requiring a lot of heel twisting. Another light went on, I didn't tighten the cleats down much as I was thinking I might have to adjust it. Took a look at the bottom of the shoes and the cleats were now quite angled and no longer at the middle of the adjustment range. Fixed that and tightened the cleats a lot.
I then spent an hour riding around the parking lot (and then other nearby parking lots) practicing clipping in and out without much difficulty. I didn't feel very strange to be clipped in--I had ridden with toeclips with the straps tightened about as hard as I could, but clipless was so much more solid. After some practice, I could even clip in on other parts of the pedal stroke, but "bottom" was still the easiest.
The shoe-pedal interface no longer was mushy, now the foot-shoe interface is the weak point. I could feel that spinning worked better. Intentionally clipping out is working, but I'm still worried about clipping out in emergency/panic situations. Training over time will probably make the unclip motion unconscious, but I worry about injury until then. The pedals came with the Shimano SM-SH51 Single release mode cleats, I'm considering getting SM-SH56 Multiple release mode cleats, which I've read can come out when you don't want it, but release without thinking about it when you need it to.
I'm still not quite sure how to figure out the right adjustments to the cleats.
The ride itself probably isn't very interesting but here's the Strava link.
So I changed the pedals yesterday and went to mount the cleats. Hmm... how are you supposed to know you've got the cleat adjustment right? Oh well, put it right in the middle of the adjustment ranges for now.
Next step, try to clip in. I sat in USS Yiggy, with the front of the wheel against a curb and balanced with a hand on my car. For quite a while I couldn't figure out how to get my foot located in the right spot. Eventually I took off the left shoe and looked closely at the cleat and the pedal. The light went on, I recall reading (on an anti-clipless article) that Look brought their ski binding technology to bikes to create the first clipless system, and I could sort of see where that idea translated. Get the front of the cleat tucked under the front of the mount on the pedal then push down to get the rear of the cleat seated.
Some more balancing, and I could eventually feel that the front was tucked in but I couldn't get the cleat to clip in. Another light went on, I remembered reading that clipless pedals were usually shipped with the tension at maximum. Pulled out my bike multitool and reduced the tension to minimum. Some more balancing, and eventually I found I could get the clip to click when the pedal was at "bottom" but not at any other part of the stroke.
So then I started off and riding around a nearly empty parking lot. I clipped in and out several times, getting better at clipping in but clipping out got harder and harder, requiring a lot of heel twisting. Another light went on, I didn't tighten the cleats down much as I was thinking I might have to adjust it. Took a look at the bottom of the shoes and the cleats were now quite angled and no longer at the middle of the adjustment range. Fixed that and tightened the cleats a lot.
I then spent an hour riding around the parking lot (and then other nearby parking lots) practicing clipping in and out without much difficulty. I didn't feel very strange to be clipped in--I had ridden with toeclips with the straps tightened about as hard as I could, but clipless was so much more solid. After some practice, I could even clip in on other parts of the pedal stroke, but "bottom" was still the easiest.
The shoe-pedal interface no longer was mushy, now the foot-shoe interface is the weak point. I could feel that spinning worked better. Intentionally clipping out is working, but I'm still worried about clipping out in emergency/panic situations. Training over time will probably make the unclip motion unconscious, but I worry about injury until then. The pedals came with the Shimano SM-SH51 Single release mode cleats, I'm considering getting SM-SH56 Multiple release mode cleats, which I've read can come out when you don't want it, but release without thinking about it when you need it to.
I'm still not quite sure how to figure out the right adjustments to the cleats.
The ride itself probably isn't very interesting but here's the Strava link.
