After a late (and LARGE) pancake breakfast at the Chocolate Box in Camberwell with Tee, I visited my “dealer” Mick to get a fix. Today’s fix would consist of an even blend of Ultegra SPD-SL pedals (PD-R600) and SPD-SL shoes (the carbon-sole SH-R151’s to be exact).

After 3 or 4 years of using the SPD mountain bike pedal system for commuting, road racing, mtb racing and even track racing I felt I should move to a proper road system for the road and track bikes.

At this stage I’ve roughly positioned the cleats and taken the Pug for a quick spin around the block. Everything feels strange!

The shoe is 3 strap rather than 2 and a lot stiffer than my old Nike SPDs so my feet will have to get used to the change.

The engagement mechanism operates differently requiring a softer click-in in a slightly different position.

One-sided entry will make my starts interesting for a while and I’m sure to slip onto my backside any time I have to walk in these things! They are much less walk-friendly than the SPDs (well.. duh!).

The actual pedaling action feels more solid when powering down but the amount of float took me by surprise – the shoes seem to ‘skate’ around a little more than my SPDs.

Using the good advice of not trying anything new before a race, I will take them off and fit the SPDs before tomorrow’s crit.

– Addendum –

This might answer a few of your questions:

www.cyclingnews.com review the Dura Ace SPD-SLs

Also bought:

– an Alien multi-tool

– one of the new red sidewall Pro Race tyres

– selection of High-5 and GU bars and gels to test out

Did I miss a full moon?

What a strange night!

It started with me racing a minibike on the Hawthorn velodrome! Yep, the very same “toy” I mentioned on aus.bicycle was becoming popular the other day.

Suffice to say… I kicked its arse! 🙂

Some wanker in a Supra or the dodgy Aussie imitation Celica with XIAN WORLD or something written all over it decides zipping in front of me with no indicator is a good idea, then basically pushes a car out of the way to get back in the other lane (cars beeping now), then zips out again.. this continued up the road until I lost him. If you see a purple Supra/Celica covered in XIAN WORLD, kick his fscking mirrors off.

Then a guy in a convertible Porsche does the same “what indicators?” trick. He did a fantastic impression of the opening scene of Office Space, where the protagonist’s lane is stopped so he changes over and then that lane stops and the one he was in starts moving..

As soon as Nigel Mansell here had moved into the left lane, it stopped and the right lane moved forward! I rode past and congratulated him on his awesome move (what the hell, I’m a prick!). Convertibles are great, not only for driver-penile-enhancement but for chatting to drivers – driver’s take note!

Then there was the smiling thumbs up from.. wait for it.. a holden ute driver?!?

Initially I thought he was being sarcastic and that I’d done something wrong by him, but I ran the last kay through my head and couldn’t think of anything that would prompt such a reaction, except for the tram passing. Belting down the hill, the tram was stopping at one of those stupid kerbside blocks, so I took the bike lane, tail-whipped the roadie off the exit lip and bam, in front of everyone! 😀 I figure he was congratulating me on my speed.. 😀

This is useful info for the roadies who want to try a few dirt crits or enduros. It also works the other way around with MTBA members getting a discounted CA membership.

www.hawthorncycling.org

Glenvale 17-Oct-2004

Today’s Glenvale crit ended with a similar result for me as last week, that is, placing mid-field. I did feel much better after this race than last week’s and could actually ride up the hills on the way home rather than crawl up them, gasping for the cruel punishment to end.

I’m not sure why I felt better – there may have been lower C grade numbers due to Around the Bay in a Day or it could have been the two days in a row off the bike prior to the race. Does dancing use the same muscles as cycling? Extra sleep certainly wasn’t the reason for feeling fresh! 😉

The race was fairly non-eventful. I just tried to stay upright and find good wheels to follow. I did chase one break attempt down, simply because I was on his wheel when he jumped – silly boy should know these things before wasting all that energy! 🙂

There was more craziness towards the end with pedal strikes and people changing lines mid-corner which of course had others swinging around to avoid them. All of this worked to push me totally out of contention for the sprint. Next week I’ll move up earlier so I don’t have to deal with all the slower-rider scrapping!

(Jeez, listen to me.. I actually think I can contest the sprint pah! 😉 )

I think I will wear knee warmers more often. My knees seem to like the idea and it covers the big-ass scare on my knee from the track crash last season.

Howdy to the Ringwood Tri Club chick in blue kit riding along Mitcham then Canterbury roads. I think you should join the Wednesday-night Croydon Cycle Works shop ride up the 1:20, with Mickos, Bartos, occasionally hippyos and loyal fans. With your build you’d kick my arse! (until we got to the downhill..) 🙂

Ahh.. I’m stuffing my face post-race and those ATB suckers are still pedaling! Lucky bastards got awesome weather this year though.

Race Stats:

Time 0:55:30.5

HR 188 Max 192 Avg 171 Min 122

Dist 36.6 min/km 1:31

Avg Speed 39.6 kph

Avg Cadence 111 rpm

Temperature 17 ?C