It’s been about three weeks since The Bike Whisperer set the Kinesis up to use a midfoot cleat position. I’d love to be able to tell you I now make 20% more power or something but it’s not yet possible to tell if there’s any performance improvements. No, I’m not going to try and analyse my power files in that kind of detail just yet.

I do make enough power to snap quality chains (and before you use my oft-spoken own words against me – no it wasn’t the join that failed and this chain had done a few thousand kilometres before I ripped the side-plate to pieces).

What I can tell you is that I’ve quickly adjusted to the mid-foot cleat change and it certainly doesn’t feel slow(er). I’ve put in some reasonably hard rides (up to 160k/100mi) as well as regular commuting and I’ve got used to the toe overlap and wrong-sided trackstanding. The odd feeling when riding out of the saddle is also barely noticeable to me now. I’ve noticed nothing in terms of aches or pains. Certainly there’s been no reappearance of my Achilles tendinitis that plagued me last year. It’s perhaps too early to write that off completely, however the signs are promising.

Today, Scherrit set up my Planet X Stealth time trial bike for use with mid-foot. I bought a second pair of Shimano shoes from ebay – the more bling silver carbon R131s. Scherrit will do all the custom drilling soon (based on a slightly modified set of instructions from Steve Hogg) but in the mean time I will use my existing pair of Shimano R085 shoes with the new Speedplay cro-mo pedals and saddle adjustment (775mm down to 751mm and some fore/aft adjustment, 4 deg front drop remained the same). We didn’t adjust the bars lower just yet in order to keep the setup ‘comfortable’ rather than ‘aero’ for the early test rides.

In other news I received three trophies this year from the Willesden CC. If I’d have bothered to enter a 50 and 100 I’d probably have scored a couple more!

Willesden CC Winners

Last night I bought some more cycling books, including The Long Distance Cyclists’ Handbook by Simon Doughty. It wasn’t until I read one of the comments from a certain Rocco Richardson (who was missed at the club dinner, get well soon!) that I actually noticed the author’s name. After a bit of googling, I’m sure that the Simon Doughty who wrote this book is the same one that holds the current Willesden Cycling Club 24hr TT record. So, I’m buying the book of the guy I’m trying to surpass!