Why I didn't race today

I officially have the LAMEST reason for not racing. Ever.

It had been my plan to do a cyclocross race this weekend. I checked it out on Saturday and decided that today, Sunday, would be the day. The weather was great. The course was dry. I had even practiced dismounting and remounting and damn it, I was going to have fun. That is, of course, until I couldn't put pedals on my bike.

Now, I have been using a pair of older Speedplays on the cross bike until now because all the riding I've been doing has been on the road (albeit most of it dirt). But Speedplays won't cut it for cyclocross, for a number of reasons. First, they perform dramatically less good when you step into a foreign material such as dirt, pebbles, mud, and freshly-laid asphalt. (And yes, I have had to clean each of those materials out of my cleats after a ride.)

Second, they have ridiculous cleats. Seriously, the cleat footprint is HUGE. They take up the better part of the front of the shoe. Add in the fact that they're metal and slippery, and you get a surface that's very hard to walk on in the best of conditions. These cleats have made me fall on my butt while making my way through a convenience store before. No way am I going to trust them not to slip while I'm portaging my bike up a giant flight of stairs.

So, obviously, racing with the Speedplays was NOT an option. The solution was to swap out my Crank Brothers Candy pedals from the mountain bike. Simple enough task, I thought. Getting the Speedplays off was simple. And the left Candy pedal was simple, too. Came off easy. The right...not so much.

I couldn't make it budge. So I stopped to think for a minute. Yes, I was using the right tool. Yes, I was twisting in the correct direction. I even reviewed the extremely simple installation instructions on the Crank Brothers website. I was doing everything right. I threw all my strength and weight into it, and still no budge. This went on for a while until I felt too weak and dejected to try any longer.

So, I ended up just going to the race to take pictures instead. I still haven't gotten that damn pedal off. It won't be an issue for much longer because I've got a new set of Eggbeaters for the cross bike in the mail, but in the mean time I'll be taking the mountain bike to the LBS soon to see if they can get it off, and to ask if they put it on using a power tool.

I still had a good time taking pictures.