Back from Florida, back on the bikes...

I got home from Florida about two weeks ago, and as usual, the weather followed me back. My work schedule plus the extreme temperatures (with the heat index topping off at 111ºF!) kept me off the bike for most of those two weeks, but never fear, I am back riding again.

Most of those rides were on a new single speed I got for riding around campus. (I'm going back to MSU, in case you didn't know! I can't remember if I mentioned it here...) The decision to get a single speed was based on several factors, but mostly I just wanted a simple bike to get me around the flat town of East Lansing. It goes against my morals to clod around on a 40 pound mountain bike from Walmart, so for about only $50 more I bought the cheapest bike on Nashbar and put it together myself.

No bike of mine is complete without some pink, so I threw on some hot pink Oury grips and called it a day. (I also tore off the cheap houndstooth stickers that came on it.) The whole thing, complete with fancy-pants grips, cost me $213. I think it's a pretty decent bike for being pretty cheap. There are more tweaks I want to do (like getting a seatpost and saddle for it that don't suck), but all that can wait.

I'm in a minor dilemma about the pedals. For a campus bike, platform is okay, and maybe preferable. I hate riding without clipless pedals, but I don't want to come back from class and realize my means of putting power to the cranks has been stolen. I've been thinking about throwing some toe clips on there, but I dunno. Worth it? I also figure, if I want to take it to the track, I can just put my spare set of Speedplays on it. (That's another thing I like about this bike—flip the rear wheel and throw on some drop bars...boom, super cheap track bike.) Speaking of the track...

I'm officially digging it. Had my first track experience today, and it was awesome! It's been a while since I've had that much fun on a bike. I can't wait to go back.

There was one small hitch: about halfway through when we were doing some paceline exercises, all of a sudden I noticed my right pedal didn't feel quite...right. I promptly moved off the track and onto the infield, only to discover my pedal was hanging on by a thread. Literally, one thread. The rest were stripped out.

I believe the appropriate reaction is "EEP!"

After a quick swap, I was off riding again. I find myself wondering why I didn't try it before, especially since my boyfriend (who I've occasionally mentioned on this blog as TrainerDan™) started prodding me to give it a try over a year ago. What can I say? I may be late to the party, but I'm glad I'm here.

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.

Well, that's going to leave a bruise...

Just the other night, I was discussing clipless pedals at a bar with a friend (I just re-read that sentence, and w-o-w, I have no life...) and stated that while I have my fair share of spills on my mountain bike, it's never been because I couldn't clip out in time.

I should've knocked on wood.

I rode Addison again today, and on one of the climbs I wasn't paying enough attention and my gearing was too high. As my pedaling slowed down I couldn't keep upright...and my feet locked up. And so I tipped over, and then slid down a hillside a little bit...when I stopped moving I was about eight feet away from the trail, and my face was inches away from the underside of my rear wheel. What the heck? How did that even HAPPEN?

Replaying the fall in my head, I still don't know how I ended up that way. I'm only a little scratched up, but my knee is already starting to swell. I'm going to have to check out my pedals (I use Crank Bro Candies); they've always been very easy to pop out of, but today I noticed a couple of times that they felt sticky and not as quick to disengage. It was probably a warning sign.

In other news, I recently made a trip to REI to pick up some gels (you can't beat the 20% discount...) and I found some new ride snacks to try out! There were some interesting ones, including some that look like malted milk balls, and hazlenut butter, and even some tasty-looking flavored honey things. So, over the next couple weeks, expect to find my reviews here.

First up: Power Bar Energy Gel Blasts.

There were two flavors at REI: Raspberry and Strawberry Banana. I went with the Strawberry Banana option because they contained caffeine. I was expecting them to have the consistency of Gushers, but they were more of a really tough gummy. They were actually pretty hard to chew, so I don't really think I'd recommend them for an on-the-bike snack. I think I'll be sticking with Gu for that. But they're nice if you're like me and stop between laps to enjoy a nice picnic. (Yes, that's grape juice and a PBJ sandwich in the background.)