Bonus Summer Ride
Another ride is on the horizon. I'll be in NZ for a family Christmas, and few other weeks too. Which is enough time to go for a ride around one of the islands. I'm still figuring out the dates and all the other details. So it's not clear how much time is available, where we'll be, and what is possible. Ideally I'll ride the whole length of NZ because anything less is unfinished business. But depending on time maybe it'll only be the length of one island. Maybe the smaller one. Or maybe even less.
The full route. If only I had enough time…
Which means it's time to shake out the bike, dig out the cycling outfit, and go ride around some things to get fit and check the gear. Actually it was time four weeks ago, and sadly "update the blog" wasn't on the list, oops.
One other reason to do some kilometers is that I've finally switched to clipless pedals. So the bike pedals now are an intricate metal spike with wings and springs, and look like something that medieval researchers may have used to discover magnetism and/or witches. You need shoes to match; they are Not Cheap like everything else in this business. They're hard plastic so they don't flex when pedalling; the tradeoff is that they sound like clogs when walking.
The advantage is that you can pull the pedals up as well as pushing down, which means you get more force out. It also means your feet are stuck to the pedals, and getting them unstuck requires a particular twist. It's nothing tricky. But one of the standard experiences of getting started with clipless pedals is that you forget to do this, usually at some innocent moment like stopping to chat with someone whom you’d rather not embarrass yourself with, and you fall over sideways to the great amusement of everyone around.
I've looked at clipless pedal in the leadup to previous trips, but I didn’t take them because I was extra-careful about injuries during that time. I got the new pedals put on after getting back from Chile so I've had maximum time to get used to them. I haven't fallen yet... and if this jinxes it, best to take the fall early. And more practice is always best.
But: I checked that claim about the advantages of clipless, and the conclusion seems to be that the advantages are a bit dubious. Apparently the power you get out is almost exclusively in the downstroke, so the improvement from being able to pull the pedals up is unimportant, unless you're doing some glute-shredding sprint. Which I am not. Also, I saw an apocryphal story about a Japanese competitor in the NZ Ironman who arrived at the swim-bike transition, to find he had forgotten to put his bike shoes in his transition bag. So he did the 112-mile bike section with bare feet on clipless pedals. That is indeed metal, but the part that takes it into the realm of legend or disbelief is that he must have then done the marathon run on mutilated feet. This could be an argument that clipless isn’t that important? But I don't really know what to think here. Actually I do: [Citation needed].
Having your feet fixed on the pedals reduces the risk of jolts making them slip off, which is fair: I've had that a few times. It also keeps them in an efficient place on the pedals, I suppose. I'll see how I feel after this NZ trip; if I'm not feeling good then I'll go back to flats.
But there’s some bigger questions to sort out first. Like: the route.
