Lion and Magic Boy

Every time I get on my bike for another ride I think about my friend Mark. I don’t know why exactly, but to me Mark has some definite warrior energy, and bike riding for me is a warrior-like activity:

Must. Attack. Hills.
Hate. Hills. Attack! Attack!
Must. Ride. Faster. Than Last Time. Must! Must!

Last night I went for another ride, two days in a row now since taking some time off from rain-avoidance, heat-avoidance, and sheer laziness/excuse-making. Three counting today, now.

Part of the avoidance was about pain. No, Must. Overcome. Pain!! Well, no. Not when it’s in the feet. Pedaling on stumps is not fun, but it happens when you order your shoes online and underestimate the size needed, meaning that they cause your feet to go numb after 25 minutes of so. Therefore: numb stumps. I cannot pedal on stumps. (Shouldn’t the word “bloody” be inserted just ahead of “stumps”? For more, you know, effect?)

So I ordered new shoes in a larger size, and as long as I was doing that I figured, why not make them road shoes so I can use clipless pedals, thereby making me go faster which is really what riding the bike is all about: the speed. Forget everything else, but give me speed!

Turns out clipless pedals are a bitch to install. They arrive in a box with instructions in various languages. First you have to attach a plate (“cleat”) to the shoe; an outie on the plate attaches to an innie on the pedal itself. But the plates work on various types of shoes. HINT: It helps to know which type of shoe you have, not the brand or anything useless like that but the type of clipless pedal system it’s designed for. Without this information you are screwed unless and until you eventually just start lining up holes and screwing in screws, because the pictures on the instructions are useless. And there’s nothing much about this online except a lot of warnings about what not to do once you get your clipless pedals installed, namely which is to forget how to get your feet out of them when you come to a stop on the bike and fall over. Oh, I SO am not doing that!

So. Good. Cleats are attached to shoes now, and only one knuckle scraped and bleeding in the process. We’re doing just fine.

Next, the pedals. Wait, this requires a…wrench. Good, I have several, in lots of sizes! Which size do I need? Oh, the one I don’t have. Of course. Damn. No clipless pedals today, which means I have to wear the Torture Shoes again, and endure the stumpage.

Bloody hell. I was really looking forward to using them, too. I can just picture it, cruising to a smooth stop, twisting my foot to remove it from the pedal (maybe I should practice that bit a little first, just in case).

But wait! Couldn’t I use these shiny new road shoes with the cleat-things attached; won’t they be sort of grabby-on to my pedals and allow me to ride in relative comfort, without the stumpage? Even without the proper pedals? Sure, let’s try it!

Wearing the shoes, I walk to the garage, and nearly break my neck in the process. The damn things are really slippery! Especially on wood floors!

Stepping only on the carpeted bits, I make my way to the garage, get out my bike and close the garage door. Hmm, these pedals feel…funny. And the shoes slip all the way through the toe clips. This won’t do. After 300 feet, I turn around and head back.

Here I am at the driveway! I’m braking (wasn’t going all that fast, damn shoes), aaaaand…stopping. Good! Left foot is down on the ground, right foot…still in the pedal…what the…?

Now I know what it feels like to fall over on the bike. Ow. Lots of bad words uttered.

Good! Got that out of the way!

And the wrist-thing, the elbow-thing, and the headache (good thing I had a helmet on) were all excellent excuses to ride slower. Which I did NOT DO, because I am a warrior! A GODDESS!! BOOYAH!