Since
Christmas, there have been two shiny sets of Crank Brothers pedals sitting in my
office. Santa was kind enough to bring
me a set of egg-beaters for my Madone and a set of Mallets for my Lush. On Boxing Day, I went to Ernie’s and
purchased a set of pink and black Specialized cycling shoes that would work with either
pedal (I can’t ride two bikes at once, right?
So why have two sets of shoes?).
Although I
biked around a bit in the winter, I wasn’t quite brave enough to try out my
clipless pedals until conditions were less slippery. On the Madone, I managed to give the egg-beaters
a try back in February, when a warm spell dried out the road for a few days. This went well. I was obsessive about remembering to unclip
and I didn’t have any of the ridiculous accidents I’ve heard about where
riders stop and then tip over in slow motion.
I was pleased.
Mountain biking
with clipless pedals has been a different story. I think maybe the Mallets are harder to clip
into than the egg-beaters, but that’s not the only problem. I know this may be hard to believe, but I am
actually quite accident-prone. And now, I
have this terrible fear of having a major mountain biking catastrophe with my
feet still attached to my bike. Bruce,
of course, assures me that my feet will unclip themselves in an accident, as if
by magic. I don’t believe it for a
second. I’m probably going to end up
with bones poking through my skin and no front teeth.
There’s also
this weird scenario where I remember to unclip one foot, then in attempting to
unclip the other foot I manage to shift my weight and fall over. So now I always unclip both feet
simultaneously and cruise to a stop with my feet in the air and the pedals
spinning freely. It looks really cool.
Reaction times
are also slower. Last week, I slammed on
my brakes when I came around a corner to find a tree in my path. I skidded to a quick stop (gawd, the Lush has amazing brakes), heart pounding, and
then promptly crashed sideways into the dirt.
In retrospect, maneuvering around the tree might have been a good idea.
So, to clip-in
or not to clip-in? The jury is still
out. I’m going to keep using them for
the time being, and maybe my issues will resolve with practice. Certainly, on familiar, relatively open trails,
I am comfortable using the Mallets. In a
racing situation with a lot of climbing (like Leadville) they are infinitely
superior to flat pedals. On technical
singletrack? Not a chance.
