When I was a teenager, I rode for a year or more with toe clips on my unicycle.
In college I did the same for a while, till my wife tired of my occasional
spills due to them. But I loved them-- I could ride faster, fell off less, wet
feet never mattered, and I could ride down stairs without having to hold the
seat. Now I’ve been on platform style pedals for a couple years, but I finally
had the chance to rent the real thing for a couple of days and try them out:
clipless pedals. 12 bucks to the local “rent-a-store” and I was on my way!
No, I didn’t die. But I just thought I would write myself a little note to
remind me of the advantages of using clipless pedals. Here they are:
1.Instead of $30 for a nice set of platform pedals, you get to spend $30-$70
for the pedals, and another $25-70 for a pair of funny shoes.
2.You get to walk to class in those hard shoes you bought.
3.Instead of the usual running fast mount on a hill, you get the additional
challenge of idling back and forth on a steep/slick/bumpy/etc hill as you try
to get your second foot to click
in.
4.You end up with multicolored clothing, because instead of landing on your
feet all the time, sometimes you land on your knees, wrists, etc.
5.Using one leg to lift the rear pedal encourages the rider to sit on the seat
instead of standing up a little bit, which makes the bumps more comfortable
to ride over.
6.When you do try to pull up on the rear pedal to get added torque for a hill,
these pedals make it real easy for you to pedal by simply releasing
themselves when you don’t want them to.
7.You get to be selfish and tell people “Well, I would let you try my unicycle,
IF you had cool shoes like mine.”
8.You get to come home and have your wife chew you out for bleeding all over
the place or just having bumps, scrapes, etc. (She made that up)
9.You’ll probably get more use out of those expensive pads you bought.
10.The metal cleat in your shoe makes cool noises as it scrapes all the rocks on
the road while walking home after giving up on clipless pedals.