Day 2: Breezer

After one night, my 30 days pledge was already hanging by a thread. I didn't get home until after 9:00 tonight, due to a late video conference (one of the downsides of working for a Japanese multinational company). My first thought was to take a token ride up and down the street, but I decided to take a longer lap around Avery park instead. It turned out to be quite refreshing, which I guess is really the point of this whole "ride every day" pledge: it forces you get out there.

I decided to pull my Breezer out of the garage:

Since we last met this bike, I've changed it from a 69er+ back to a 26er with fat slicks. The bars went from the On One Mary to a too low Salsa Bend 2. The wider bars are better for off road work, the slick tires are better pavement... I still don't know what I'm going to do with this one.

I picked up these pedals this winter on a whim:

I'm transitioning from Time ATACs, which I've used for many years, back over to SPDs. Times are great for engagement while muddy, but I try never to ride in the mud anymore. While they nominally have more float than the SPDs (8* vs. 4*, I think), the SPD's float freely, while the Time pedals have some resistance to any rotational movement. I'm hoping the free float will be better on my knees.

I also hoped these combo pedals would be a nice compromise between a clipless pedal and a flat, but I'm not finding them so. They don't disengage as well as a normal SPD pedals when clipped in, and when I rode them tonight in regular shoes, they didn't feel like they had a noticeably bigger platform than just riding on a regular SPD--my foot mostly rested on the high, clipless part of the pedal, not the surrounding platform.

At least they were cheap.

Riding around a slick shod 26er at night kind of brought back memories of my college days at the University of Washington (go Huskies!), except my handlebar was about 4" too wide!