Pedal Party!

Bikes get Christmas presents, too, right? Sure they do. I ordered new pedals for my Surly Cross-Check, and Annie nabbed the pedals off her old bike. We’re still pretty new to a lot of this bike maintenance thing so something as simple as putting pedals on is new and exciting for us. For all of you bike folks about to look at these pictures and scream “why aren’t you using a bike work stand!!??”, the answer is: because we don’t have one. They are expensive, and thus far this is really the most bike mechanic type thing we’ve done so far. Don’t fret, a work stand is in the future. Anyway, I wanted to take some pics for fun of the new stuff because a) we’re still really excited about our new bikes and new things for the bikes, and b) it’s an excuse to take pics with our new camera.

As a fun game, try to see if you can spot the cat in all the photos. Damn cats always being curious.

I put a set of Shimano’s A530 SPD pedals on my Cross-Check. They’re a double sided pedal – one side has a platform like plain, normal pedals, while the other has a clip system for SPD cycling shoes (which should be arriving early next week!)
They are the lightest set of hybrid SPD pedals Shimano makes, coming in at about .7 – .8 pounds for the pair. I was considering another pair before these, that look a little more like standard platforms on the non-clip side, but they weighed in at just over 1.2 pounds for the pair. I was able to check them out at a local bike shop and they felt incredibly heavy. When you’re biking long distances cutting down on weight wherever you can is nice.

Here are Annie’s pedals from her old bike. She prefers to use the cages on her pedals, instead of using the clipless cycling shoes system. They’re old fashioned, but Annie likes it that way.
We’re planning on taking a Christmas Day bike ride and are looking forward to trying everything out. I can’t wait to get my shoes so I can start my clipless pedals learning curve. Any bets on how many times I fall over? More pictures to come…including some of the surly biker himself out on the trails with us…

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!