New Pedals

Thursday's my training rest day, as I have my weekly Childline shift in the morning (although my 5.15am alarm often feels like the middle of the night), and I had to go to the Saison Poetry Library on the Southbank to do a bit of research for my Open University Course in the afternoon.

Therefore, no stats or training roundup for today, but if you've had a chance to have a quick look at yesterday's video, you may have seen the bit where I demonstrate the new Speedplay Light Action pedals that I fitted before going out to the park.

I appreciate that not everyone will find the intricacies of pedal choice all that thrilling, but I just thought I'd write a little bit about them in case other cyclists are interested in trying them out.

The main reason for changing from the Look Keo Sprint pedals that I did have was that I was getting a bit of pain in my knees - particularly the left - after any rides of moderate distance. One of the many quirks of my body is that I have quite a bit of curvature in my lower legs - again particularly the left - and I think this was part of the problem.

With 'Look' type pedals, once the foot is clipped into the pedal, its position is fixed very firmly, meaning that the forces through your legs follow a very fixed path. With the Speedplay 

mechanism, the whole of the 'attachment' mechanism is moved to the cleat that goes on the bottom of your shoe, leaving just a 'lollipop' shaped pedal.

This mechanism allows Speedplay to incorporate a significant (15 degree) amount of 'float' into the attachment mechanism, meaning that with every pedal stroke, your feet can wiggle about a bit and find their natural position, thereby hopefully reducing the risk of knee strain.

Another - for me quite significant - benefit of the Speedplay pedal system is that they're 'double

 sided', meaning that you can clip onto them from either side. They also locate onto the shoe cleat much more easily than the Look pedals. 

Practically, this means that when you're pulling away from junctions or traffic lights, there's far less fumbling with your feet, trying to manoeuvre your pedal and foot into the right position. It also cuts out lots of potentially dangerous looking down - when you should be looking ahead at the road - and the regular painful bashes to the shin

 when you stamp down on the pedal to clip in - just miss - and send the pedal spinning backwards into your leg.

So far, the results have been very good. I've found them much easier to use than the Look pedals, and although my knee was pretty sore yesterday morning, after doing another hour and a half or so's riding, the pain had gone by this morning - another really good sign.