Got my first road bike...

[R7YN]

The initial message was deleted from this topic on 03 June 2021 at 17:22

[bakerstreet]

Welcome to the club. My first road bike was also a Giant. In fact I still have it, admittedly, its not quite the same as it was when I first bought it

You have certainly picked the right weather for buying a road bike

[MG-FIDO]

Nice looking bike! How does it compare to what you've ridden in the past?

[yellowjack]

R7YN said:

Looking at making the jump to clip shoes and pedals in a month or so.

From my own experience, I'll say that the sooner you swap, the better. Preferably before you get into the habit of drawing your foot back out of those toe-clips. I had ten years plus of toe clips, and I had a couple of 'moments' soon after I swapped to cleated shoes/pedals. When you do get the cleats, practice, practice, practice! Muscle memory and habit are hard things to break, so repeated clipping and unclipping will be the order of the day when you swap, to retrain your muscles and brain into this new 'habit'. Swapping to 'proper' pedals is something that few people seem to ever regret, and I don't personally know of anyone who's gone back to toe straps or flats after trying cleated pedals on a road bike.

[R7YN]

Thanks for that Am I looking at alot of cost to get some pedals and the shoes?

[S13_Alan]

I'd opt for just geting clipless ones straight away over using the straps at all, so much better, and while coming from mountain biking on flat pedals it took a bit of getting used to I wouldn't be without them now.

You can get a cheap set of SPD pedals and shoes for like < £60 that would do you (if it was a case of wanting to minimise the amount spent).

I bought a set of Shimano single sided (with flat on one side) touring pedals for 25 quid plus some cheap own brand XC shoes out of Decathlon last year and they've been great. It's only now with getting a new bike and using SPDs all the time that I've just ordered a set of double sided XT ones to replace them and bought some better shoes.

[Fastpedeller]

yellowjack said:

From my own experience, I'll say that the sooner you swap, the better. Preferably before you get into the habit of drawing your foot back out of those toe-clips. I had ten years plus of toe clips, and I had a couple of 'moments' soon after I swapped to cleated shoes/pedals. When you do get the cleats, practice, practice, practice! Muscle memory and habit are hard things to break, so repeated clipping and unclipping will be the order of the day when you swap, to retrain your muscles and brain into this new 'habit'. Swapping to 'proper' pedals is something that few people seem to ever regret, and I don't personally know of anyone who's gone back to toe straps or flats after trying cleated pedals on a road bike.

Absolutely agree. After 30 years of using toeclips/straps my shoes fell apart! So it was over to SPD. Wish I'd done it years ago!
On my first ride everything was ok (I just kept thinking pedals..pedals..pedals). The next ride I was really getting used to enjoying the riding and security, but fell off 3 times because I kept pulling my feet backwards 30 years of 'brain-training' takes some breaking.

[pembo]

R7YN said:

Thanks for that Am I looking at alot of cost to get some pedals and the shoes?

Nope, when I decided to give it a go last year I started out with a pair of Shimano M520 pedals for around £15 and some shoes from Sports Direct for about £30.
It's definitely worth it.

[bakerstreet]

pembo said:

Nope, when I decided to give it a go last year I started out with a pair of Shimano M520 pedals for around £15 and some shoes from Sports Direct for about £30.
It's definitely worth it.

Yup. The DHB shoes from Wiggle are only £45 and they are fine. I have the £15 pedals on my CX bike and they were absolutely fine

[D1bram]

Nice. Also opted for a Defy as my first roadie too

Went SPD straight away and definitely recommend it. Have had one unclipping fail and that was totally my fault - getting too cocky!

I went for the MTB type M520's. Yeah ok the proper road stuff looks better, weighs a tiny bit less and conforms to the 'rules'. But I personally think the MTB pedals look a bit easier for a beginner and as a bonus they're very cheap too.