Sam and Dave’s blog

Sam and I always talked about swapping places on the bike at some point, and now we’ve finally got around to giving it a try. We were waiting until we had bought a ‘Maillon rapide’ (magic link) for the front chain so that I could easily add or remove an extra length of chain (which we had brought with us).

So yesterday we gave it the first real trial: Sam had a solo cycle round the car park at les Gouffres Proumeyssac in order to get used to steering and controlling the bike. All was going well until she tried to stop, and, unable to release her foot from the automatic pedal clips, made an impressive Jeremy Beadle style crash to the floor.

Thankfully there was no serious harm done except for a bruised ego.

Not deterred, Sam gave it another try, this time avoiding the pedal clips, and eventually got the hang of it.

I think the clips which came with the front pedals must be slightly different than the SPD ones on the back pedals (although they’re supposed to be the same).

After Sam had got a bit more confident, we set off. I took over again for the uphill stretches, and Sam had a go on the downhill stretches. I hadn’t bothered to lengthen the front pedals, so I had my knees around my ears and couldn’t really push the pedals with any force.

Wow, it’s really nice on the front seat! Not only comfortable, but you can really look around and appreciate the countryside, without needing to worry about looking at the road at all. I’ll definitely have to make sure Sam gets more practice on the back.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 13th, 2007 at 10:39 am and is filed under cycling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.