Just bought my first road bike

Tattooine

Hi all, I'm probably one of thousands of mid 30's chaps who after the resurgence of cycling have jumped on the bandwagon.
To that end I bought my first road bike today, a Bianchi Nirone 7 c2c. I'd had a read around,particularly some of the advice on here and got great service from the guys in my lbs, the Bianchi turned out to be the one that suited my gangly frame and ridiculously long arms!

After 15 years of MTBing this is a major departure but one I,m really looking forward to getting involved in,although the MTB will still be getting hammered.

Ambitions are to get used to riding a different style and hopefully joining my local (Fareham) club and learning road craft from those who know. Hopefully getting to enter some sort of race eventually.

As for now, need to sort out some shoes and that'll be me ready to wobble down the road. I have Look Keo Plus pedals and cleats, should it matter what shoes I buy?

Thanks for reading and any suggestions and advice for the wobbly newbie will be welcomed

Many thanks

Tats

big_p

Tattooine

lmfao, roger that, standby

Tattooine

Apologies, dont seem to be able to upload the pics from my iPad (Hangs head in shame)

Embarrassed in my first thread :oops:

simon_masterson

Get the shoes that feel comfortable and are made well. More expensive shoes should hopefully be more comfortable, but as ever the premium in cycling is in weight (lack thereof), and therefore expensive shoes have fancy carbon fibre soles and are ludicrously light. This puts them in the 'marginal gains' category; not at all necessary for a beginner! For £100 you should be able to get about much shoe as you will ever really NEED; you can even get carbon fibre soles for that from DHB/Wiggle...

Tattooine

Thanks for the reply Simon, have looked at shoes online but am off to my lbs to try some on tomorrow, definitely not in the marginal gains category lol. Looking forward to getting involved and learning something new.

big_p

dhb stuff is always good value, mrs big p got some of their triathlon shoes from wiggle for 30 quid.

JamesB5446

It's an Italian bike, you'll have to buy Sidi's, simple as that.

andyeb

Welcome to the club! I bought a road bike a year ago after being into MTB for many years also.

If money is tight and you already have SPDs on your mountain bike, you could go with them on your road bike. I've done this and although some roadies won't speak to me because I'm riding with MTB shoes (it is afterall against The Rules), they seem to do the job fine. At least for getting started.

Would strongly recommend finding a local club - went on my first group ride a few weeks back and it was great fun.

Tattooine

JamesB5446 wrote:

It's an Italian bike, you'll have to buy Sidi's, simple as that.

There we go,something else I didn't know lol,keep the advice (relevant or otherwise) coming.

You know I will only look at Sidi shoes tomorrow though!!!

Tattooine

andyeb wrote:

Welcome to the club! I bought a road bike a year ago after being into MTB for many years also.

If money is tight and you already have SPDs on your mountain bike, you could go with them on your road bike. I've done this and although some roadies won't speak to me because I'm riding with MTB shoes (it is afterall against The Rules), they seem to do the job fine. At least for getting started.

Would strongly recommend finding a local club - went on my first group ride a few weeks back and it was great fun.

Cheers for the reply mate, MTB shoes are on the bones of their arse anyway so will be looking for a new set anyway. Will definitely be getting involved with my local club, looking forward to learning from those with experience.

Thanks for the replies Chaps

Graydawg

I've been using my MTB shoes and spare SPD pedals from my MTB's and don't see an issue, if you have them use them, but my girlfriend has just gone and bought me a pair of muddyfox road shoes from sportsdirect.com which are really great for the price (<£25), you'll just need to get some SPD-SL pedals and cleats (around £20 on top of that)

Enjoy!

Tattooine

Well,shoes were bought today, the wife surprised me and paid for a nice set of Specialized shoes

Cleats fitted and went for a shortish ride today, the bike just wants to go which I really like. Managed to make a bit of a mess of my cleats walking to the garage to get my bike though!!!! How does everyone avoid trashing cleats??

Rides really well,spent some time clipping in and out down a quiet lane and operating the gears,have an annoying clicking noise when I push down on the left but other than that it's all good. Hopefully I'll be joining a mate on Sunday PM for my first proper ride and fully expect to be in the hurt locker by Sunday tea time!!

Loving it so far

Bustacapp