New starter

lukestclair

Good evening.

Well after spending last year running, it got to a point where my knee on the left side would hurt when I trained three times a week. However to get the decent half marathon times, I could not drop down to two days.

I am planning to keep running as well, but drop my running days down, but need something else for my fitness.

Last Saturday I went out to look for a road bike. I went to a local schem alled Bikes 4 All in Leicester and they had a road bike that I was happy with. It is never going to compete with the expensive ones, but at the moment I do not have the funds to spend £300 +.

So all excited, I went out last Saturday and did a steady 20 mile ride on country roads. The Sunday i did a 12 miler. To keep the good lady happy, Monday was a rest day. Tuesday went out and just kept cycling, it felt really good and managed 22 miles.

To involve the good lady, e agreed to meet at a half way point on Thursday for my ride. I use to do this with my running and we would then meet at the end point, usually Foxton Locks . This turned into. 16 mile round trip.

Today, motivated the the century challenge riders coming through Mowsley earlier on, I went out and again just managed to keep riding, so much so, I thought I know I will pick up some new contact lense solution whilst I am out. This turned out to be a 32 mile ride and still feeling fresh.

I have invested in some basic Shimano peals today to clip in, but my shoes that I purchased from Aldi in the week are not SPD-SL compatible? Only SPD. Looking online you can get an adapter kit from wiggle.co.uk, so I will be doing that.

The bike it working well, it need as little fine tuning, which the shop said they would do in three weeks time when I take I back to have it checked over FOC.

So far the road cycling is very addictive and most enjoyable.... I do hope this continues.

I have found forum posts to be excellent on here and good place to get a better understanding.

rick_chasey

Good stuff.

Bummer about the shoes / pedals.

Sure you can't return either the shoes or pedals to match??

Cleat Eastwood

Excellent. Its very addicitive.

If I was you i'd try and get refund on the aldi shoes and get a proper pair of spd - sl shimano ones- nt worth risking a bustacapp aldi shoe incident (tm)

fludey

Sounds like its going well, I'd prob try and change the shoes or the pedals to match, I would imagine adaptor kit will make shoes even harder to walk in and increase cleat depth from pedal axle.
Will keep eye out for your, sounds like your routes are round this way 8)