Hi all,

I'm new to this forum, and very happy to have found it! I just started riding with my local club this year with their Light/no drop group, and I am loving it. My longest rides to date have been 40 miles. I figured that since I'm now the only one on my ride who rides w/o clipless pedals (and I'm the only one who rides a Hybrid!), the time had come to start using them. So last weekend, I got a pair of Shimano Sport bike shoes and spd pedals. I chose the recessed cleat shoes because I'm planning to go on one of those guided rides in Italy next year, and I want shoes I can (sorta) walk in. Anyway, I did have one fall, first day I took the new pedals out, but I didn't break anything and have some lovely bruises. I'd been told that everyone falls at least once, so no big deal.

HOWEVER, as soon as I clip in, the entire bottom of one of my feet starts to ache so bad that I just want to rip the shoes off. I've been putting my orthotics in the bike shoes, figuring that if I need them for my other shoes, I need them for the bike shoes. I'm not sure what's happening, but my guess is that because of the stiffness of the shoe, the bottom of my foot is cramping. Do you think this will go away, or do you think I should try different shoes, or.....? I ALWAYS have problems finding shoes that fit anyway, because my foot is normal width and my heel is narrow, so it feels like my shoes are coming off, plus one foot is almost 1/2 a size bigger than the other.

Sorry for the length of this post, but I'm a little freaked that riding is now such a painful experience, and I've only done a couple of miles at a time with the pedals since I got them.

Cheers,
Ace (aka Amy), from Northern California