Thinking of starting to ride cross in the fall...

[colorisnt]

Wow. Lots of info in here! I am looking up these bikes you ladies are talking about and simply drooling. My roommate has no clue why a person needs more than one bike. Hahahaha. I told her it's like horses were - you can't just have one and a stable full is always the best.

I am weighing the options of pedals. Could you suggest any SPD pedals that also have a platform side so that if I want to have a rider come with me on the cross bike or commute in regular shoes to campus on a bike, it could work? My roommate has expressed interest on trail riding with me if I get this bike going and I would love to have company but she is nervous after a bike accident (needs a confidence builder) and while we share a shoe size and are the same size, she is not ready for pain of clipping in and out. As it stands, the shimanos are perfect in that they have a cleat only on one side. Best of both worlds.

[gnat23]

I am weighing the options of pedals. Could you suggest any SPD pedals that also have a platform side so that if I want to have a rider come with me on the cross bike or commute in regular shoes to campus on a bike, it could work? My roommate has expressed interest on trail riding with me if I get this bike going and I would love to have company but she is nervous after a bike accident (needs a confidence builder) and while we share a shoe size and are the same size, she is not ready for pain of clipping in and out. As it stands, the shimanos are perfect in that they have a cleat only on one side. Best of both worlds.

I would say for a given ride, either clip in or don't, hard-stop. I've had the dual-sided pedals, and whether I was racing or casual riding, I couldn't ever seem to really NAIL which side I needed at a given time, and was super frustrating. Especially during racing, you had better be able to get your feet on/in that pedal in 0.0023576 seconds with no fiddling or guessing.

My solution? (just like too many bikes...) Have two sets of pedals, one clip-in, one platform. They're super easy to swap out.

-- gnat!

[colorisnt]

Yeah, I was thinking about that. I already have a standard set of platform pedals to swap out with so that's no big deal. I have to get pedals no matter what at this rate. I guess I am such an old pro on the road bike with the pedals that it doesn't bother me at all but I'm not at all in a time crunch when I am getting on the bike. I don't have to swing my leg over and hop on while moving, basically. I'm not Breaking Away or anything. However, with this, I'd probably want them to be on both sides. I need a new pedal wrench anyway so it makes sense.