Home of the Winter Cyclist
And Other Crazy People.
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And Other Crazy People. |
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ICEBIKE Tights!!
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By Simon Rakower of All Weather Sports
Shoes and Pedals
If you use conventional pedals you'll find a lot of choices in warm footwear. People who have trouble keeping their feet warm may want to go this route. Look for shoes that are light and fairly stiff in the sole.
There's a widely sold type of shoe that looks like an oversized sneaker. LL Bean calls it a Snow Sneaker, we call it a snow jogger. Kinneys, REI and EMS all sell their versions. The sole isn't very stiff but they're light, warm and inexpensive. They were the shoe of choice in the early days of the Iditabike and remain popular with the more leisurely winter cyclists. Gail Koepf, who's won more Iditasports and Iditabikes than anyone else, still uses Snow Sneakers to pedal her Litespeed . To lessen heat loss through metal pedals, cut out 1/4-inch plywood plates to fit within the pedal cage and wire them to the pedal. For added grip, use grip tape or run about half a dozen small machine screws through each plywood plate.
Power Grips offer some useful advantages over toe clips or no clips. They don't compress your toes like toeclips, they don't break in the cold and they engage and release about as easily as Clipless pedals. The standard size fits Snow Joggers up to sizes in the mid 40s. Bigger feet or bulkier footwear will need the oversized model. BPP makes Power Grips, and they are the best source for the oversized model. The standard size is available though a number of distributors.
Clipless in the Cold
If you're used to the advantages of clipless pedals, it's hard to give them up for winter. The best argument for going to old style pedals is the need to keep our feet from freezing. However, if you want to go clipless you'll have to devise a way to attach cleats to winter footwear - or - to insulate clipless compatible riding shoes.
You can buy footwear that can practically guarantee that you won't freeze your feet while riding in extremely cold weather for extended periods, but such footwear hasn't yet been made in satisfactory SPD compatible form.
So if you want to ride the Iditasport, or just commute by ICEBIKE below -20F (-29C) with clipless pedals, you have to commit yourself to a serious level of attention to, and care for, your feet. You have to accept a degree of risk that could be avoided with other systems. People vary widely in how their extremities respond to cold.
None of the shoes made for winter cycling are warm enough in themselves to be used without extra insulation. This means you'll be buying them oversized and wearing extra layers inside and maybe outside. Three to five European sizes over your normal size is a common solution. Cycling shoes are often on sale in the winter months, especially the leftover large sizes. Rather than spending hundreds on "winter" shoes, buy any good racing shoe in the appropriate size. Look for models with little or no mesh. Try them on with as many socks as you think you'll need.
Most shoes have cleat hardware that passes through the sole, providing a good path for heat loss. If you want to experiment with felt or synthetic insoles to counter this, allow room (one more Euro size) when trying them on. My feet are pretty average in their response to cold and I find that three pairs of heavy socks will keep them happy for many hours at -20 F (-29 C). A heavy neoprene booty extends the comfort range to about -30 F (-34 C.) PYI/Spokeswear makes heavy neoprene booties up to size 48. I got them to make a run of size 49-50. If your normal shoe size is 45, you'll be looking at sizes like that for winter. The 49-50 also allows double layering booties if needed.
Sometimes the bootie shifts on the shoe, and interferes with cleat engagement. To prevent this you can glue the bootie sole to the shoe sole in the cleat area. If you wear summer shoes in mid to high 30s sizes, you may find it easy to borrow summer shoes that are just right, since shoes in the low to mid 40s are quite common.
Clipless Adapters
The other route to going clipless in winter starts with a choice of more winter specific footwear (boots of some sort) and requires attaching cleats to the soles. Snow Joggers, Nordic ski boots, snowboard boots and lightweight winter hiking boots all offer good starting points. Mark the soles where you want the cleats and drill them to take metric 5mm x 0.8 or 10-32 T-nuts. Carve away lugs in the cleat area, leaving at least as much space around the cleats as on your summer shoes. If the sole is stiff enough to hold the cleat securely, great. If not, you'll need to attach a rigid plate to the sole and then attach the cleat to it.
The holes that secure mountain bike cleats are close together and so don't resist the torque needed for twist-release very well in a soft sole. Shimano and Syntace both make adapters that are intended for attaching SPD type cleats to shoes drilled for Look cleats. The Look hole pattern has three widely spaced holes and offers good resistance to twisting. These adapters cost about $15 a pair. Another option is to make your own adapter plates out of sheet metal. A couple of hours of cutting and drilling will do it.
The big DH/BMX pedals by Shimano and Wellgo are easier to pedal unengaged and easier to clip into than the more common smaller models. Sometimes snow riding requires lots of dabbing; this type of pedal can be worth the extra weight under such conditions. The Ritchey Logic Pro pedals (the blue ones) work better in clogging snow than most Shimano clones and the Time pedals work better yet.
Excerpted from Simons article in the Iditabike Manual.
