19.2.06

Not so clear anymore!





I thought my Shimano Ultegra SPD-SL pedals were about as maintainence free as they come...

Until I found out that the "body cover" of my pedals is completely worn out, and consequently I am destroying the alloy body of my pedals with every pedal stroke I take! Stupid Shimano...

Always read the fine print. It's unfortunate that issues like this occur on such a popular pair of pedals, yet practically no one knows about this "frequent" maintainence part that needs to be replaced. It's more dangerous than you think. Matt Wittig may have had trouble with his pedals last year...but I can't go there. The truth is out there now--check your Shimano SPD-SL pedals before they hurt you!

Speaking of hurt...I was in the hurt box today, preforming a bunch of benchmark fitness tests on the trainer all day long. What a blast--it actually went quite well, and I now know my power profile. I could have guessed it before--I'm not a sprinter, whattdoya know? I have great 5 min and threshold power, but my 1 min and sprint power is significantly lower in comparison. Oh well. At least that means I'll keep being a good mtb'er, just maybe not the best Cat 3 RR'er.

Race to your stregnths and train to your weaknesses, right? Not! Work on your stregnths, and let your weaknesses progress along with the rest of your overall fitness. I'll never be a great sprinter, so why die trying? I'm going to keep mashing out the LT intervals as the week goes on. Oh--and I've tried a bit o' this good stuff today. Potent stuff, but it tastes great. Drink up! MMMM.....Cherry.......

5 comments:

Sarah Lukas said...

My brother drinks that stuff all the time!

Ryan Baumann said...

If only it didn't cost an arm and a leg (40 cents...per ounce!) I'd buy more of it for sure.

Anonymous said...

How do you know what Matt did or didn't know about his pedals? I don't think you know the first thing about his accident or what may have caused it. I suppose you know why lance pulled out of his pedal in the first TT of the 2005 TdF.

Ryan Baumann said...

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend anyone by brining up Matt's case. I had heard several reports that he had a problem with his pedal disengaging, his knee hitting the handlebars, and going down.

I wasn't implying in any way that Matt didn't preform the proper maintainance on his pedals, or anything of the sort. I simply wanted to convey the importance of the mechanical condition of a racer's pedals to everyone's safety.

I appologize if my comment about Matt offended anyone. Although I didn't know him personally, I now ride for his team, and I will always honor him for his sheer good will and determination to succeed.

God bless.

Anonymous said...

Ryan,
Glad to see you're a drinker of our juice, send me an email and I'll hook you up. Sorry it took me so long to find it. :)

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