I used to ride clipless pedals with the proper cycling shoes since I started mountain biking as an adult in Venezuela. Learned how to do it, didn't fall when stopping, and ate the whole sales pitch about how you had to be clipped in to ride effectively. When I move to the SF Bay Area and started road riding, I continued except that now I had road shoes and cleats for the road bike and SPD shoes and cleats for the mountain bike. Geometry, fit and constant pain drove me to seek an alternative and I discovered RBW and got my Homer.
A new world of possibilities opened, but still had pain and still rode clipless pedals although by that time, had ditched the road versions and just used SPDs. The Atlantis was added, the Hunqapillar was added, the Betty was added, Low Trail forks were added to the Atlantis & Hunqapillar, the Hunqapillar was sold and some periods of no riding also ensued intermixed with all this; you've read the story in other posts. At some point during this evolution, stumped by the pain on my feet (primarily left foot with strong suspicion of having a Morton's neuroma, I tried flat pedals, first the RBW offerings to no avail. Finally, looking for a wide platform even after trying the one RBW sold, I discovered the DMR Vault pedals and started trying those with less pain/more success while still using fairly rigid FiveTen MTB shoes. Any time I tried riding with more flexible shoes, severe pain would develop. Still riding the platform pedals with the FiveTen shoes resulted in significantly less pain than any other prior option I had tried. Last year in May I went Primal (LCHF/EBDJ) and lost 40 lbs between May and October. Then plateaued and had a hard time being strict, but was still eating primarily LCHF with a few isolated relapses. Hardly rode my bikes at all until the end of the year. It was at this time that I made an accidental discovery that is puzzling me as to its cause: as I was doing my LCHF diet change, I discovered Altra shoes, which work on the premise of having a large toe box and zero drop to make the foot work like it's supposed to, and made a case for why regular shoes weaken the foot. I got both Altra sneakers (running shoes although I don't run) and their business casual model, and only wore those. When I started riding, for some reason I cannot remember, I went on a ride with my Altra sneakers and discovered that I could ride those flexible shoes with no pain at all, in fact, it was much more comfortable to ride wearing them than to ride wearing the FiveTen shoes. I couldn't understand it. I was placing the middle of my foot on the pedal, but I was on flexible shoes! Started riding in december and over the next few months kept it up and tailored the fit on the Atlantis, the Betty and now the Homer to the point where I am basically pain free until the rides hit the 2 hour mark, at which point the neck and left shoulder start becoming a bit sore. Have increased my mileage comfortably and my riding time and somewhere in the last month, I discovered that my foot "migrated" spontaneously from the middle of the arch over the pedal to the ball of the foot over the pedal with no negative effects. Actually, I think it resulted from my effort to focus on riding at higher cadences, which seem to be easier on the ball of the foot than on the middle of the foot. Two weeks ago I decided to see what would happen if I rode clipless again, so I installed the pedals and pulled out my Specialized BG wide shoes. Needless to say, my foot feels constrained and "locked", although the rides have been mostly pain free, albeit with some discomfort. Primarily it feels as if my foot is detached from the pedal, and the rigid sole doesn't feel good anymore. Going back to the flat pedals and more flexible shoes feels much better. Have my feet gotten stronger and have improved their function from the months of walking with the very flexible wide Altra shoes with zero drop (sort of minimalistic, but not quite extreme) coupled with the supposedly reduced inflammation derived from the diet changes? If so, will attempting to ride with cycling rigid shoes and clipless pedals harm this process and I should just completely stay on flat pedals with comfortable shoes? I have yet to explore riding with sandals, but as the weather warms up I'm certainly looking forward to that option as well. Thoughts and insights welcome! René -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
