are shoes worth it?

On Feb 27, 10:52 pm, TimC -
astro.swin.edu.au wrote:
On 2008-02-27, (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:

They are not super super tight, but about the right level of tightness
i'd expect for a shoe of this type. Tighter that is, than sneakers.
When i ride though, i find almost all the strain is taken up by the
outside of my feet, at the front. The result is that my 2 or 3
outside toes on each foot eventually get tingly then a bit numb. i
also find that they make me work muscles in my leg that i'd rather
not!

Wrong shaped shoe perhaps (too narrow at the toes?). Ideally, you'd
try several shoes in the shop, just like normal shoes, and find the
comfortable ones. Even more ideally, you'd then try them on the bike.
In practice... ideals get thrown out of the door.

When riding with sneakers, I tend to put the peddle somewhere around
the middle of my foot. I sometimes move to the front, but for just
riding around, the middle is good for me.

Ball of the foot, not middle. Just it's harder to do that without
clips or cleats.

Is there something i am missing? The seller of the bike told me it's
worth using clipons because you get a lot more power (am i intended to
pull *up* as well as push down?) but i find myself mostly getting less
pleasure. Im not intending to ever race, I just like to go for a
ride. Should i persist, or go back to normal peddles?

They're well worth it after you get used to them (good shoes, anyway).

It's not really for pulling up (studies (Hi Bleve! I'm too lazy to
look up the reference right now!)

One elephant stamp for Tim

EuanB wrote:

This document is a good summary:
http://www.topbike.com.au/pdfs/colso...ly_aug2002.pdf

Thanks a lot for that. Very enlightening.