Shimano finally bit the bullet and replaced those skanky old, narrow, feet-burning SPD-R’s with the new, wide platformed, “so comfy it’s like wearing slippers” SL’s after Lance Armstrong spent 10 years riding Looks. If anything that says most about just how little giant corporations like admitting they’re wrong, doesn’t it? 10 years of this generation’s greatest champion specifically not using their product because he thought it “Sucked” (I’m paraphrasing there but it was probably that or “Blew”) before they changed it.

And like Shimano, my current return to the sport I have finally replaced my old Ultegra SPD-R’s with shiny new 105 SPD-SL’s. Which say less about how little I like to admit I’m wrong and more about just how tight I am.

You see, I bought my Ultegra SPD-R’s (which is Japanese shorthand for “Racing” and currently I’m about as close to “racing” as I am being the first black woman in space) about 20 minutes before Shimano launched the original SPD-SL’s (which is Japanese shorthand for “Super Lightweight” which is much more accurate description of me). Despite annoying me quite a bit I wasn’t about buy another new set of pedals. Which left me clipping in and out of the pedal equivalent of the LP. And like the LP which some claim gives music “a warmer” feeling the SPD-R’s gave me a warm feeling on the balls of my feet which more often than not progressed into a unbearable burning sensation.

But it wasn’t terrible ergonomics that made me buy new pedals, it was a threat to my well being which over the years has proven to be of even greater proportions – my dog. After surviving 2 years hibernation in a cupboard it only took one night with my dog for shoes to end up like this:

So it was actually deciding I couldn’t bring myself to ride my bike with a dog’s chew toy strapped to each foot that’s made me part with some more of my hard earned cash. Although not too much cash as I’ve only gone for 105′s.

Now as every Club Cyclist knows, your groupset says a lot about you as a rider – and I’ve long held aspirations to be an Ultegra-man. Ultegra says “Serious racer but not delude enough to buy Dura Ace” and that’s who I wanted to be. But now, although in cycling terms I’m not exavtly “over the hill” I can very nearly see the crest of it (although I’m secretly hoping it’s just a false flat), I’m being a bit more honest with myself. Because in reality, I’ll never be more than a 105-man. So that’s what I bough.

The first thing you’ll notice is how much bigger the new “SL” is compared to the old “R”. That what, as Shimano puts it, “creates a highly stable interface between the shoe and pedal” you know “in a super lightweight design”:

Are Those New Shoes on that Table?

So along with the new pedals I bought a new pair of shoes too. The more eagle-eyed of you will have noticed that my old shoes were made by that well repect shoe manufacturer Shimano. This might paint me as someone who knows nothing about cycling what so ever – but that’s only half true. On my first daliance into the world of clipless pedals I foolishly bought an incompatible shoe/pedal combo and had to, somewhat shamefacedly, return them to the store. I decided on that day to not take any more chances and just buy Shimano, what could possibly be wrong with that?

Anyway, enough water has passed under the bridge since I last made a fool of myself in a bike shop so I decided to be brave and buy a non-Shimano shoe. It’s these Specialized Elite Roads:

If you look closely, you’ll see that the button to release the micro adjust strap is all black and boring and not red and funcky like the one on the 2009 shoe. This, the guy in the shop tried to convince me, was because these were the new 2010 shoes. I strongly suspect the actual reason is that these are the 2008 shoe which would explain both why they not only look worse but also why they were a whole pound cheaper.

Either way, after only a couple of rides on this new combo, they seem to be much more comfortable  and the shoe and pedal definitely feel like “they perform as a single ultra-efficient component”. Which is nice.