Originally Posted by
antimonysarah
Sure!
Home from Purgatory - A bike ride in Sutton, MA Pretty sure I cribbed most of it from one of Pamela Blalock's routes -- it's got a lot of fussy turns, some of which aren't well signed, so a GPS is a good thing.
Yeah, I had nice wool socks, the problem is that the shoes are too small across the top of my foot even with thin socks -- so far I haven't found a replacement set that fits right. Need to try some more options.
I haven't been riding as many post-worthy rides, except for going bike touring in Italy, but that's not exactly Metro Boston.
Starting to train for next year's randonneuring season, although soon that will be mostly on the trainer, alas.
Thanks! I've come across the Blalock route once or twice while Googling instead of riding, and was intrigued, but haven't had the nerve (read: haven't gotten an early enough start some Summer Saturday morning with the necessary Friday planning and preparations) to do the round-trip ride. The idea of a one-way is intriguing, especially now that the days are shorter. Beyond that, I'm always curious about good routes across Route 9 and I-90...
Re: shoes. I have a similar problem. When I switched away from SPD pedals and started using big platforms (MKS-Lambda, VP-001), a few years back, I experimented with shoes and found that the ones with the highest coefficient of sliding friction provided the best foot retention on the nubbly pedals; in addition, running shoes tended to have built up heels that limited my foot positions on the platforms, rubbing the crank arms. I settled on five.ten Impact IIs, damn near perfect shoes for Fall, Winter, and Spring rides of any distance, except for one thing: they were too narrow, and my feet hurt after a long ride. Nevertheless, I kept using them, trying a shoe stretcher (helped some), sizing up (helped some too), and so forth. Meanwhile, I found shoes for Summer riding (New Balance MX-20 Minimus) that had both the grippy soles I needed and a last and width that suited my feet. Problem is, I know they won't cut it in 20degF. So the experimentation continues. Five.ten sells sheets of their "stealth rubber" sole material, and I may try having a cobbler retrofit an old set of New Balance hiking boots with that for a sole. We'll see... Meantime, best of luck with your shoe search.
rod