I hadn't really been considering going clipless for some time yet. Sure clipless pedals are really cool in an uber-cool geeky neat sort of way and I had felt that way about them back from the very first day I'd ever seen clipless pedals in action when I was still riding an upright city bike, but, I just didn't see the point in getting them for me. I wasn't ready for them yet.

         Then one of my friends, after extensive research into prices, got himself a pair of clipless. And, without having to actually go into the shop and look at the shoes and let them know I was considering pedals I knew how much it cost to get the cheapest available shoes and pedals in Haikou. 600 rmb or about $75. More than I wanted to spend but not an unreasonable price for geekery. However, I still had no plans to purchase them for myself.

         But, one particularly boring evening I was surfing the web and I ended up discovering that Bike Nashbar had a special shoe/pedal combo - Crank Brothers' Eggbeaters and Answer Impact Mountain Shoes. For pedals I had read about as being particularly good. Pedals which I then went and did some research on and couldn't find bad reviews for. And as they sold out of shoes sizes the combo got cheaper, until eventually it was only $70 plus shipping.

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         Five dollars less than the cheapest available locally made shoes, cleats, and pedals. Which made it real hard to say no. Especially when I had a friend of mine from the US making plans to visit me who could deliver them in his luggage and substantially cut down on shipping costs (as well as guaranteeing their arrival).

         So I got them. Of course, by this time the largest shoe size left was a 41 and I'm usually a 42. But, knowing my two local bike shops and my bike friends I figured, in the event that they didn't fit, if I couldn't manage a direct trade for shoes that did I would probably be able to find someone with size 41 feet who would buy them off me.

         The shoes didn't fit. They almost fit. They came so close to fitting it was frustrating. If the lowermost velcro strap had been just a centimeter wider I could have worn them. But it wasn't and I couldn't.

         The bike shop manager gave me a choice between Shimano sandals or mountain bike shoes. Everything nicer that was available was the sort of road shoe that isn't actually designed for walking in and he knows me well enough to know that it would have been pointless offering them to me. I'm not one of the racers and even if I have been getting faster I have shown no particular inclination to become one of the racers.

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         I liked the sandals better but they had the same problem the shoes from Nashbar had. The velcro strap was almost but not quite long enough to go over my foot. It went but it didn't fasten securely. And, on my bad foot it was far too close to the nerve damaged scars for me to be comfortable. It didn't actually touch the nerve damage but it was so close to touching it that the very idea of the possibility that it might touch it had me saying "no."

         Having chosen my shoes and gotten a pair that fit my pedals were installed on my bike, my cleats were installed on my shoes, I got a lesson in the back of the shop on clipping in and out and in and out and was sent out to practice in the street.

         Depending on how you look at it the street in front of the bike shop is either a terrible place to try out new equipment or a wonderful one. It's like being thrown into the deep end to learn how to swim. Since it was nearly 11 o'clock on a holiday evening the general traffic level was pretty low. It was still going in three directions at once but there was far less of it which made swerving to avoid the tipsy motorcyclist without hitting a parked car or a cargo tricycle much easier.

         It wasn't as difficult as I'd expected. Of course, given the human tendency to copy I'd been twisting my foot off the pedals for months, since before I even had toe straps. That was what the people who were head and shoulders better than me were doing and I'd started doing it unconsciously. And eggbeaters are supposed to be easier to get in and out of than lots of other pedal systems, though, having never used another pedal system I didn't have anything to unlearn.

         I liked them. And despite the bike shop owner's worries that I might fall down because I forgot to unclip (a reasonable fear given that I have a dent in my frame from falling down at a traffic light when I only had one toe strap) the manager and the mechanics were all for letting me go on the trip with new pedals. However, since she's mom, and arguing with mom (any mom) is always a pointless endeavor my old pedals and a pair of sneakers were packed in the support truck.

         If it would have made her happier I was perfectly willing to continue riding up and down the street practicing. However, it was getting late and Ah Hua hadn't been joking when he told me I needed to be back at the shop at 5:30am if I wanted to go on the trip. I thought he was joking. Ah Hua often jokes and I'm pretty sure he knows I'm not a morning person (I've previously shown up for 7am musters and fallen back asleep sitting on the sidewalk). However, Ah Zhi and Ah Jian confirmed this hideous time and all the sudden everything was speeded up, to make sure that the things which were going with me tomorrow were staying here tonight, that I wasn't leaving anything unneccesarily valuable (like my passport) at the shop, and that I could get the things I was taking home there without putting my rack back on (it's seatpost mounted and finicky to adjust).

         I rode home with most of my stuff in a backpack and one pannier precariously balanced across my handlebars. I stopped at all the lights, unclipping without falling off and reclipping without looking down at my feet (which I couldn't see due to way my luggage was balanced). Short of standing up in a hammock it was probably the worst possible way to try out something new and unusual. But I didn't fall down or fall off or have any of the classic mistakes and mishaps that happen to a first time user of clipless pedals.

         And in the morning, with only five hours of sleep and plastic bags hanging off my handlebars I made it back to the bike shop in time for the first muster. Fifteen of us in the pre-dawn darkness.