Broken Cleats

I went on a short ride last weekend, and I tried out the newly paved trail along Shepard Road between 35E and downtown St. Paul:

Smooth trail! I would always ride on the shoulder of the road in this section in the past.

I got home, and my cleat in my right shoe just exploded. It felt weird clipping in and and out the last few times, so clearly something was off.

Luckily, the very next day, my brother in law texted about wanting to send me some old Speedplay cleats and pedals if I wanted them. I DO WANT THEM! I got those a few days ago in the mail:

Thanks Matt!

In the meantime, I did a short ride on Tuesday on my mountain bike in just "normal" shoes. I was afraid that going on a harder ride on my mountain bike is what made my calf issue flare up 2 months ago, so made sure to ride without pushing on my toes (I tired to ride more "flat footed" on the pedals).

I'd been using an old bike shoe on my right foot yet as the left shoe busted a few years back. If you look close between these two photos from this post of race photos from last year's Oakdale Spring Classic Duathlon, you can see my 2 different bike shoes:

New white shoe with 2 straps on my left foot...


... and old silver shoe with 1 big strap on my right foot.

So I got my "other" new shoe ready to go before Thursday's ride. Here you can see the left shoe that's had a few years of wear on it along with the newer right shoe that's barely been used:

Oh, and I did that entire ride with part of my old cleat still stuck on my pedal! I didn't notice this until after the ride:

Oops.

Well, all seems well again. I might try to adjust my new cleat a little more to the "inside" of my foot as the pressure seems a little far to the outside, but it has held up well for 2 rides.