haha thanks Igor 
I’m pretty pissed at my LBS owner right now. I’ve been going to him for three years. I go to him because he is the closest bike shop to where I live, its a 3min walk or 1min skateboard/bike. Its a stone throw away. Anyway, its small and doesn’t have much, so I typically just get tubes and water bottles and stuff from there. Over the years I have talked to this owner and he brags sometimes about his role in the bike business and how he used to own and manage 4 stores, but he just has this tiny one now. He doesn’t look like a cyclist, he is out of shape, but generally a good guy that always seems to have a bit too much on his hands. He doesn’t hire help and its just him all day at the register, in the shop, doing maintenance.
Recently, I’ve been needing more components for my bike and have gotten some extra add ons from him. He acts like he knows what hes talking about. So today, I called him and asked if he had Look Keo clip ins. He answered and said “oh you want cleats? - yeah I got those.” I go into the store on my bike IN MY CLIP INS / CLEATS and tell him I’m looking to replace these and they are Look Keos. I SHOW HIM the actual cleats and he was like yeah I have just what you need. He shows me two pairs of cleats, one red Look Keos and another generic Look pedals that I think were Deltas. He told me both would fit my setup and I asked about switching from red to black as the Red Look Keos had a 9 degree give in them, which seemed sketchy to me (I was on a no give, 0 degree setup with the black Look Keos). He went on this long discussion about how 90% of riders use clip ins with some give, and I’d like these a lot better and feel the difference immediately. The Look Keos were $40 and generics were $13. I got both as one was for the new shoes coming. I decide to setup the crappy cleats ($13 generics) on my current shoes (the Look Deltas) and set them up to the millimeter and get them locked in real good. I setup all my gear and went to go ride and they wouldn’t clip in. I didn’t think they were compatible, but he said they were and I now distinctly remember another bike tech telling me the same thing and I went through this in 2006 with Look Keos. They look like they might fit, but the Deltas are just slightly bigger. I was really pissed. So went back to my apartment, lugged my bike back up three flights of stairs (its not that hard but sounds dramatic) and switched the cleats so I would have something to ride on and put on the Look Keos in haste, but they were on fairly precise. I finally get going 2 hours after I planned to ride tonight and these cleats feel absolutely AWFUL. I don’t know what my LBS owner was thinking today. He saw how well worn my black Look Keos were, why would he think I would switch from 0 degree give for 12 years to 9 degree give on these pedals? I honestly don’t know how anyone would like to ride in these pedals. I could hardly do any stand up drills in them and my power transfer on the push down and pull up was significantly diminished. Every push down felt like I was on slippery ice on both legs and on my left leg, it was starting to aggravate my patella. I thought about turning around at that point in the ride (I was 2mi out or something), but had been craving a hard workout for so long that day, I had to figure out a way to do something. I did some drills and rode for a bit, but it was very very bad riding. I found a few advantages in the cleats, but only on 2 very obscure positions. One of which is when using the lower bars that curve around and down on the flats, it felt kind of nice having the give there. But, every other position for me was completely fucked. Worse, I thought I would pick up my ability to use these pedals downtown and realized my ability to react quickly and be nimble on those pedals is greatly affected. If I want to move around, it better just be on the inside of my shoes, not my whole foot moving around. I had the sensation that my pedal was about to pop out for most of the ride. My confidence was significantly diminished in my ability to react to the situations around me. I haven’t been on Slowtwich to read about this stuff for years, but remember testing out the red cleats in 2006 and hated them. I forgot I already went through this process, but have found myself in this place again. Now I have no cleats for tomorrow morning and pulled my old ones out of the trash and have to install cleats for the third time tonight… my old beat up barely useable ones, but they feel 1000x better than that 9 degree nonsense.
I know its not completely the LBS owner’s fault and I should always do my due diligence, but really … what do you think of this guy? I almost want to complain, but I think might just never give him business again unless I badly need a tube. What kind of cleats do you use for your setup - do you like that 9 degree give stuff? I saw on the package, they have 0, 4.5, and 9 and that guy took me from a 0 degree setup to a 9 degree setup, which is nutty.
Do you guys/girls use a power meter?
I did a 2/day today. I’m starting my 2/days light in miles. 18mi first session then 21mi, pretty much all city riding. I didn’t have too many close calls in the 1st session. I had one of the sickest weaves of my life today. I wish that was on camera, but if you saw it on camera, it would look like I’m showing off for the camera, which I’m nervous about when I setup the Cycliq on Monday. I don’t want to act like I’m showboating for the camera. That’s just how I ride. I don’t want to be perceived as a blatant risk taker if you understand; I make decisions on my road bike with cars and am quite comfortable with small spaces at high speeds. Aside from that weave, another time I was going pretty fast on a 2 lane one way street and there were two cars slightly ahead of me side by side that just slowed down really abruptly. I couldn’t see why and it wasn’t a streetlight so slowed down with them, but their rate of slowing down was quite rapid and I could barely slow down that fast. Then I see the tops of the heads of these two chicks just jaywalking in moving traffic and I was completely boxed in on both sides and had to brake hard or was going to nail this chick head on. For a second I thought I might have to pull an indo right infront of her, but my brakes held up and I kind of came to a smooth stop right in front of her face. She didn’t see me coming and said “oh my God!!” and then she saw I wasn’t going to hit her and paused and looked at me and gave me a one-over and said “oh my Gawwwd” like just checking me out. But she was standing right in front of me and wasn’t moving and her friend nearly ran into the back of her walking. Would have been a good moment on Cycliq. I hope it picks up this stuff. I got a special mount that was like $70 to have it higher than my handle bars to hopefully get some of my aerobars out of the camera angles. I only had one incident that pissed me off in the second session. I was city riding and taking a right at a light and did as well as a full stop as I could in clip in shoes and turned on this street. There was this chick in a Tundra driving behind me and took a right and overtook me in the left lane. I was in the right lane, but it was ending as there were cars parked on the side of the street. I slowed down for her to pass, but she didn’t pass. I’m slowing down and holding holding, don’t know whats going on. So I glance back and she stopped for me to go, so I start pedaling to go around the parked car and she gassed the Tundra so I braked like wtf is this chick doing, then she braked, and I was going pretty slow at this point just trying to not stop and unclip, but also getting closet to this parked car. Then she accelerated and stopped, her bumper crossing the line of this car without any space for me in between, effectively boxing me in completely. Then she stopped and I saw she was on her cell with her phone in her hand and I had to pop out of both pedals and then she looked at me and then finally went, then pulled over to the right in front of this pizza place. I looked over at her when I passed and she was still blabbering on her phone. I have decided to take over this city in cycling and I want to be Christian and everything, but also I have decided to give people infractions. I decided to give her one infraction for boxing me in. So I passed her truck and got into the lane in front of her (she was parked) and 20 feet in front of her, super delayed, just gave her a real clean flip of the bird, blindsided. I took a left and was at a stop sign and notice that this chick has started to follow me. I didn’t want her to jam me in my lane again, so took the center of the lane at this stop sign. She was behind me. I didn’t want to have to deal with any crap from her so took a quick couple of right turns and didn’t see her again. Another clip I wish I had on Cycliq. We don’t have front plates in this state though, only rear plates. But, the tourists typically have front license plates, which is good because they have the most sporadic behavior. I hope to adjust the front and rear dashcams for maximum visibility in license plate identification. I brought 150oz of liquids on the daytime 18mi interval type session and went through all of them. For the 2nd session in night riding, I brought 150oz again (24oz + 24oz + 3L camelbak) and had a bit leftover. In the night session though, I poured four scoops of orange Gatorade into my 3L camebak and it was wayyy too strong. It tasted kind of bad when I was leaving as I taste test everything to sense electrolyte/calorie thresholds(strength) and I thought that it might taste better an hour into the ride when I broke a sweat. Damn, was I right. I packed the Camelback full of ice too and it was delicious. It was the perfect strength for my body at that point and I felt really clearheaded upon intake. Later in my ride, I started experimenting in loading with this concentrate and then launching into sprints and it felt very well aligned. My left clip barely works now though, looking forward to my new ones coming in on Monday through Amazon (0 Float Black brand name Look Keos, like I have now). F-my LBS. I gave them a good chance to be a solid customer. I always try to support my LBS, but I can’t deal with BS right now.
I’m doing so much standing climb intervals that I really needed another wrap of Lizard skins on my bars, so added a full one on each side. It feels a lot better. I haven’t ridden on it yet though. 
this night really succkkkkked 
The lime green was intense, and I needed to wrap the bottom of my bars. Instead of taking off my old wraps, I layered one more on the top. I put a camo wrap on this time and it meshes a bit better with my bike than the lime green. The lime green wrap though has a good function of creating this ‘bulb’ like shape that I had in mind. I tried it out tonight and it worked really well. Actually exactly as I planned. The position of the bulb was perfect for my palms and when I did standing intervals, it was a lot easier on my hands.
Tonight, I stopped at 13mi (of only about 20mi today - did 2/day but 1st session was straight up gym/kickboxing). When I went to go make a stop to eat, I pulled up downtown in front of this restaurant and a group of these ghetto looking kids were walking around. I had my shirt off, parked my bike and they all kind of started looking at my setup and stuff and one kid came up to me, seemed to be impressed or something and then said something. I had my headphones on so took them off and was like “what was that?” He said - “flex”. So threw up double bicep flex and as I did, these two chicks across the street said “we’re over here too!”. I smiled and looked over, I didn’t know if they wanted me to come over and flex for them too or just talk, but as I glanced I saw they weren’t that hot (they were cute, but like early 20s college students it seemed), so just gave them the nod and locked my bike and went to go eat four salads. I found a really good place for straight, flat training on a smooth road. Its not that long of a route though, so I’ll have to do repeats in that spot. Traffic is there in the daytime, but at night it was very light, so looking forward to doing some repeats there. The ocean breeze is nice and not too many people crossing the street randomly. This is an overhead shot of the road, by the water on the Battery in Charleston. I was riding it tonight under the crescent moon and the stars in the clear sky. Was sick. Great ride tonight. All my gear worked well and I installed new black Look Keo cleats tonight before the ride. Good times. 
Ace - keep the narrative down to 100 words and maybe i’ll read it.
ohhhhhhh pokhim 
My neck is starting to feel a bit brutalized from cycling. My form is pretty good, but it must be from some of the drills I’m doing. I already do neck training for kickboxing (knockout defense) so the exercises I looked up to help are pretty similar (to what I already do). I really need to start swimming, maybe I will get some laps in later today.
Pokhim - what kind of setup are you riding?
Looking to get a badass tri suit to wear in my upcoming races… which one peeps??? 
That first chick has a very odd body. I think its her hips or something. Don’t you like color KMD? 
I don’t like any of those because they are too cute and artsy which is not my style. There ones I chose where more technical in design and aesthetic which I like. Also, since they are not so specific, if another athlete was in the same suit, it would be ok.
Also, her body look weird because the architectural design of the suit sucks. The proportions and lines are all off. Another reason I like suits I picked, they really flatter the proportions of the female body.
Understood. Well, the second one looks much more badass in my opinion. In that sleek black.
yea! I like how it looks like it is just painted on…hot!
Do you prefer sleeves for less drag on the swim?
The second one really shows off the nipples.
meh, I’m not thinking that hard about it. These suits are all designed to be optimal for swim, bike, run so I am choosing based on my main concerns which are comfort on the bike and looking badass. lol
I got my Cycliq stuff in the mail yesterday and set it up. I kind of want to ride dawn patrol to test it out, but have to be somewhere at 8am, so not sure if I will have time. I didn’t know it didn’t come with SD cards, so had to buy those last night. I tested it out really quick, the video looks good. I’m intersted to see how it syncs with Strava. The app is lacking though on the iPhone, but I’m not too concerned about that. I tested out the video cropping and it is really easy. That’s all I need … video data and cropping. Would be nice to catch the sunrise on it. I’ve been seeing a few animals around as well. I saw three deer the other night right near my place and a possum running on the bridge as well as a coyote last night. I would have chased the coyote if I had the cam; it was walking in the other direction.