Time to tweak my "Franken-bike" again! Where there's a will there's a way!!

   I hear the expression over and over "it's just like riding a bike", but for someone who has MS, it's not always as simple as it sounds.  The beginning of a ride and the end are two completely different rides, because my body has morphed into something unrecognizable from what I started with.

     When my right leg, which is the one that doesn't like to co operate on a good day, gets overworked, it wants to shut down all together.  This is a bit of a challenge when you have over 50 miles to fight with it.

     As I've been riding my bike indoors over the winter on a stationary trainer, by the end of my workout my right foot would begin to slip off of the pedal.  

    it was actually my fault for making my body work to the point of over heating.  As I've mentioned before, this is when my brain stops communicating with my nerves.  But I refuse to let that be my excuse for quitting. I started brain storming on how I could actually put my foot in a "time out" when it starts to misbehave. 

     Traditional bike clips would seem like the obvious solution.  But when my muscles stop working it would be impossible to snap my shoe off of the clip.  What if I had a pedal that stopped my foot from slipping forward but still allowed me to slip it off of the pedal in an emergency??

     I did some research and found these on line.  

     These make perfect sense.  They would stop my foot from slipping forward but I could slip them out in an emergency.

     Now I just had to remove my old pedals and replace them with the miracle pedals. Though this was a bigger challenge than I thought it would be.  The part that screwed into the arm of the pedal wouldn't come off...

     So I decided to approach it from another angle...

Maybe an allen wrench would do it...

It was practically cemented on but it eventually came off. 

Then I just had to screw the new ones on.  And as you can see, the strap was very flexible.  This should be perfect for getting my foot out.

          But that would have been too easy.  See these spikes on the pedals?  Every time I put my shoe up to slip it in the the strap it would catch on the spikes and push the pedal upside down.

     You know what they say about the best laid plans...  I guess it's back to the old drawing board for me.  But I'm not done yet!  Now my next mission is to find a way to make my shoe slide in freely... I'm not sure how just yet, but I promise you if there's a will there's a way!

     Stay tuned, and wish me luck:)

Have a great day!!

Christine:)