Being new to the ride, on the Saturday morning prior to the ride and cycling, do people walk with cycling shoes with cleats on or off. I am basically avoiding walking around in the morning with cycling shoes and avoid carrying a back pack. any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Hey ari, welcome aboard! Last year I pretty much showed up with my bike and back pack and there are 4 or 5 trucks you drop your back pack on to and it will go on your designated truck. All of the trucks are designated a letter (A-E) and your stuff will be on that truck through to camp in Hamilton to the finish at Niagara Falls. As far as shoes go, the only time you're going to be able wear normal running shoes is when you're at camp... or in my case, at my comfortable hotel room
Neil, thanks for your response. One more question, do people normally walk with there cleats on their shoes Saturday morning. I am trying to understand how anyone could walk with cleats that morning.
What I did last year was to wear running shoes down to the CNE, and packing my cycling shoes on the top of my pack. Then quickly changed at the last possible minute.
Pretty much everyone is wearing their cleats, not to much walking to do on the CNE grounds, pick a spot at the start area, kind of mingle... a few words from the emcee and guests and we're off. I've just gotten used to walking around with mine on (weekend rides and such).
This year is a little different then last. Last year we had to drop our bikes off the night before so we arrived Saturday morning, dropped off our bags at the designated trucks then went in wearing our shoes to pick up the bike and went to the staging area.
This year we can pre-register (i did yesterday) and it is real easy. We show up Saturday morning, drop off our gear and we already have our bikes and head over to the staging area.
In my case my wife will drop me off, so i will wear regular shows to drop off my gear I will then head back to the car change shoes and unload my bike and head to the staging area. I will pack an extra pair of shoes for Saturday night at the camp.
Hey, One solution to your problem of walking around with cleats is to buy a set of cafe covers, or cleat covers, for them. You can pick these up for 25 bucks or so at any decent road bike store. they are soft plastic covers which go over your cleats and have a tread surface on them, this makes the bike shoes farily easy to walk in for a while (as long as you don;t go dancing or running!) I use mine all the time so I can avoid changin shoes before rides. You can just throw them into your jersey pocket when you are ready to ride.
