Do The Right Thing

The icy weather continues. To try and keep my bike legs in shape, I’m booked in for weekly spin classes (where, no doubt, some young slip of a girl in the front seat will kick my butt), but I was also intrigued by the idea of studded tyres for riding on ice & hard-packed snow & keeping the rubber side down. Via BikeHacks.com, there was even this page showing you how to make your own:

Grandma Kumar would be so proud.

Anyway, today I was scheduled for an early morning run - five miles, and it’s still icy out there. Hmmm - how about making my own studded running shoes instead?

I took a box of No. 6 x 1/2" screws off the shelf in my tool shed, and while I was drinking my coffee this morning converted my old running shoes for running on ice:

Did they work?

Yep - the five miles was on a mix of ice, hard-packed snow and a little new snow on top in places. the only time I experienced any slippage was going uphill on new snow - the shoes gripped fine, but the snow slid over the underlying ice.

If you’re going to make yourself a pair . . .

• Use old trainers - you don’t want to ruin your new ones!
• Remember the reason they’re old trainers - they probably don’t have the same cushioning & support as your new ones. So take it easy and keep the mileage down.
• Short, 1/2" screws don’t seem to rip out, so don’t use anything longer - Having a screw come through the sole probably wouldn’t be very comfortable.
• Check that none of the screws have come through to the inside of the sole before you put the shoes on for the first time!

While I was doing my run, I had this strange feeling that I’d seen shoes modified like this before somewhere. Today at work I remembered - a case of great minds thinking alike . . . or fools seldom differing?

Workout:

• Type: Run
• Date: 01/05/2010
• Time: 13:52:20
• Total Time: 00:43:41.00
• Calories: 665
• Distance: 5.5 miles
• Average Pace: 7:56.82/mile

Filed under: BikeHack, Run, Weather, Whitley Bay