Shoes at last

The shooooes!

Well finally I found a pair of decent shoes for the bike which I can take on tour.  Up until now I'd been using an old but rather sturdy pair of Converse trainers for the bike, but they now have a few holes in etc and anyway, I'd been wanting some 'proper bike shoes' for a while.  I decided not to go for bike specific shoes for several reasons.  First of all, the main reason really was that (due to another reason, the cost) I wouldn't be able to try them on before I bought them.  The limited shoe stock of the bike shops in and around Glasgow meant that I would have had to have ordered on line to access not only a wider variety of shoes, but also get a decent deal on the price.  I'm a bit fussy when it comes to shoes and trying them on because shoes I wear on a day to day basis must be wearable with my special insoles in (which support my arches - otherwise I get veryvery achy sore legs, not something I want any more than I need on tour!).  I need to make sure they're generally comfortable, but also check that the back of the shoe is high enough so that my feet don't slip out when I walk due to the extra 1cm rise of my foot in the shoe that other non-insoled feet wouldn't experience (this is why I find high-top Converse particularly good).  With Gregor's help I tried on may pairs of walking shoes, favoured for their (supposedly) stiff soles.  Some were more like trainers and were shockingly bendy, but eventually I found these in Yeoman's.  They were the first pair I tried on in the shop and came in at a nice (I thiiink reduced, but can't quite remember) £23-ish, which I was very happy to spend.  That was roughly what I'd hoped to spend (rather than £70-odd on bike specific shoes, eek!) so got lucky!  The other benefit of going for walking shoes, well, flat shoes (rather than with cleats [but I've never tried those yet, going clipped-in sounds scary] which I believe are tricky to walk in without damaging the metal) in general, was that I can use the same shoes for both on and off the bike when on tour.  Apart from these, which I will be riding in, I will also be taking my Merell's sandals (another good £20-ish in the sale job), and bought a cheap pair of flip flops for night time toilet trips and for using in public showers.  Gregor, on the other hand, will be riding clipped-in, and I believe he may be having dilemmas as to which, and how many, pairs of footwear to take.  An excuse for new shoes for him too perhaps? :)  As you can see I've already tested the bike shoes out, and they seem good so far for both pedalling and walking so will hopefully have no problems.