By Claire
Forward by Papa
Every family has a different philosophy about work and money, and in ours, no one is getting paid to do chores. Of course, one challenge of this stance is finding opportunities to begin teaching Claire some basic financial literacy. Like how to spend all of her disposable income on nice bicycle parts (kidding!).
It was not ever front of mind until a few weeks back when she put in some time at the bike shop sweeping the floors and laminating price tags. At the end of her shift, Toucan paid her with a pair of Smartwool socks and, in response to my protestation, pronounced convincingly that Claire needed to know her work had value. Then our friend Penny paid Claire to look after her cats for a week, and now here we are in a different world.
We go digging in the woods to contribute to having trails to ride, and we empty the dishwasher at home to have plates to eat off of, but going forward she’s going to be contributing to earning her off-road rigs by turning wrenches, taking pictures, and doing some writing.
There is a sea of mid-sized pedal options available at every price point, but, as a reminder to companies why making great kid’s components matters, there was really only one brand, in one colour, that was of interest to Claire. I bought these without anything else really being considered. Bias duly noted, here’s The Clairebarian’s first-ride take on her new platforms.
Pedals. Chromag Radar. Chromag Contact.
By Claire
I don’t remember very much because I was little. But, when I first got the Chromag Radars I found that it was really easy to landmark because my shoes fit almost perfectly on my pedals.
One day a couple weeks ago, I was putting on my shoes and realized that they were getting pretty small. Later that week, Papa and I went to Lynn Valley Bikes. I went up to the spot where you try on things, and Papa got down a couple of pairs of shoes to try. I got a women’s five because we couldn’t find any kids threes, and they are about the same size. I went for a ride and on my small pedals and big shoes, it was really hard to landmark.
Papa ordered some Chromag Contact pedals and they had to be blue because, well, I just love the colour blue and because blue is my lucky colour. And like all the other little details on my bike, I wanted them to be blue.
On my first ride on the Contact pedals, it was very hard to landmark going uphill on the No Quarter climb. It got so frustrating that I thought I was going to cry. I tried so many things like twisting my feet to adjust them but because my new shoes were way stickier I couldn’t twist them. I also tried going slower so that I could look down and put my shoes in the right spot, which did work. As soon as I started pedaling faster I would put them back in the wrong spot. By the end of the climb, I thought I was definitely better than at the start.
On the way down I didn’t notice anything difficult about landmarking. Even when I went down the rock roll or the ladders on Dreamweaver, I didn’t notice anything. I didn’t bang it on anything either, which is surprising because they are so big.
In conclusion, I like my new Contact pedals and I look foreward to getting better at riding with them.
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