Digital Blackout

<====An April Morning In Jasper County, Iowa. 

Well, all Thursday night and Friday until around noon, this blog was "in the dark" due to an issue Blogger, (the service provider), was having. So, there for awhile, it looked as though the last post I had done was Wednesday's.

Actually, I had done Thursday's post, and it has been restored since, but there for awhile you folks that got to read Thursday's post had a mystery on your hands there! I thought I'd temporarily lost it when I looked this morning, that's for sure. (Although some folks would argue that I've never had "it" to begin with!)

My Italian Feet: A long time ago, back when I first decided to get into clipless pedals for mountain biking, I decided on going with Grafton clipless pedals. (I see many of you shrugging your shoulders in a questioningly manner!) Yes- Grafton. It's a long story. Anyway, if you were going to go with Grafton peds, you pretty much had to go with Sidi shoes. So, I ordered some Dominators, and those lasted through the initial switch to Onza pedals, (Yes- "Onza pedals"), and finally to Shimano pedals, where I should have started with in the beginning. Oh well, live and learn!

But at any rate......Sidi shoes! The thing was that I have very skinny feet. Most shoes made my feet hurt, or they swam around inside making pedaling vague and weird feeling. The Sidi shoes, built in the traditional European way, were narrower, like my feet. Okay, so years go by, I start a family, and I decided I needed to not spend hundreds of dollars on single purpose shoes. I tried Lake shoes, (fit great, didn't last very long), then I went with Bontrager shoes, (fit not so great, but lasted longer than Lakes).

Then I got an e-mail from a guy with Vittoria shoes. Next thing ya know, I am being told that these Italian shoes are on par with Sidi's offerings and totally made in Italy using techniques that were pioneered by Vittoria and often copied by other manufacturers. Okay, sounded great. I asked to try the Impact mountain bike models, shown here. I can say one thing right away. I definitely have Italian shaped feet. These shoes fit very, very well.

Will they hold up to my Sidi experience? We'll see. Stay tuned and I'll report back with more later with my review on these at The Cyclistsite.

And that's it for your "Digital Blackout" edition of Guitar Ted Productions. Just a final shout out to the riders of the Almanzo 100 and the Royal 165. Have a safe, fun ride, ya'all!