Quote Originally Posted by Kano
Never mind the bike tipping, Jennifer!

Get your butt off the seat, plant your unclipped foot firmly on the ground! Don't stay on the seat and try to be tippee toe and hope to stay upright -- safer on the ground! That's my theory, it's worked so far, and I'm sticking to it!

That and think ahead. Someday, perhaps there will be a "no time to think" moment, but hopefully, by then, those pedals will be so automatic....

Skiing -- yes, bindings is a good comparison, though it's easier to see what you're doing clipping into ski bindings....

Karen in Boise, a fellow clipless newbie!
Ditto! I agree with the above -especially with the don't stay on the seat thing!

I'm new to the whole cycling thing (hi everyone!), and my DH started me off immediately with clipless Shimano SPD pedals*. This was about 2.5 months ago. I had several hard crashes when I started, but that was mostly because a) I'm not the most coordinated person in the world, and b) I tend to panic. I did spend a fair amount of time practicing (and crashing!) in a parking lot before the DH felt I was ready to actually go out on the road. And since then, things have gotten much better.

As for the ski binding analogy, I wouldn't take it too literally: I generally don't want to come out of my ski bindings unless something Very Bad is happening, and it is all happening Very Fast. The clipless pedals, on the other hand, for me, at least, is all about patience. If I calm down, and think about the steps to coming to a stop (extend one leg, clip out of the other pedal, stand up on the extended leg, and put the unclipped foot down), things are good. I've never had the opportunity to think that rationally when coming out of my ski bindings! (Unless I'm going in to the locker room at the end of the day. But that's different! )
Good luck!

And for perspective..., while I have mostly got the clipless pedal thing down I haven't mastered the whole water-bottle-while-riding thing, so I don't think the pedal thing is too difficult if you are patient and aren't inclined to panic (unlike me...).

*Yes, the SPD pedals are technically mountain bike pedals, but I can get into them and out of them, so they work for me on my road bike. Which is all that really matters, right?