Newbie question... unclipping, stopping, horses

[Dr. Liz]

I'm not an equestrian person, but the DH rode for many years, and did 3-day eventing until a broken neck (as well as an adamant surgeon and a nervous soon-to-be-wife (me!)) put an end to that. (The neck has been repaired, and no major limb paralysis, BTW. Although the x-rays are a thing to behold.) He ALWAYS unclips on the ride side. When you posed your question, I asked him if it was a horse-related thing, and his response was: probably.

Yeah. Gotta love that definity!

Anyway, his thought was that he probably feels more comfortable clipping out on the ride side because of the horse thing, as he rode horses long before he rode bicycles. But, his follow-up thought was that as long as you are clipping out comfortably, there is no need to change. He will tell you that being able to clip out on both sides is a good skill, there is nothing wrong (or unnatural) with having one side feeling better than the other.

So, go with what feels good, and don't get too stressed about it. So says DH (who has been known to pontificate on occasion! )

[run it, ride it]

I've been mounting my horse from the 'wrong' side for years due to a knee injury. At first I'd try to mount from the left, not even thinking until I felt pain. I still dismounted to the left, and mounted bareback from the left.

The knee is more or less okay now, but I still mount from the right and dismount to the left. Any time someone new sees me hop up on a horse I get the strangest look!

It may be easier for me to switch sides as us lefties are forced to use our less-dominant sides in this right-handed world.

On a bicycle I make a point of it to build balance by pushing off with the 'wrong' foot, coasting with the wrong foot forward, going one-hand with my less balanced side.

When running, I leap up onto cement barriers with the wrong foot and land on the wrong foot as much as possible (it was the dominant landing leg that got me the aforementioned knee injury in the first place).

Don't go past any safety boundaries, especially with clipless pedals, but do challenge your comfort zones whenever possible. With a little practice you can train your less dominant side.

[Luci]

Dr. Liz, that is scary. Hope hope hope that never happens to me. I have given up starting the greenie TB's though.

Interesting question for the horsie types. I'm still in my ancient cages on my ancient GT, but I'm going to have to pay attention to how I start and stop, even with the old school easy cages. When I run my labs with my bike I definitely keep my left foot free since I may need to put it down if they do something unexpected. They stay on my left the same as without bike. Curbs or a rock on trails usually get a right foot out. Sigh, some day when I actually have a new bike . . . I'll graduate from the cages.

Since I've been having right seat bone issues in my dressage work (always have to watch or I'll sit too much on the right) I've been purposefully doing downhills with my left foot in front and lots of things with my left on my bike. I'm hoping it will help even me out more.

[bigredbike]

It appears that Kiwi Girl and I work the clips exactly alike. I'm now on my 4th clipped in ride and I found out the hard way that even though I'm right foot dominant my left foot needs to be unclipped. I posted about my first trip around the neighborhood in my new clips in another thread. Here's the abbreviated version: Came to the a stop sign in my quiet little neighborhood, unclipped my right foot no problem (yay, I thought!), went to put my left foot down and ended up in a pile on the pavement.

My bike is very large, a 63 so, going down was a real experience...

Since then I've riden three times and have been unclipping left only, taking off with right only and it feels really natural. I'll be doing a 40 mile organized ride this weekend it'll be left down for me. Seems to be working so that's my story and I'm sticking to it

[tygab]

This was my first unclipping experience, in a parking lot with no cars in it.

1. slow my roll
2. unclip right foot
3. lean to left foot
4. fall

I am right handed and right footed, so I thought this was the logical thing to do. seems though, that my body prefers that right leg be ready to give me a push off and wanted the left foot to go to the pavement. Never would have thought about it beforehand. My LBS guy says always stop with the same foot, and now I do - my left foot goes down. I too wish it were the right sometimes, to take advantage of curbs, but it is what it is and I'm not going to fight it.

BTW this was back in April when I first got my bike. It's second nature now.