Just got a sweet new road bike...trying to get used to clipless is killing me though!

[jsjcat]

Seems like everyone falls at some time. Mostly when you are stopping or starting. My wife and I just bought new road bikes. Hers is a Trek Domane 4.3. Mine a Trek Madone 4.5. First ride - she gets on the bike and rolls about 3 feet and falls to the right on the derailleur side. Derailleur hanger is now bent/cracked/whatever. OK, so we don't know this at the time. Everything seems OK and we start riding. Go about 50 yards and she says, "Why don't you ride it, it feels funny". I get on, clip one pedal and push off, go about 12 feet this time. The derailleur breaks off, gets in the spokes, locks up the wheel, and I fall to the left side. This horse/bike obviously needs to be broken. OK, so now we have to go back to the bike store and carry our wounded brand new bike in and tell them to fix it. They're real busy but they replace the derailleur hanger the next day and only charge me for the part. Nice guys! I get home and give the bike a real close inspection and see that the lower jockey pulley is missing some teeth. OK - I have a spare. I changed it. Next day we go for a nice long ride (55 miles) and we notice her drivetrain is really noisy mechanical sounding. Got home and took the cassette off. Found several bent cassette teeth. Have to replace the cassette. So this little fall is getting expensive and yes the emotional damage from taking your newly purchased carbon road bike and slamming it to the ground does take a psychological toll. I can't really blame the clipless pedals we use but just the unfamiliarity with the new bikes. I understand your fears. We have the pedals set on the lowest tension setting. I even took them apart to check for rough edges and lubed them really good. Another thing we do is to spray some aerosol wax (Dupont at Lowes) on the pedal and cleat for smoother clipping and unclipping. It's a learning experience. We've been riding clipless for about five years now also. By the way, I fell down on our 55 miler too. While waiting at a stop light, I clipped my left foot and started to go. Next thing I knew I was looking straight up with the bike on top of me. I'll heal. You'll get better.