First clipped ride

[skinimini]

I thought I was doing so well on Sat. Got about 20 miles into the ride, then put my non-clipped-in foot down on some wet grass. Very slippery! As others have said, I went down in slow motion right on my bum. I now have the biggest bruise on my derriere that I think I've ever had. Ouch!

[tribogota]

see thread newbies and clipping, still falling over after 1000 miles....

[txred9876]

Haha, going to wear them to work today too, so fingers crossed i can remember to clip out before i tip over stylishly infront of 100 bemused children in the school playground.

I had hoped that everyone fell and i wouldn't be the only chump

I am black and blue at this point.....and changing colors tooooo! for some reason its all on the left side. It looks like someone beat the holy......BLEEP..... out of me! LOL

I am getting used to my pedals but its a change.

Tina

[Pedal Wench]

I put my bike on a trainer and practiced in/out for about 30 minutes. Strangely enough, I had my first clipless fall last Saturday... so don't think that experience makes you immune!

That's the old joke. Practice clipping in and out 100 times on the trainer. Go outside, fall over at your first stop sign, and then you'll be just fine.

[gnat23]

-- gnat! (with regards to yehudamoon.com)

[gabriellesca]

I have a bum ankle and have trouble with my range of motion and am terrified to go clipless!

What's the best way to practice if you don't have a trainer?

[RoadRaven]

Best advice I ever got here at TE was about clipping in and out of pedals.

And subsequently I share everytime the topic comes up and no-one has beaten me to it.

Riding clipped into pedals is easy as long as you remember TWO things... yep, only two.

1. Always unclip with the same foot (doesn't work so well for off-roaders, but if you are a roadie, you can do this). If you train your mind/foot to always unclip on the same side, in an emergancy/quick stop, your muscle memory will do what you expect to do.

2. Turn your front wheel away from the foot you unclip. Your bike will always lean toward you and your foot will reach the ground before the rest of your body.

[brits111383]

Hi all,

I just got clipless pedals two weeks ago in preparation for my MS 150 ride this weekend. Whoo-hoo!

Anyway, my DB and I have gotten into a few tiffs about the proper way to clip in your cleat (he just has normal pedals with straps and will upgrade later).

I don't have the best balance, so I like to just start pedalling normally and then clip in once I have forward momentum and know I won't fall over. This stems mostly from a bad fall I had when I clipped in one cleat but I lost my balance when I started to hop up on my seat to get going but my bike shorts got caught on my seat.

I will add that my bike seat isn't too high -- I made sure I had the proper frame when I bought my bike and my handlebars and seat properly fitted a few weeks ago and properly adjusted for the clipless pedals.

My BF thinks I need one pedal clipped in before I start pedalling. He gets really irritated with the way I do it.

Am I wearing on the pedal/cleat in a bad way with my technique, or is it to each their own?

Thanks

[Zen]

Well, i have special clipless pedals for girls...

Huh? Are you serious? I can't tell

2. Turn your front wheel away from the foot you unclip. Your bike will always lean toward you and your foot will reach the ground before the rest of your body.

I don't understand that either

[papaver]

Huh? Are you serious? I can't tell

Yes i'm serious.

[andtckrtoo]

Well, i have special clipless pedals for girls... they are easy to click in and out.

I've never heard of such a thing. I start with Frog Speedplays and found that the clip tension was so light that if I went of a big bump, I cam unclipped. That was rather annoying, so after a while, I switched to SPD. My bike shop set them at a lower tension, making it easier to unclip, but my feet tend to stay clipped easily. I haven't falled with the SPD's but I've done my share of falling with the Speedplays - they may have unclipped when I went over a bump, but when I needed them to unclip they were noticeably stubborn.

[RoadRaven]

2. Turn your front wheel away from the foot you unclip. Your bike will always lean toward you and your foot will reach the ground before the rest of your body.

I don't understand that either

Oh wise, wise Zen... you must be having tired moment...

Stand up, in front of the PC screen... pretend you are standing over your trusty steed.
Now, unclip your left foot and place it on the ground (I say left, because that is the one I always use).

OK, as your foot touches the ground, turn your handle bars towards the right - as if you were turning round a right-hand corner.


Now go to your real bike and stand over it... try turning the handle bars a little to the right, as if you were beginning to go round a right-hand corner - you only need to turn them a little and you will notice the bike will begin to move to the left back into you.


This is good, because if you unclip always with the same foot (for me, the left) and always turn your bars slightly the opposite way (for me that is right) your bike will always lean into you and you should avoid the dreaded slow-mo tumble.


Hope this makes it clearer for you, my friend.

[alpinerabbit]

I have a bum ankle and have trouble with my range of motion and am terrified to go clipless!
What's the best way to practice if you don't have a trainer?

The angle you need to turn/twist to get out is actually quite small. So is the force required if the tension is not set very high.
Surely a LBS would let you try before you buy?

I spent Thu evening with my workmate who just got a new MTB with clipless and she did not fall, but we also just practiced around her neigborhood.

First I had her hold on to a fence to try the first few times. then we practiced -
In and out, in and out, first one foot with the other rested on the non-clip side of her pedal (she got one-sided ones), then stopping and starting, then in and out with both feet alternating while riding, finally both in, stopping, starting again. Maybe a quarter of an hour and 5 ins and outs?
Then along some gravel paths in the park, & finally up a little incline, all very slow. Not even at the very end when I made an abrupt stop (unintended) and there was nowhere for her to go to get around me did she fall.

[kenyonchris]

I have Look clipless on my road bike, plain ol' spds on my road bike, I have been riding clipless for years on my roadbike and a while on my Mtb, and I still fall over! I fall over regularly on the start of most rallies and organized rides, because I tempt fate by clipping in while going at a snail's pace.
On my MTB, I keep the tension quite loose so that I can clip out quickly if I need to put a foot down. I have learned the uber-cool look of grabbing a tree and staying clipped in if I am waiting for people to catch up or we are resting...but I have also lost all my uber-cool when I push off and am in too tough a gear and fall over.
I like the SPDs on my mtb much better than the Looks for ease of clipping in and out...and of course, the SPDS are set up to be easy. The Looks are great while I am pedaling, but if I am riding in traffic it is a pain.
Keep your elbows in, tuck your chin and fall if you are going to fall. Then look up, grin, and hopefully someone is grinning back at you! The worst is when everyone is doing that "look-away-we- saw-nothing" thing.

[MyLitespeed]

I wonder what motorist think when they see up slowly fall over when we are at an almost complete standstill. They must laugh their heads off thinking we just plain can't ride a bike.

When I was riding Shimano 747's, my cleat got stuck and I couldn't unclip, over I went. It must have looked like Laugh In.

Now I have Crank Bros. Candy SL and love them, absolutely no problems getting in or out and have never come close to being stuck in them.

The likelihood of falling over in clipless are probably pretty good, but most of the time you are not going very fast so it's really no big deal, more bruised ego then anything.