SPDs and falling off!

Mo Saycool wrote:
The guy at the bike shop suggested balancing
against the garden wall for half an hour practicing getting in and out
before the first trip on the road but this doesn't tend to replicate the
stress you are under when you need to stop in a hurry.

When I got my first pair of clipless pedals I decided it would be a good
idea to get used to using them riding around the farm that I was living
on at the time, before taking them out on the road. Of course, I forgot
that the farm had dogs. One of them ran in front of me, I braked,
failed to unclip, and fell off behind a reversing tractor (fortunately
several yards behind a tractor that had only just started reversing).

My second clipless fall happened a couple of weeks later, when I heard a
rubbing noise from my BoB (the mudguard was rubbing against the tyre).
I slowed down and stopped while looking over my shoulder at the trailer,
and completely forgot about the SPD's. I gracefully (I like to think)
fell over onto the bank at the side of the deserted Ashdown Forest road.

The third fall was a few weeks after that, when I thought I was used to
them. I was riding the Cuckoo Trail with my then GF (now my wife) and
was riding rather closer behind her than is sensible with a novice
cyclist. A puppy darted under her front wheel and she slammed the
brakes on. I stopped without hitting her, but in the process failed to
unclip. I shot forwards on the bike with my feet still attached to the
pedals and managed to bash myself at the base of the sternum with a bar
end. Breathing was uncomfortable for several weeks.

In the 7 years since then, I think I've had two falls due to clipless
pedals. One was while I was still getting the hang of slow speed
manoeuvring in tight spaces on the recumbent. The other was the morning
after fitting new cleats, when I'd forgotten to adjust the pedal tension
to compensate. I was riding up the hill to the office when I met a
lorry coming the other way. It would have been impractical for the
lorry to reverse and the road wouldn't have been wide enough for us to
pass each other on the road, so I steered right, headed for the pavement
and stopped. I managed to unclip my right foot, but not the left. The
right foot was on the downhill side and didn't have a hope of reaching
the floor. The left foot was stuck.

--
Danny Colyer (my reply address is valid but checked infrequently)
URL:http://www.colyer.plus.com/danny/
"He who dares not offend cannot be honest." - Thomas Paine

Timfy wrote:

I used to be in a job that entailed lots of early morning motorway driving.
One morning we came across a Reliant Robin on the hard shoulder. It was on
it's side and had suffered a hefty bit of damage. The engine was still
running so we pulled over to investigate and found the driver, an old boy,
still inside.

His only words on getting him out were "Bloody thing keeps doing that"

When a teenager I had a friend who regularly fell over in his Bond
3-wheeler. It was mainly due to his habit of yanking the steering wheel
as quickly as possible when cornering. After sliding to a halt on its
door it would generally right itself again and he'd stop at the next
garage to put some more oil in. The doorhandles were always broken and
the fibreglass door panels somewhat scratched, but they stood up to the
treatment surprisingly well.

--
Dave...

On Sat, 15 Oct 2005 09:49:46 +0100, vernon wrote:


I finally took the plunge on Wednesday and tonight when leaving work I
fell off - am I now exempt for life, or can I expect further embarrassment
in the future?

Not wanting to tempt fate, I have had several close escapes including
uncliping the wrong leg as I started to topple to one side, just managed to

I am reluctant to fit clipless pedals to my mountain bike. Don't trust my
balance enough :-)

Actually, I found that having clipless on my main road bike and clips
and straps on the main mountain bike caused more near-miss toppling.
I do more on the road than off, so had the reflexes to twist the foot
to release, then, on the mountain bike, I need to put a foot down, so
it twists by learned reflex ... which (with straps) fixes it even
tighter to the pedal.

I very quickly put matching clipless pedals on everything I ride
(except the unicycle) (where I just have platform pedals).

There is a guaranteed cure to the problem of falling off with clipless
pedals ... http://www.ice.hpv.co.uk/

regards, Ian SMith
--
|\ /| no .sig
|o o|
|/ \|

in message , Keith Midgley
') wrote:

I had been considering switching from platform pedals to SPDs for
sometime but was put off by all the postings about the seemingly
compulsory "falling off".

I finally took the plunge on Wednesday and tonight when leaving work I
fell off - am I now exempt for life, or can I expect further
embarrassment in the future?

Keith failing to unclip in time :-(

Also, make sure your cleats are bolted /extremely/ tightly to your shoes
- loose cleats are a sure precursor to antics guaranteed to amuse the
crowd...

--
(Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

;; no eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn.
;; Jim Morrison

in message , "Mo Saycool"
steveATdarcyryanDOTfreeserveDOTcoDOTuk ('') wrote:

"Keith Midgley" wrote in message
news
[snip]
I finally took the plunge on Wednesday and tonight when leaving work I
fell off - am I now exempt for life, or can I expect further
embarrassment in the future?

Keith failing to unclip in time :-(

I am a novice clipless pedal user as well. Got mine in July this year.
So far I have fallen off twice. Once on the test ride (inevitable, I
suppose) and then once at a T-Junction on my second proper outing (to
the amusement of the onlooking drivers). Since then, touchwood, I have
been able to get my feet out pretty readily. The guy at the bike shop
suggested balancing against the garden wall for half an hour practicing
getting in and out before the first trip on the road but this doesn't
tend to replicate the stress you are under when you need to stop in a
hurry.

In the days before clipless when we couldn't get our feet out at all
easily one got into the habit of knowing where things were one could
hold onto or lean on. Out on a ride recently a friend said 'help! I
can't unclip', and I just said 'grab the pole' - he was alongside a road
sign.

If you are worried about unclipping it might be a good idea to be
strategically aware of road signs, railings, bollards and other street
furniture at a convenient height to lean on - there very often are such
things around junctions.

--
(Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/
Iraq war: it's time for regime change...
... go now, Tony, while you can still go with dignity.
[update 18 months after this .sig was written: it's still relevant]

Keith Midgley wrote:
I had been considering switching from platform pedals to SPDs for sometime
but was put off by all the postings about the seemingly compulsory
"falling off".

I finally took the plunge on Wednesday and tonight when leaving work I
fell off - am I now exempt for life, or can I expect further embarrassment
in the future?

Keith failing to unclip in time :-(

When you are used to them and think you wont fall off again, thats when
you will.

--
Regards, Kenneth.
www.kmiles.co.uk

Dave Kahn wrote:

When a teenager I had a friend who regularly fell over in his Bond
3-wheeler. It was mainly due to his habit of yanking the steering wheel
as quickly as possible when cornering. After sliding to a halt on its
door it would generally right itself again and he'd stop at the next
garage to put some more oil in.

But, but, but... weren't Bonds two-strokes?

--
Andrew

Dave Kahn sd / msg
k dtd Sat, 15 Oct
2005 13:34:55 GMT:

When a teenager I had a friend who regularly fell over in his Bond
3-wheeler.

The world is shrinking again. I saw a Bond on the way home on Friday,
first I've seen for maybe a decade.

Guy
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

"To every complex problem there is a solution which is
simple, neat and wrong" - HL Mencken

"Kenneth Miles" wrote in message
k...
Keith Midgley wrote:
I had been considering switching from platform pedals to SPDs for
sometime
but was put off by all the postings about the seemingly compulsory
"falling off".

I finally took the plunge on Wednesday and tonight when leaving work I
fell off - am I now exempt for life, or can I expect further
embarrassment
in the future?

Keith failing to unclip in time :-(

When you are used to them and think you wont fall off again, thats when
you will.

Oh yes!!

Just zis Guy, you know? wrote:

The world is shrinking again. I saw a Bond on the way home on Friday,
first I've seen for maybe a decade.


When I were a wee lad our family car was the original Bond. The front
wheel would turn 360 so reverse was turn the wheel backwards and engage
first gear! On (not so) steep hills we would all have to get out and
walk up as it wouldn't make it with the weight of us all. Eventually my
sister and I grew so that our knees were hitting (the rear seats were
sideways) so it was traded in for a Fiat 500 which had more room!

Eeeh, those were the days!


--
Tony

"I did make a mistake once - I thought I'd made a mistake but I hadn't"
Anon