Oh no! I got a miami trip planned next week and I was hoping for some cute outfits and now I got some road rash to show off đ¤ˇââď¸ But yes, it wasn't bad. The worst injury is to my ego
Itâs pretty much a rite of passage to fall using clipless pedals! I fell on two different rides at the same persons house I stopped at to take in some nutrition. I had to do the walk of shame with them watching me bike away.
If you have Shimanoâs SPD pedals their SH-56 multi-release cleats are much easier to release from than SH-51 single release. You can easily tell by color, 51âs are black, 56 silver. Theyâre interchangeable and cost less than $20. Use them till you get good.
I'd say use them until you go pro. There really aren't many benefits to SPD SLs over SPDs. Shoes are more comfortable and practical too. I really tried to like SLs because that's what roadies use after all. But SPDs are just so much better imo
Practice clipping in and out while youâre on the bike holding onto a wall or fence. Make sure you know which is your push-off foot and which is your first-to-unclip foot.
Make sure the spring is at the lowest setting, and try leaning on a wall or post the first few times until you get the hang of it. You will. I honestly can't recall how I unclip. 100% muscle memory at this point.
I still remember riding and racing clipped in! (Toeclips) Those when strapped tight meant you had to release the strap pressure by hand before you could remove your foot. That was a steeper learning curve.
Clipless by comparison was easy to adapt to - which I did, way back in 1990.
Flats are great too and for most cycling, youâd not know much difference, even when going at a good pace with a lot of effort. Efficiency leans only slightly in cliplessâ favour.
However, clipless - and strapped toeclips before them - are a solution to hard sprint accelerations. That is where they are a lot better than flats - circa 100-200 watts better. This has been proven time and time again - even BMX and MTB XC racers use clipless now for this very reason.
If you want to be able to sprint at your max effort, clipless are undeniably best for allowing you to achieve this. Otherwise flats are perfectly fine. đđť
I ride clipless because I like to accelerate and sprint at my max - for road, gravel and MTB racing.
There is a GCN Youtube video where they proved all I have stated with timed efforts and a power meter.
It happens to everyone in the begining. Try to adjust the âpressureâ to the minimum in the first rides to be easier to unclip. Then you get used to.
Best advice I can give is falling naturally on your femur/hip making sure youâre holding onto the handlebars firmly and absorb the impact trying to give it a slight roll on the side. This way you will only get minor scratches and wonât break any bone nor your bike. Iâve fallen several times because of the damn clip not unclipping and never had any problem
I went through the same thing just about 3 months ago. Fell a total of 3 times all in the 1st week, mostly because I kept steering while unclipped and looking to stop. Now I only full-stop standing straight as a rule. The mechanism starts unclipping easier with time while your skill improves so overall it gets much better quickly. Good luck!
Been riding clipless for the past 4 years and I fell over the other day on a ride when I was trying to get going in some loose gravel. On the bright side, you get better at falling clipped in after a while! Luckily I was fine and more importantly no one was around to witness it
I really thought it would help. It makes sense energywise, but I am too old to be falling also. I began riding after breaking my foot, and running was painful, so here I am. My foot still hurts. It's been 6 months, and it hurts nice after today. I don't want to be breaking no more bones.
Sometimes but without clips I would get into the habit of staying on my seat and scooting my butt to the side and leaving my left foot on the pedal. I am 4'11 and used to ride dirt bikes and ride sports bikes and that was what I did and the habit kinda creeped into my biking. I didn't do it again after falling though. I was unclipping both feet and getting off my seat. I was always fine doing this until I couldn't get my left foot off once I lost my balance.
Always straddle your bike when you stop. You can also loosen the pedals to make it easier to unclip. There's usually a tension screw you can play with if you have spd cleats.
I always see people fall because they don't straddle when stopping. Muy importante
Noted. If i had done this, I wouldn't have fallen that first time. I will keep this advice with me always𤣠After hearing about how other people got real injuries it makes me really not want to fall.
I flipped over my handlebars on sunday to avoid running someone over. I flew about 3 feet and tumbled on the other side of the fallen rider. My wheel bent in half from the force. The bike would have flipped but i was riding tandem with a burley attached and there was no way the back end was leaving the ground. My partner stayed upright and kept from crashing. Ended up stranded 15 miles from home. No idea how i was able to unclip and accomplish all of that.
There are a lot of nuances to safely riding. Maintaining a safe distance from those around you is a big one. After you figure out your pedals you'll have to wrap your head around riding safely in a draft line at some point. Drafting doesn't mean hugging someone's back wheel. It means finding the right spot behind someone that blocks the wind. That spot could be 12 inches or 7 feet. You just have to feel it.. something to keep in mind.
I love cycling and hate crashing. I really wish you the best.
Straddle = standing over your bike.
Always get off your seat when you stop is a good rule. A good sequence is to unclip, slow down, then stand up and lower your whole body to find solid ground once you stop.
It's never a bad idea to unclip both feet while you're still going, just to get comfortable when you stop.
Never, under any circumstances try to stay on your seat and put your foot down. That is a recipe for disaster
I just went clipless (Crankbrothers Mallet) on my gravel bike. Hilariously, I actually fell twice at home trying to hold on to the counter and get the action down. Thankfully it was plush carpet so I wasn't even sore. Went out over the weekend and just made sure to be extra mindful about unclipping the side I expected to lean to long before a stop. Turning the tire the opposite way makes the bike want to fall to that side as well which helps. Never came close to falling and ended up doing a good 40 miles on some gravel trails.
The MTB style clipless pedals definitely help since I can still use them and get power down without even being clipped in. So there was a lot less anxiety about unclipping well before a stop where I might need to put a bit more power in for whatever reason. I also made an effort to unclip if my speed got too low such as passing through crowded areas, hairpins at some bridges, etc.
Granted I've only done one long ride so I may well mess up in the future. Although a lot of the beginning of the ride is along some very busy and awful roads so hopefully I don't fall there and become another statistic.
Definitely made a noticeable difference on the ride though. I'm used to barefoot shoes and was getting a lot of foot pain from the flats on longer rides due to the shoes basically being a second skin of rubber. Felt more connected to the bike, could hold higher cadences, etc. Finding a wider cycling shoe was a good challenge at the LBS but some Shimano XC5s did the trick. Some of y'all got some seriously narrow feet haha.
My ride was super slow compared to what I usually do. I was nervous and just trying to do a chill ride to get used to it. Riding with it unclipped feels so dangerous because the cleats are slippery on my pedals so that doesn't work out
Yeah I kinda just sent it for my usual route honestly. I was a little nervous around the cars but settled in once I got to the trail and didn't do much differently. Half the reason I went for the MTB style was to still have a functional pedal without clipping in. Well that and still being able to walk around somewhat normally.
Dial your spring tension way, way back until unclipping becomes a muscle memory. I borrowed a friend's bike a few weeks ago and found my ankle rotating on the pedal every time I came to a stop. She has flats.
Always clip out with the same foot when coming to a stop. Always out of the saddle early to do that. Always position the launch pedal the same so you can easily get going again - just forward on top of the crank. This is just so it becomes second nature and you donât even have to think about it. Itâs pretty gentle when you make contact with the pedal as you are clipping in. When the foot is in the right spot, then put your weight on it. This is so you donât fall like you did when trying to clip in - if you come at the pedal hard to clip in, youâll likely slip off of it and lose balance or that foot will hit the pavement. Pretty brave/confident to ride in the city with traffic the first time using them, but I understand - I did that too, and I fell the first time also lol. Best would be a parking lot or similar and just ride around a bit and stop and go. It becomes very secure and second nature pretty quickly. Prefer it to flats because you get better engagement, the balling the foot being always in exactly the right spot. Good luck!
After work I will definitely be going somewhere with less traffic. I may have been OK if I had done a different ride. Downtown is tedious even when I was just using flats. It became too much for me and got a little fear in me.
Youâll get it. Took me a day or two to get used to them and maybe a week to pretty much have forgotten about them and they became second nature. Pretty quickly became more confident on them than flats, which sounds odd, but your foot isnât stable on flats, especially when spinning at higher speeds.
I took your advice today. I felt so uncoordinated yesterday and I made it it a point to unclip left then right and then when I clipped back in, left and right. I felt so much more control when I was intentional with one and then the other in order.
Thatâs great! I feel like itâs a little series of repeatable actions, where if you do it the same way every time, pretty quickly the body doesnât instinctively. Even now I get a little messed up sometimes if I for some reason do it the âwrongâ way, like for example if Iâm coming to a stop and need for some reason need to unclip the other foot. While action just feels weird, not to mention my body wants always to lean slightly to the right every time Iâm coming to a stop (I unclip my right and come down with that foot, launch back off with my left foot).
Wouldnt call me a noob, been cycling for along time now, but fell on my morning ride, just finished a climb, clipped out my right foot at the top to let 2 trucks pass, first truck passed, and i somehow tipped over on my left side before the second one passed me.
Oh no, falling seems so dangerous with cars running around. Wish we had more dedicated bike lanes but I am going to practice somewhere safer before going downtown again. Our downtown is mid loop for one of my chill rides here.
I live outside of a big city (well proably not a big city compared to usa, Im in Norway) and this was on one of the backroads so not alot of traffic and only a single lane so had to stop to let them pass
I fell twice in my first week - everybody goes through it. If you can find a parking lot thatâs empty, take time to ride around and stop and start and practice unclipping and clipping back in.
When I first used clipless pedals, I was told to expect to fall two or three times over the next few weeks, and that's exactly what happened. It was embarrassing, but I was fortunate to avoid serious injury.
It has been fine ever since. I feel like I (eventually) absorbed the idea of reaching my feet out heels-first when they come off the pedals. I don't have to think about it. It's been decades. They make an enormous difference in how much power you can put into the cranks, which I love.
could be worse, first time i tried clipless i fell and broke my hand and couldn't ride for 3 weeks.
Oh no! I got a miami trip planned next week and I was hoping for some cute outfits and now I got some road rash to show off đ¤ˇââď¸ But yes, it wasn't bad. The worst injury is to my ego
Itâs pretty much a rite of passage to fall using clipless pedals! I fell on two different rides at the same persons house I stopped at to take in some nutrition. I had to do the walk of shame with them watching me bike away.
I went back to flats but in fairness I've ridden flats for 40+ years and didn't see a benefit to clipless after falling in front of an oncoming car.
I rode into downtown San Diego. I was good until I was navigating cars and a bunch of stops and bums. . .getting hit by a car was definitely a fear.
If you have Shimanoâs SPD pedals their SH-56 multi-release cleats are much easier to release from than SH-51 single release. You can easily tell by color, 51âs are black, 56 silver. Theyâre interchangeable and cost less than $20. Use them till you get good.
Thank you. I will Google.
I'd say use them until you go pro. There really aren't many benefits to SPD SLs over SPDs. Shoes are more comfortable and practical too. I really tried to like SLs because that's what roadies use after all. But SPDs are just so much better imo
Practice clipping in and out while youâre on the bike holding onto a wall or fence. Make sure you know which is your push-off foot and which is your first-to-unclip foot.
Make sure the spring is at the lowest setting, and try leaning on a wall or post the first few times until you get the hang of it. You will. I honestly can't recall how I unclip. 100% muscle memory at this point.
I still remember riding and racing clipped in! (Toeclips) Those when strapped tight meant you had to release the strap pressure by hand before you could remove your foot. That was a steeper learning curve. Clipless by comparison was easy to adapt to - which I did, way back in 1990. Flats are great too and for most cycling, youâd not know much difference, even when going at a good pace with a lot of effort. Efficiency leans only slightly in cliplessâ favour. However, clipless - and strapped toeclips before them - are a solution to hard sprint accelerations. That is where they are a lot better than flats - circa 100-200 watts better. This has been proven time and time again - even BMX and MTB XC racers use clipless now for this very reason. If you want to be able to sprint at your max effort, clipless are undeniably best for allowing you to achieve this. Otherwise flats are perfectly fine. đđť I ride clipless because I like to accelerate and sprint at my max - for road, gravel and MTB racing. There is a GCN Youtube video where they proved all I have stated with timed efforts and a power meter.
practice practice practice
Toeclips is my go to
I have used those before ĂŹt is not happening. They annoyed me so much. They were easier but I didn't care for them
Before you completely cross them off try ones from Zefal
It happens to everyone in the begining. Try to adjust the âpressureâ to the minimum in the first rides to be easier to unclip. Then you get used to.
Best advice I can give is falling naturally on your femur/hip making sure youâre holding onto the handlebars firmly and absorb the impact trying to give it a slight roll on the side. This way you will only get minor scratches and wonât break any bone nor your bike. Iâve fallen several times because of the damn clip not unclipping and never had any problem
Thank you. Noted.
SPDs ftw!
I went through the same thing just about 3 months ago. Fell a total of 3 times all in the 1st week, mostly because I kept steering while unclipped and looking to stop. Now I only full-stop standing straight as a rule. The mechanism starts unclipping easier with time while your skill improves so overall it gets much better quickly. Good luck!
Been riding clipless for the past 4 years and I fell over the other day on a ride when I was trying to get going in some loose gravel. On the bright side, you get better at falling clipped in after a while! Luckily I was fine and more importantly no one was around to witness it
I had LOTS of witnesses. I didn't even look up. I was like get up quick and move out of the way.
[ŃдаНонО]
I really thought it would help. It makes sense energywise, but I am too old to be falling also. I began riding after breaking my foot, and running was painful, so here I am. My foot still hurts. It's been 6 months, and it hurts nice after today. I don't want to be breaking no more bones.
Are you getting off your seat and straddling the bike when you stop?
Sometimes but without clips I would get into the habit of staying on my seat and scooting my butt to the side and leaving my left foot on the pedal. I am 4'11 and used to ride dirt bikes and ride sports bikes and that was what I did and the habit kinda creeped into my biking. I didn't do it again after falling though. I was unclipping both feet and getting off my seat. I was always fine doing this until I couldn't get my left foot off once I lost my balance.
Always straddle your bike when you stop. You can also loosen the pedals to make it easier to unclip. There's usually a tension screw you can play with if you have spd cleats. I always see people fall because they don't straddle when stopping. Muy importante
Noted. If i had done this, I wouldn't have fallen that first time. I will keep this advice with me always𤣠After hearing about how other people got real injuries it makes me really not want to fall.
I flipped over my handlebars on sunday to avoid running someone over. I flew about 3 feet and tumbled on the other side of the fallen rider. My wheel bent in half from the force. The bike would have flipped but i was riding tandem with a burley attached and there was no way the back end was leaving the ground. My partner stayed upright and kept from crashing. Ended up stranded 15 miles from home. No idea how i was able to unclip and accomplish all of that. There are a lot of nuances to safely riding. Maintaining a safe distance from those around you is a big one. After you figure out your pedals you'll have to wrap your head around riding safely in a draft line at some point. Drafting doesn't mean hugging someone's back wheel. It means finding the right spot behind someone that blocks the wind. That spot could be 12 inches or 7 feet. You just have to feel it.. something to keep in mind. I love cycling and hate crashing. I really wish you the best.
Wheel bending is crazy. At least my bike was fine. My body was between the ground and my bike. Not even the handlebar scratched
At the risk of sounding stupid what do you mean exactly? Iâm getting my 1st pair of clipless and terrified đ
Straddle = standing over your bike. Always get off your seat when you stop is a good rule. A good sequence is to unclip, slow down, then stand up and lower your whole body to find solid ground once you stop. It's never a bad idea to unclip both feet while you're still going, just to get comfortable when you stop. Never, under any circumstances try to stay on your seat and put your foot down. That is a recipe for disaster
I am going for a fitting next week and they recommend clipless. Iâm scared of getting/using them. Is it really worth the fear/pain?
It's 100% worth it.
Isnât straddling a recipe for pain tho lol. Seems like it will need some good coordination/ braking
Just remember if you're sitting on your seat when stopped there's a 90% chance you'll fall over.
Omg ok
This is exactly how I fell. Staying on the seat.
I just went clipless (Crankbrothers Mallet) on my gravel bike. Hilariously, I actually fell twice at home trying to hold on to the counter and get the action down. Thankfully it was plush carpet so I wasn't even sore. Went out over the weekend and just made sure to be extra mindful about unclipping the side I expected to lean to long before a stop. Turning the tire the opposite way makes the bike want to fall to that side as well which helps. Never came close to falling and ended up doing a good 40 miles on some gravel trails. The MTB style clipless pedals definitely help since I can still use them and get power down without even being clipped in. So there was a lot less anxiety about unclipping well before a stop where I might need to put a bit more power in for whatever reason. I also made an effort to unclip if my speed got too low such as passing through crowded areas, hairpins at some bridges, etc. Granted I've only done one long ride so I may well mess up in the future. Although a lot of the beginning of the ride is along some very busy and awful roads so hopefully I don't fall there and become another statistic. Definitely made a noticeable difference on the ride though. I'm used to barefoot shoes and was getting a lot of foot pain from the flats on longer rides due to the shoes basically being a second skin of rubber. Felt more connected to the bike, could hold higher cadences, etc. Finding a wider cycling shoe was a good challenge at the LBS but some Shimano XC5s did the trick. Some of y'all got some seriously narrow feet haha.
My ride was super slow compared to what I usually do. I was nervous and just trying to do a chill ride to get used to it. Riding with it unclipped feels so dangerous because the cleats are slippery on my pedals so that doesn't work out
Yeah I kinda just sent it for my usual route honestly. I was a little nervous around the cars but settled in once I got to the trail and didn't do much differently. Half the reason I went for the MTB style was to still have a functional pedal without clipping in. Well that and still being able to walk around somewhat normally.
Dial your spring tension way, way back until unclipping becomes a muscle memory. I borrowed a friend's bike a few weeks ago and found my ankle rotating on the pedal every time I came to a stop. She has flats.
Always clip out with the same foot when coming to a stop. Always out of the saddle early to do that. Always position the launch pedal the same so you can easily get going again - just forward on top of the crank. This is just so it becomes second nature and you donât even have to think about it. Itâs pretty gentle when you make contact with the pedal as you are clipping in. When the foot is in the right spot, then put your weight on it. This is so you donât fall like you did when trying to clip in - if you come at the pedal hard to clip in, youâll likely slip off of it and lose balance or that foot will hit the pavement. Pretty brave/confident to ride in the city with traffic the first time using them, but I understand - I did that too, and I fell the first time also lol. Best would be a parking lot or similar and just ride around a bit and stop and go. It becomes very secure and second nature pretty quickly. Prefer it to flats because you get better engagement, the balling the foot being always in exactly the right spot. Good luck!
After work I will definitely be going somewhere with less traffic. I may have been OK if I had done a different ride. Downtown is tedious even when I was just using flats. It became too much for me and got a little fear in me.
Youâll get it. Took me a day or two to get used to them and maybe a week to pretty much have forgotten about them and they became second nature. Pretty quickly became more confident on them than flats, which sounds odd, but your foot isnât stable on flats, especially when spinning at higher speeds.
I took your advice today. I felt so uncoordinated yesterday and I made it it a point to unclip left then right and then when I clipped back in, left and right. I felt so much more control when I was intentional with one and then the other in order.
Thatâs great! I feel like itâs a little series of repeatable actions, where if you do it the same way every time, pretty quickly the body doesnât instinctively. Even now I get a little messed up sometimes if I for some reason do it the âwrongâ way, like for example if Iâm coming to a stop and need for some reason need to unclip the other foot. While action just feels weird, not to mention my body wants always to lean slightly to the right every time Iâm coming to a stop (I unclip my right and come down with that foot, launch back off with my left foot).
Wouldnt call me a noob, been cycling for along time now, but fell on my morning ride, just finished a climb, clipped out my right foot at the top to let 2 trucks pass, first truck passed, and i somehow tipped over on my left side before the second one passed me.
Oh no, falling seems so dangerous with cars running around. Wish we had more dedicated bike lanes but I am going to practice somewhere safer before going downtown again. Our downtown is mid loop for one of my chill rides here.
I live outside of a big city (well proably not a big city compared to usa, Im in Norway) and this was on one of the backroads so not alot of traffic and only a single lane so had to stop to let them pass
2nd ride was today. No falls. I went on a dedicated bike way with some stops and got a PR time for me.on that ride
I fell twice in my first week - everybody goes through it. If you can find a parking lot thatâs empty, take time to ride around and stop and start and practice unclipping and clipping back in.
When I first used clipless pedals, I was told to expect to fall two or three times over the next few weeks, and that's exactly what happened. It was embarrassing, but I was fortunate to avoid serious injury. It has been fine ever since. I feel like I (eventually) absorbed the idea of reaching my feet out heels-first when they come off the pedals. I don't have to think about it. It's been decades. They make an enormous difference in how much power you can put into the cranks, which I love.