The day I decided to try clip in pedals for the first time ever (late 90’s), and while mountain biking. Yeah, fun at first for about 5 minutes, then the terrain changed to a steep down hill with some muddy hair pin switchbacks… I vividly remember plowing through the switchback and fully commited, when I should have turned. Then oddly feeling like I was falling out of an airplane (by the way the frist airplane I’ve ever flown in I jumped out of, I was skydiving on my 23rd B-Day). I was flipping in more of a constant flailing cartwheel motion with the bike still attached – sky, trees, dirt, sky, trees, dirt, sky, trees, gravel, stump thump, and finally overwhelming dizziness. It was a character building event, and HEY no broken bones mom, just me bruised ego. Moral of the story? Always wear your helmet, AND for most folks I do not recommend mountain biking with clip in pedals for the first time, learn to use them on your road bike first.
September 7, 2006 at 12:21 pm
I remember my first time with clipless pedals. I was so pumped about them, I just put them on my bike and took off for an urban assault against the near east side of Cleveland, Ohio. I was hammering along, loving the feeling of making use out of the whole rotation. The sun was out and I was grinning ear to ear. All I could think about was how great it was. Even the stop light couldn’t shake me out of my reverie.
A short moment passed. Then I realized I was clipped in.. and that I was now less than ninety degrees away from the ground. Too late, I hadn’t practiced. I didn’t even know what the hell to do.
At least the cars around me got a good laugh out of it.
It wasn’t too long after that I realized that this same situation would have been far more disasterous with toe clips & straps. It’s really non-intuitive to have to pull your feet back out of the pedal. The nice thing about clipless pedals is that usually somewhere mid-flight, you rotate enough to get unclipped.