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You’re Going to Fall – Here’s How

04.17.2011 by Ray Niekamp // 31 Comments

Note: The series of guest posts on The Most Important Thing I’ve Learned About Cycling will reappear later this week. I must resume contributing to my own blog!

You might have noticed in the Twitter box on the right of this blog last week that I had a minor crash on my bike. I missed a shift on a hill, dropped my chain, was unable to clip out, and I went over.

Just a bruise on my hip and a sore hand, but that was enough to trigger this reprimand:

“Hands on the bars at all times,” commented Mike Weiland, who should know, because he’s had his share of hard falls.

But that’s the problem. When you find yourself going down, what’s the most natural reaction? To put out a hand to brace yourself when you hit the ground.

“You brace, you break a hand or a collarbone,” said Mike. Or an arm, or dislocate your shoulder…

Even experienced riders brace for falls. It’s a natural reaction.

Okay, so I’m going to resist the temptation to brace next time (yeah, right). What can I do instead?

It depends on the type of fall. If you find yourself going over the handlebars, you can plan to roll on your shoulder. I did this in the first bad fall I had on my road bike, and although I was sore, I wasn’t hurt badly.

The guy in this crash looks like he might be able to drop his right shoulder, and roll on it.

Ted Rogers, who runs the blog, Biking in L.A., urges cyclists to do two things: stay clipped in, and hold the handlebars tightly. He tucks his elbows into his body. “At the same time,” he says, “I tuck my head down between my shoulders, and round my shoulders to shape my upper body into a ball. My momentum will continue to move my body forward, rolling me over the handlebars, still attached to my bike, which helps me maintain my curved position.” With luck, you’ll be able to roll on your shoulder rather than fall on your face. If he finds himself going down sideways, instead of over the bars, he does pretty much the same thing. When I went down last week, I stayed clipped in (not intentionally). That may have prevented me from being hurt worse than I was.

The roll might work for low-speed crashes, says Mike Weiland, but at higher speeds, all you can do is just skid. “Of course the one a few months ago at 24 mph I ended up hurting my hand/wrist not from bracing, but more or less punching the ground as my hand was still in the drops when the bars made contact with the pavement,” he told me.

It appears the best place to land in a crash is on your side. Hitting your chest or back on the ground could mean worse injuries. “As you hit the ground,” said one commenter on a biking forum, “try to stay as loose as possible. If you’re tense or stiff, it’s easier to get hurt.”

In practice, none of this might be possible. One cyclist posted to a forum that he’d been in two bad road crashes. “In neither case, do I remember having any time to react,” he said. “I was aware that I was in trouble, and then on the ground bleeding.”

What’s the old saying? “There are two kinds of cyclists: Those who have crashed, and those who are going to.”

Keep the rubber side down.

During the coming week, Bike Noob will feature two more posts in the series, What’s the Most Important Thing You’ve Learned About Cycling? If you’d like to submit your thing, check here.

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Categories // crash, Injury, Technique Tags // crash, Injury

Those @#$%&! Cross Winds!

04.10.2011 by Ray Niekamp // 7 Comments

The wind has been relentless this spring, mostly blowing from the south. I’ve been trying to plan my routes so that I’m heading more or less into it on the way out, and with it on the way back, to get a little relief.

But Saturday, I joined a small group ride in a different part of town from my usual haunts. The road we would mainly ride was Bee Caves Road — which goes roughly east-west, and features lots of long hills.

It’s a lot of fun to ride in decent weather. But I hadn’t thought about the key feature that would affect us this time — the wind was going to be hitting us crosswise, not head on.

Just a few minutes into the ride, we were heading east on a nice downhill, when pow! the wind smacked me and moved the bike toward the traffic lane. It was unsettling. Bee Caves Road is four lanes wide, with an added center lane. The speed limit is 65. Traffic is usually steady. Yipes! If that wind was going to have the potential to knock me into traffic, it could be a ride with an unhappy outcome.

Cross winds are funny (not funny ha-ha, but funny hmm). If the wind was steady, it wouldn’t be a problem. Leaning a bit to the side toward the wind — like the riders in the picture — seems to help.

It’s the gusts that get you. How do you maintain control of your bike when it’s being buffeted from the side?

A quick check of the interwebs doesn’t turn up much help. Most of the advice about riding in cross winds applies to racers, and tells them to form an echelon. Although I was in a small group — maybe eight people — there was no way we would be able to stay packed tightly enough to form an echelon. I doubt any of us would know how to. I spent most of the ride on my own anyway, with a few riders well ahead of me, and the rest trailing by a large distance.

My reaction was to slow down. I was not comfortable riding on a shoulder — even a generous one like  the ones on this road — if I was going to get pushed one way or the other. But some advice I’ve seen says your stability will improve as you pick up your speed. For example, instead of coasting those downhills as I was doing, the advice is to pedal. By applying some power to the rear wheel, you’ll become more stable.

Gack. I was hitting speeds above 30 mph on the downhill stretches, and getting smacked by a gust at that speed can be pretty unnerving. That’s why I slowed down.

A commenter on one of the biking forums I visit said, “It takes a while to get used to the idea that getting blown around some is OK.” Yeah, I’m not there yet. But I’m sure I’ll have lots more times to try, the way the weather is going lately.

Others say to relax, especially in the elbows and upper body. One commenter suggested that unlike headwinds, when you want to minimize drag by keeping your body in an aero position, a better strategy in a cross wind would be to sit upright. That makes “holes” in your profile to allow wind to pass through.

I won’t be seeking opportunities to ride in cross winds, but I’m sure they’ll come. I’ll remember to relax, enjoy getting buffeted, and stay close to the right side of the shoulder. In the meantime, I’ll be glad I don’t regularly ride in the conditions this Dutch cycling team had to contend with earlier this year. The travails of the guy 48 seconds into the video are a hoot. Click the YouTube button to watch it in a larger size – and perhaps a smoother speed.

“Ja, Michael, you have the lightest bike!”

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Categories // Technique, Tips Tags // wind

Having to Clip Out Is No Excuse

08.29.2010 by Ray Niekamp // 19 Comments

Our friend Jeff Hemmel sent this story about another crackdown on bicyclists — this one in St. Petersburg, Fla., where police ticketed 16 cyclists in one day for failure to stop at a stop sign.

We’ve covered stop sign issues here before — and police crackdowns on stop sign scofflaws — so this isn’t really anything new.  What interested me on reading the article was this sentence: “Petrak said she knows she should obey stop signs, but clipping and unclipping her bike shoes slows her down and can make it dangerous when crossing intersections.”

Roll eyes here.

When I took the League of American Bicyclists Road I course — now Traffic Skills 101 — I got points deducted during our ride through the city because I didn’t put a foot on the ground at a stop sign. Their attitude is that stop means stop.  That’s the attitude the Austin Police took last year when they ticketed several members of my club for not stopping at a stop sign. But to them, a full stop means the cyclist should put a foot on the ground.

Okay, I’ll come clean.  I still don’t put a foot down at every stop sign.  Certainly, if there’s no traffic at an intersection, I’ll slow, then go.  If there is traffic at the stop sign, I’ll slow to a track stand, kind of — I’m not very good at them, but I can hold my position for a few seconds, anyway. But unless I get a signal from the driver right away that I can go, I clip out and stop. That’s a very unmistakable signal that I want the driver to go before me.  It’s also one reason I have my pedals set to very light tension.

But I think that comments about the burden of having to unclip at stop signs do nothing to mitigate the antagonism between motorists and cyclists.  We come across as whiners who want everything our way.

If it’s too much of a hassle to clip out, I suggest a little practice is in order.  Do it while supporting yourself against a wall, or a tree, or a light pole.  Keep doing it until it becomes second nature.  Tip: I have found that I clip in faster and easier if I just do it by feel.  It’s when I sneak a look down at my foot that I have to try two or three or more times to get clipped in.

And as far as the safety issue of crossing intersections, I learned long ago that the cyclist’s first job is to get across.  More often than not, I just rest my foot on the pedal and pedal across the intersection, then I worry about getting clipped in.  Sorry, but it’s not a big deal.

What’s your take?

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Categories // Safety, Technique Tags // clipless pedals, stop sign

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