Reading about the SPD related incidents reminded me of my own embarrassing fall earlier this week.
I was almost at work and stopped on the cycletrack to turn right across the dual carriageway. When I turned the wheel 90 degrees to the right, though, the bottle that carries the compressed air for my Air Zound cunningly slipped under the bar and prevented me from turning the wheel straight again. At that stage I began to fall over to the left, and was unable to get my foot out of the pedal clip thingy, so I just toppled heavily onto my side. Fortunately it was a grotty day so I had lots of layers on, otherwise I think blood would have been spilt from several parts of my body 🙂
I thought I'd escaped detection, but after I'd crawled back onto the bike and limped over the dual carriageway it turned out that a bloke had watched the whole thing from the other side of the road.
Reading about the SPD related incidents reminded me of my own embarrassing fall earlier this week.
My most embarrassing fall was on my road bike (700-23's) rolling downhill on Vauxhall Bridge weaving between queuing traffic I rolled over a grate and the front wheel slipped into the slots. I went over the bars and ended with the bike on top of me (I was clipped in of course) with a very badly buckled wheel and bent bars. I have done this wheel in grate on a previous occasion and always watched out for it happening again. This grate caught me out though because it wasn't at the kerb as a bus-stop had been added.
I recently fitted SPD's to my Birdy and nearly fell over it trying them out in the hall. Coming to SPD from Time I find them a little to easy to inadvertently clip into again whilst doing a trackstand. The Time pedals have a far more positive click to engage and I can keep the left foot safely unclipped whilst I adjust my balance. -- Phil Cook looking north over the park to the "Westminster Gasworks"
Reading about the SPD related incidents reminded me of my own embarrassing fall earlier this week.
Anyone else?
Don't recall if it was my first or second clipless fall, but approaching traffic lights couldn't unclip. Thought I'd lean nonchalantly on the illuminated bollard on the traffic island between the two lanes (one forward, one left filter). Bollard was not attached to ground. I blocked one lane with me plus bike plus floundering, and the other lane with the ejected bollard. Of course, it all happened just as the lights went green, so no-one got through the junction, and I righted myself and retrieved bollard just as they went red again, so everyone got to sit and stare at me for another cycle of the lights.
Younger brother of a friend of mine saw some girls he fancied impressing waiting at a pedestrian crossing he was approaching. To impress them, he pulled and very looooong skid up to the line (not necessarily convinced this actually impresses girls, in my opinion). Forgot he had clipless pedals. I expect the consequent rolling around in the gutter was not the impression he was seeking to make.
I fell of my bike on thursday of this week. Cycling uphill on the fixie with too big a gear ground to a halt i was virtually stomping on th left pedal but would it go round 'no'. I decided that it would be in my best interest to launch myself into the grassy verge on the left which was slightly uphill rather than slide down to my right.
Taking the trailer from the allotment (picking up some tools) to the church to do some gardening today. Decided to take the shortest route through the hill in Balgay park (Dundonians will know what I mean, there is a cleft through the hill with the observatory on.
The gate is just wide enough for bike and trailer. Unfortunately, the edges of my trailer are at right angles and when you it a post you stop dead - and then fall over. And as the trailer was attatched it took a bit of effort to unclip with the extra weight on the bike.
Then managed to take out yet another rear light coming out of the park (grr.. ) - fortunately this time it was the bike mount, not hte light that broke so I can swap with the previous breakage..
Then took my second trailer load to the dump. Thought about rescuing some of the bikes there for future projects but couldn't be bothered.
Reading about the SPD related incidents reminded me of my own embarrassing fall earlier this week.
I was almost at work and stopped on the cycletrack to turn right across the dual carriageway. When I turned the wheel 90 degrees to the right, though, the bottle that carries the compressed air for my Air Zound cunningly slipped under the bar and prevented me from turning the wheel straight again. At that stage I began to fall over to the left, and was unable to get my foot out of the pedal clip thingy, so I just toppled heavily onto my side. Fortunately it was a grotty day so I had lots of layers on, otherwise I think blood would have been spilt from several parts of my body 🙂
I thought I'd escaped detection, but after I'd crawled back onto the bike and limped over the dual carriageway it turned out that a bloke had watched the whole thing from the other side of the road.
Anyone else?
My first trip using SPDs many years ago....I was very careful clipping and unclipping in practice and the first ride, until I rolled alongside a horse and rider waiting to cross a road.
Not wanting to spook the horse I made some noise (cough, gear change) before approaching so they would know I was there only to pull alongside and stop, forgetting the SPDs - cue slow motion fall to the side accompanied by much laugher from the rider (and the horse, I suspect!)
Right. As a local gp I find that there is always someone around to report my activities. I sped down hill toward the traffic stopping at the road works traffic lights, hopped onto the right pavement which ran alongside a bushy hedge and was obviously unused, and rather smugly continued at some pace down the hill until I almost reached the traffic queue at the downhill lights. At this point a branch projecting from the hedge stuck through my front wheel , stopping me instantly and flipping me upside down ,feet(spd) and hands and bum still on the bike , into the hedge, which supported me and bike perfectly in this inverted state. As I sat there planning my next move I had to watch a column of drivers go past laughing their heads off, upside down. TerryJ
Right. As a local gp I find that there is always someone around to report my activities. I sped down hill toward the traffic stopping at the road works traffic lights, hopped onto the right pavement which ran alongside a bushy hedge and was obviously unused, and rather smugly continued at some pace down the hill until I almost reached the traffic queue at the downhill lights. At this point a branch projecting from the hedge stuck through my front wheel , stopping me instantly and flipping me upside down ,feet(spd) and hands and bum still on the bike , into the hedge, which supported me and bike perfectly in this inverted state. As I sat there planning my next move I had to watch a column of drivers go past laughing their heads off, upside down. TerryJ
Reading about the SPD related incidents reminded me of my own embarrassing fall earlier this week.
Quoted message said:
I was almost at work and stopped on the cycletrack to turn right across the dual carriageway. When I turned the wheel 90 degrees to the right, though, the bottle that carries the compressed air for my Air Zound cunningly slipped under the bar and prevented me from turning the wheel straight again. At that stage I began to fall over to the left, and was unable to get my foot out of the pedal clip thingy, so I just toppled heavily onto my side. Fortunately it was a grotty day so I had lots of layers on, otherwise I think blood would have been spilt from several parts of my body 🙂
Quoted message said:
I thought I'd escaped detection, but after I'd crawled back onto the bike and limped over the dual carriageway it turned out that a bloke had watched the whole thing from the other side of the road.
Well, this was just a matter of unclipping feet and tumbling to the ground then pulling the bike out. I did ,of course, maintain a proper professional demeanour throughout, just as though it happens every day. I did go through a long period in which I regarded falling off as normal. It seems that as I have got older and more breakable I have also got more careful. TerryJ
After a day off road around Glen Clova, returning to the bunkhouse and there is the South Esk in front of me... looks a little tricky, but if you don't try these things... anyway, I get a good run at it egged on by a friend, who is then somewhat amused when I run out of steam pretty much exactly in the middle, fail to unclip and do a sideways topple into the river. Some of one side of me is, well, not so mucg "dry", as "less wet". Pal decides she won't give that a go, and heads down to the nearby bridge!
Pete. -- Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK net [email hidden] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/
Peewiglet <[email hidden]> wrote: | | Reading about the SPD related incidents reminded me of my own | embarrassing fall earlier this week. .... | Anyone else?
The people who saw mine weren't aware of how embarrassing it was.
As a kid I had a Peugeot back-pedal-brake fixed-gear thingy. Looking at it one day I noticed the front dropouts were vertical so I thought why bother with the axle nuts - gravity will keep the wheel in (it was years before saving wieght might have occurred to me first). So I removed them, as part of my efforts to engage with the technology before me, Sheldon-Brown-stylee. A month or so later the family drove out to some wooded place for a picnic with another family - "Can I take my bike?" "OK but you'll have to take the front wheel off to get it in the boot". Aha, thought I, brilliant mind creates multi-purpose solution to problems still in the future. When we got there there was a long path up through a wooded bank which appealed to my wish to try a really proper long uninterrupted downhill ride, so I push the bike to the top, turn round, and let go. It was fast. And bumpy. But I kept control by standing on the pedals and using the back-pedal-brake. At the bottom, which was muddy, I wondered why I hadn't had an accident yet (yeah, I know), so I tugged on the handlebars to check the theorySPLAT! Hands deep in mud I looked up to just glimpse my front wheel bounding away into the bushes. Various grown-ups looking at me quizzically not realising the giant mental leap of comprehension that had just taken place.
Don't know about embarrasing, but I've certainly provided plenty of entertainment for friends whilst off-road (on a 2x1, not a 4x4). One "SPD newbie" related one came from when I ground to a halt going up some single track and unclipped safely (having fallen over in the clips about 5 minutes earlier). However when I started off again I was in the wrong gear, the front wheel lifted but being determined to stay clipped in the front wheel kept rising until I'd done a nice backwards somersault down the hill then landed (still clipped) on my side in a nettle patch. Ouch! 🙂
Some years ago, riding along Oxford Street I slowed to allow a kindly gentleman in a wheelchair time to cross the busy bus/taxi-laden thoroughfare. Slow, slower, slower... Of course I couldn't extract my foot from the toe clips in time. Went down sideways at 0.1mph.
I think this was in front of about 1000 people, at least 20 ran up to check I was OK. That was in the 80's.
There have been one or two clipless related topples, but nothing to match the setting and audience.
Where to start? The tumble into a dry river bed when totally mis-remembering the direction taken by the road (after first riding headlong into a tree)? A damp and muddy piece of Belgian cyclepath causing me, Kingcycle and trailer to find ourselves in an ungainly heap in the bushes? But I think the best one had to be descending Helvellyn. After what felt like a month of picking our way over and around Big Rocks, and cursing the twonk who described the route as "90% ridable", finally some open ground appeared. Wha-hey!!
Let go of the brakes for the first time since the summit and let 'er rip towards this inviting piece of greensward. Shortly after which the front wheel buried itself axle-deep in what was, frankly, a bog. Exit Mr Larrington, over the handlebars. At least it was a soft landing, but after burying a piece of my pork pie atop the peak, as an offering for the Earth Goddess, you'd think she'd show a bit more gratitude...
