clipless horror stories

"Claire Petersky" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:J_kic.23056$GR.3085013@attbi_s01...

Quoted message said:

"Tom Keats" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

There's /always/ an audience nearby for such incidents.
I think it must be some sort of law of nature.

Yeah, I remember when I was new to clipless. I was riding with friends. We
stopped at the light, and I did this slow motion tumble into a nearby
juniper trying to get my foot out. They thought it was hilarious.

Warm Regards,

Claire Petersky

Ouch! Don't junipers scratch? Still, better than hard cement.

(Tom Keats) said:

There's /always/ an audience nearby for such incidents.
I think it must be some sort of law of nature.

Maybe the best way to have an incident-free ride is to
go where nobody's lookin'.

Last week at a club ride a new guy showed up a few minutes before we
started. He made a great impression as he smoothly rode up to the ride
leader, forgot to unclip, and smoothly fell over. Surprisingly, nobody
gave him any grief about it -- being nice to the new guy, I guess.

--
Ray Heindl
(remove the Xs to reply to: [email hidden])

Fri, 23 Apr 2004 10:12:17 -0700, <[email hidden]>,

(Tom Keats) said:

Dane Jackson said:

She
obviously was unhurt, and so I silently pretended not to have seen
anything (knowing from my own clip-less moment's the thing I wanted most
was noone else to have seen it).

There's /always/ an audience nearby for such incidents.
I think it must be some sort of law of nature.

My first and last clip-less moment happened riding the redneck fixie
on a CM ride. I was one of about five people laughing at the display.

Now I've stopped reflexively reaching for the toe strap before
stopping. You feel kinda goofy to find it's not there. Not nearly as
bad as hanging on to it after cinching-up on the fixie.
--
zk

Hunrobe wrote:
::: John Everett [email hidden]
::
:: wrote in part:
::
::: As I was approaching an intersection I noticed a particularly
::: good-looking woman walking a dog. I rode right up next to her, came
::: to a stop, and promptly plopped over.
::
:: I think it's a rule of nature that all of our least impressive
:: moments will be witnessed by one or more attractive members of the
:: opposite sex.
:: My own most embarrassing failure to unclip moment occurred fairly
:: late in the summer about five years ago. I was riding on a two lane
:: suburban road that has a center turn lane and stoplights every four
:: blocks. The only other traffic on the road was a convertible
:: occupied by three girls in their late teens or early twenties. The
:: driver signalled a right turn so I passed them in the turn lane.
:: They apparently decided they didn't intend to turn after all and
:: continued straight. I pulled back into the turn lane to allow them
:: past me and ended up drafting them to the next red light. The rear
:: seat passenger struck up a conversation with me at that light, the
:: subject being how fast I'd been riding. The light changed and like a
:: fool I sprinted to keep in their draft. By the time we hit the next
:: red light a mile up the road I was so badly blown I simply forgot to
:: unclip. Kerplunk!
:: Ain't hormones a wonderful thing? <g>

🙂

::
:: Regards,
:: Bob Hunt
::
:: P.S.- A little road rash, one severely bruised male ego, and a
:: chorus of giggles were the only results of the fall so it could have
:: been much worse.

Well, at least you had their attention. That would have been a great
opportunity to hand off a line to the one you were talking to....something
like how captivating you found her 🙂

"Marlene Blanshay" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

"Claire Petersky" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:J_kic.23056$GR.3085013@attbi_s01...

Quoted message said:

"Tom Keats" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

There's /always/ an audience nearby for such incidents.
I think it must be some sort of law of nature.

Yeah, I remember when I was new to clipless. I was riding with friends.

We

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

stopped at the light, and I did this slow motion tumble into a nearby
juniper trying to get my foot out. They thought it was hilarious.

Ouch! Don't junipers scratch? Still, better than hard cement.

Except there was a sort of sharpen (pruned?) branch hidden amongst the
greenery, that poked a big black bruise into my thigh.

Warm Regards,

Claire Petersky
Please replace earthlink for mouse-potato and .net for .com
Home of the meditative cyclist:
http://home.earthlink.net/~cpetersky/Welcome.htm
See the books I've set free at: http://bookcrossing.com/referral/Cpetersky

Quoted message said:

[email hidden]

Quoted message said:

Well, at least you had their attention. That would have been a great
opportunity to hand off a line to the one you were talking to....something
like how captivating you found her 🙂

If I'd been twenty years younger and single- and they hadn't been laughing
quite so hard- I may have said something about how they had bowled me over. As
it was, I just shut up and bled. <g>

Regards,
Bob Hunt

In article <[email hidden]>,

Ray Heindl said:

Last week at a club ride a new guy showed up a few minutes before we
started. He made a great impression as he smoothly rode up to the ride
leader, forgot to unclip, and smoothly fell over. Surprisingly, nobody
gave him any grief about it -- being nice to the new guy, I guess.

I wonder if anyone's ever wiped out like that in
front of a TV news camera covering a local story :-)

Such an hapless one would have my empathy.

Good ride,
Tom

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Actually, I have a story of avoidance of disaster. On one club ride,
there was a guy with Look pedals, who had been having trouble getting
disengaged. At one stop, he yanked so hard that his foot actually
came out of the shoe, leaving it attached to the pedal. He was able
to put his sock clad foot down to avoid falling.

Gary <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Do you have a horror story?? I'd love to here it..

In article <J_kic.23056$GR.3085013@attbi_s01>,

Claire Petersky said:

"Tom Keats" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

There's /always/ an audience nearby for such incidents.
I think it must be some sort of law of nature.

Yeah, I remember when I was new to clipless. I was riding with friends. We
stopped at the light, and I did this slow motion tumble into a nearby
juniper trying to get my foot out. They thought it was hilarious.

Pain & embarrassment is never hilarious, except maybe
to the person who experiences it. And then, only as
a coping measure.

But you already know that, so I guess I don't know what
the h I'm talking about. But that's nothing new. OTOH,
I /do/ know what I'm saying. I've racked-up into hawthorn
trees, stucco walls, skunk cabbage bogs, etc, myself. I
don't wish that on anyone, except maybe a coupla ppl.

Maybe the folks who thought it was hilarious were reminded
of their own mishaps. And maybe it was their own mishaps
they thought were hilarious.

Ppl getting hurt is never funny. But I guess ppl experiencing
life as usual (the common lot of humankind) often is, eh?

cheers,
Tom

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In article <[email hidden]>,

(Tom Keats) said:

In article <J_kic.23056$GR.3085013@attbi_s01>,

Claire Petersky said:

"Tom Keats" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

There's /always/ an audience nearby for such incidents.
I think it must be some sort of law of nature.

Yeah, I remember when I was new to clipless. I was riding with friends. We
stopped at the light, and I did this slow motion tumble into a nearby
juniper trying to get my foot out. They thought it was hilarious.

Pain & embarrassment is never hilarious, except maybe
to the person who experiences it. And then, only as
a coping measure.

No, that's not true. Pain can be very funny, at least if there's no
long-term consequences. Entire television shows have been based on this
idea.

Case in point: I post to this thread a few days ago. Then while
garage-sale hunting with Imaginary Dave, I try to impress him with my
best track stand (I'm only good enough to impress people who can't do
track stands). Instead, I fall down quite heavily in front of him,
something I haven't done in months, and never while attempting a track
stand.

I didn't even break the skin though, despite thumping down arms-in on
pavement. It must have been pretty impressive. I compensated by buying
three bikes.

--
Ryan Cousineau, [email hidden] http://www.sfu.ca/~rcousine/wiredcola/
President, Fabrizio Mazzoleni Fan Club

On Fri, 23 Apr 2004 21:57:52 -0400, [email hidden] (Chris

Zacho 'The Wheelman') said:

Not as far as being able to un-clip. I used to wear toe clips and straps
with cleats. The only way I could get out of these _quickly_ (read:
emergency un-clip) was to lean my foot to the outside to get the strap
loose and the cleat to clear the rat-trap, then twist my foot out. So
changing to clipless was easy, as I already had the twist out part
mastered.

Not what I consider an actual cliplees fall, but my Looks unclipped
best by twisting to the inside when at the back-top of the circle.
Unfortunately, on the tighter-framed bike, that occasionally put an
unexpected brake to the tire when my heel hit the tire. Rolling to a
stop anyway, that would be enough to occasionally put me on the
ground.

Only happened on one bike, so I never modified my behaviour enough to
stop it altogether. (So you pick up the bike like it malfunctioned and
glare at something near the crank...)

Curtis L. Russell
Odenton, MD (USA)
Just someone on two wheels...