Now about those pedals…

I mentioned yesterday that someone in the group crashed before they even got out of the parking lot.  If you’re not a road cyclist, that might seem a little weird—how could somebody crash in the parking lot?  But if you’ve ever ridden a bike with what are called “clipless” pedals, you know exactly how it happened.  They call them clipless pedals, which seems like a bit of a misnomer because we talk about “clipping in” and “clipping out” of them.  But the name comes from them being the next generation after the pedals with the toe clips, that is, cages around the front of the pedals into which you slide your feet.  With clipless pedals the cage, or toe clip, is gone.  (that’s the clipless part)  The way they work is that you attach a cleat to the bottom of special bike shoes, and this cleat then clips into a mechanism in the pedal (that’s the misnomer part) to hold your shoe (and hence, your foot) to the pedal.  (Brenda thinks they should call them “clip-ass” pedals because you can fall on your ass every time you use them.)

Yes, that’s right—your foot is attached right to the pedal.  Why?  Well, it’s all in the name of going faster, of course.  When your foot is attached to the pedal you’re not just limited to pushing down on the pedals, you can exert pressure on the pedals all the way around the rotation—push forward at the top of the stroke, push down, pull back at the bottom of the stroke, and pull back up to the top.  More pressure on the pedals, more speed.  More speed, more fun.

The deal is, to get your foot out of the pedal you have to twist your foot and then the mechanism lets go of the cleat, and your foot is free.  The only problem is that we all learned how to ride a bike using pedals that just sat there—not only no toe clips, but no locking mechanism, no cleats on our shoes, no attachment at all.  If you were going slowly and the bike started to lean over to one side, all you had to do was put your foot down.  It was all one motion, out to the side and down.   And so now, when any of us are going slowly and the bike starts to lean over to one side, our first reaction is always to try to slide our foot straight out off the pedal.  The whole twisting-thing just doesn’t come to mind automatically.  I would venture to say that every road cyclist who’s been riding very long at all has gone over at least once.  (I know one guy who said the first time he went out on clipless pedals he went over 4 times before he ever left his subdivision.)

It’s happened to me.  It happened to Brenda last year as we were training for a long charity ride.  Usually the worst of it is that we get a little embarrassed (it’s never a pretty sight).  But in this case it ended up in a broken bone in her hand.  Ok, so that’s the bad news.  But the good news is she can go faster…