Forum home› Road cycling forum› Road beginners

First Crash - Are you not supposed to pedal around corners!?

mat*46*mat*46* Posts: 149
edited September 2009 in Road beginners
Hi to you all, first post but couldn't not ask about this.

Crashed for the very first time on Sunday, well since I was a kid anyway. Can't quite way it up though....

Was plodding along and bettering by PB by about .5 of a mph. I was doing 20mph and aproaching a 90 degree right hand bend i've riden around many times. However, I was so into bettering my PB I continued to pedal around the corner whilst banked over! Doh!

Anyway, pedal hit the floor, i popped back upright, couldn't stop, hit the curb before landing on some grass trying to inpersante Klinsman himslef!!

Am i being stupid here, are you not suposed to pedal around corners?

Posts

  • roger_merrimanroger_merriman Posts: 6,159
    road bikes tend to be lower so can suffer from pedal strike, which as you've found out isn't good.
  • keef66keef66 Posts: 13,123
    No, not sharp ones. As you have discovered the hard way, you risk grounding the inside pedal when banked over. Conventional advice is to freewheel and press down on the outside pedal.

    Not sure what happens if you're riding fixed gear
  • geoff_ssgeoff_ss Posts: 1,234
    Always lift the inside pedal for the reason you've just discovered. Not so easy on fixed of course.

    Geoff
    Old cyclists never die; they just fit smaller chainrings ... and pedal faster
  • skyd0gskyd0g Posts: 2,540
    mat*46* wrote:
    Hi to you all, first post but couldn't not ask about this.

    Crashed for the very first time on Sunday, well since I was a kid anyway. Can't quite way it up though....

    Was plodding along and bettering by PB by about .5 of a mph. I was doing 20mph and aproaching a 90 degree right hand bend i've riden around many times. However, I was so into bettering my PB I continued to pedal around the corner whilst banked over! Doh!

    Anyway, pedal hit the floor, i popped back upright, couldn't stop, hit the curb before landing on some grass trying to inpersante Klinsman himslef!!

    Am i being stupid here, are you not suposed to pedal around corners?

    ...depending on angle, apparently not. :wink:
    Cycling weakly
  • mikeqmikeq Posts: 141
    keef66 wrote:
    Not sure what happens if you're riding fixed gear

    Apparently you lean your body over and not so much the bike
    Cycling from Glasgow to Paris to raise funds for Asthma UK

    www.velochallenge.org
  • CiBCiB Posts: 6,098
    You can pedal round corners, but clearly you can't lean over further than the angle at which the pedal makes contact with the ground. You can easily find this angle - set the pedal to its lowest point and see how far you can lean the stationary bike without it touching. Crank length & pedal width will affect the angle.

    There's no need to stop pedalling in a corner though. In my day at school it separated out them that could and them that couldn't, being able to lean over and still keep pedalling. Eee when aarr wurr a lad [drones on for several hours...]
  • HonestAlHonestAl Posts: 406
    just to add to the confusion, your choice of pedal makes a difference too. I bought some speedplay pedals some time ago on the reccomendation of my LBS. One of their benefits of their design was apparently that you could safely pedal more confidently around corners without coming to grief. Being honest that was absolutely NOT why I bought them. But encouraged by this, pedal round corners I now do and I have to say I've yet to come unstuck. However I apply a good size dollop of common sense to this rule and don't pedal furiously around tight bends - speedplays or not that seems to be a recipe for disaster to me.

    Otherwise as Geoff_SS says, inside pedal up and glide elegantly around :)
    "The only absolute statement is that everything is relative" - anon
  • keef66keef66 Posts: 13,123
    I read that bikes for criterium racing have higher bottom brackets and shorter cranks to allow sprinting out of tight corners without grounding the pedals.
  • EscargotEscargot Posts: 361
    I think there are some situations when pedalling round a bend is ok i.e. round a long sweeping one, but otherwise I don't see cycling as any different to any other road sport.

    The general rule is slow in fast out so usually you wouldn't put any power down until you start to straighten up, for fear of unbalancing the car/motorbike/bike.

    Personally there's enough to think about when cornering so pedalling is the last thing I want to do (I learn't the hard way not to pedal round a sharp corner when I had my Raleigh Striker LOL)
  • John.TJohn.T Posts: 3,698
    You just found the limit. Called 'pushing the envelope' I believe. You now know just how far you can go so next time you take a slightly wider line, slower speed or freewheel. Your choice. These lessons stick the best. Posts above re 'weight on outside pedal' and 'slow in fast out' are all very relevent.
    My Fleet.
  • murphdogmurphdog Posts: 8
    I did the exact same thing just over a year ago as I went round a roundabout. I was so busy thinking I was Lance that my pedal hit the floor and I slid along the road. I then pedalled home very sorry for myself and still have the scars on my elbow and along my calf!
  • mat*46*mat*46* Posts: 149
    scared me to death. Luckily though landed on grass so not to bad!

    Wores thing was the bike landing on my ear what thought was about 5 mins later!
  • cougiecougie Posts: 22,512
    If you lean the bike over you'll see that to strike a pedal - the bike is at a pretty extreme angle. Easy to lose a wheel at angles like that - if theres a grid, whiteline or manhole cover - you'll be off too.
Sign In or Register to comment.