Falling off

rockmonkeysc

LimitedGarry wrote:

RockmonkeySC wrote:

I've fallen off many, many times and that's never happened. Every time I've fallen off I've come out of my clips. It only takes a little bit of twist of the foot and you're out of the clip.

As I said, it is only a possible outcome with a tight SPD and I've seen it happen. Actually, I've seen people fall at 0-speed because their pedals got stuck - and in that kind of situation, you have perhaps two or three seconds to react.

Toppling over at a stand still happens when you're getting used to spds. It's embarrassing but rarely hurts and after a few rides you should be past it.
I've never see anyone fail to come unclipped other than in a very low speed, very minor fall in a corner which was about the least violent fall I've ever seen.
In a crash that's likely to cause damage you just won't stay clipped in. It just doesn't happen other than in the minds of people who have never tried spds.

RichardSmart

thecycleclinic wrote:

Dont fall iff but easier said than done. in last weeks cx race i fell several times. last wednesday i hit a deer at 18 mph. That ended in a painful crash.

Best advice pick your self up and carry on riding.

Tyre choice make a huge difference to how frequently you fall. if your bike has the stock tyres thatnot came with then these moght be a bit rubbish. Also if you are still using knner tubes you might have the pressure to high to have much grip. This is where going tubeless will help alot. Good rubber run at low pressure mean lots of grip.

The only problem with running your tyres at a low pressure is that you need to apply more force to move yourself forward - I keep my tyres pretty hard when I'm cycling - if only because I find too much rolling resistance a real drag (sorry for the crap pun - I just couldn't help myself!). Can I just ask - was the deer alright?

RichardSmart

fat daddy wrote:

I have always let the bike do it's own thing and just try to not let any arms and legs flail about and get broken.

One of my best crashes was in a freeride park in whistler and I was tentatively on a ladder, came to the down ramp, panicked so applied the rear brake .... but this is Canada, the front brake is where the rear should be. And I went straight over the handle bars, then the bike went straight over me .... felt like I did 2 rollypollys ... hit the floor, hands still on bars and feet still in the clips ... awesome !!!!

I do wonder why all bikes don't have the brakes on the same side - I mean, the Americans do drive on the Right (wrong!) side of the road...

The Rookie

For the same reason the indicator stalk is on the other side on most right hand drive cars, because we drive/ride on a different side of the road.

cooldad

Motorcycle front brakes are always on the same side though. Weird.

robertpb

RichardSmart wrote:

The only problem with running your tyres at a low pressure is that you need to apply more force to move yourself forward - I keep my tyres pretty hard when I'm cycling - if only because I find too much rolling resistance a real drag (sorry for the crap pun - I just couldn't help myself!). Can I just ask - was the deer alright?

Offroad lower pressure gives less rolling resistance, if high pressure gave less rolling resistance then XC racers wouldn't have low 20's pressure in their tyres. Even CX racers run pretty low pressures mid 20's.

Ross Gardner

If you need to practice falling off, then snow would be the solution!

rockmonkeysc

Snow is awesome fun. Frozen trails can have immense grip and the layer of snow on top means you can't see where the ice patches are. You can go from huge grip to on yer arse before you know what's happened.
I've broken ribs riding in the snow and most of the pain was because I was laughing so much.

kingstongraham

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