A couple of tips for dealing with clipless pedals.
1) Everybody falls. Every last one of us has come to a stop and started lurching like mad as we slowly fell over. All you can do is laugh it off. Much like the buttered bread theory you will almost always go down with an audience. I don't know why, it just is that way.
2) Wellgo makes pedals for almost everybody (including nashbar, K2 and ritchey). One quirk with them I found is that the cleat has to be especially tight on the shoe. If it gets loose for any reason, it becomes much harder to clip out.
3) With some pedals such as SPDs one can clip out twisting either toe or heel out. With look type cleats best results come from clipping out heel first with slight backward pressure.
One other note. As a purely recreational cyclist I know you can't always plan your clipouts. However that little trepidation of not being able to confidently unclip has given me the extra motivation to make it up many hills I might have given up on.
1) Everybody falls. Every last one of us has come to a stop and started lurching like mad as we slowly fell over. All you can do is laugh it off. Much like the buttered bread theory you will almost always go down with an audience. I don't know why, it just is that way.
2) Wellgo makes pedals for almost everybody (including nashbar, K2 and ritchey). One quirk with them I found is that the cleat has to be especially tight on the shoe. If it gets loose for any reason, it becomes much harder to clip out.
3) With some pedals such as SPDs one can clip out twisting either toe or heel out. With look type cleats best results come from clipping out heel first with slight backward pressure.
One other note. As a purely recreational cyclist I know you can't always plan your clipouts. However that little trepidation of not being able to confidently unclip has given me the extra motivation to make it up many hills I might have given up on.