U-Turn wrote:
> * I think that most of the time, when one unclips on a
> bicycle in a bail-out move, the rider is coasting, not
> pedalling ... Just theoretically, I think that clipless
> pedals are a convenient way to attach oneself to the
> pedals, but that their emergency exit feature is
> essentially useless on a unicycle. When you go down,
> it's as a unit. This is not necessarily a bad thing.
> Isn't snowboarding safer than skiiing simply because
> one's legs become a unit? *
The pedals always rotate on a fixed gear, and everyone I
know who has one on the road uses clipless pedals. It's a
three step process to clip in - plant foot on pedal, then
wait until the proper part of the pedaling cycle and re-
locate foot (usually several rotations of the pedal), then
when aligned properly stomp in during the power and bottom
parts of the motion.
Uncliping is easy. Agressively twist ankle so that heel
kicks out sideways. I can do that at any RPM and at any part
of the cycle. I wasn't clear in my earlier post, but I think
in some ways it's easier to unclip from a clipless pedal
than to unplant from a spikey pedal. (Once you wire in the
reflex to kick the heel out sideways, that is... Nearly
every new cyclist experiences that "Wylie-E-Coyote moment"
of stopping at a stop light and forgetting to uncleat, and
then the brief moment of terror when they realize they have
forgotten how to uncleat.)
As for keeping your feet lashed together in a fall, that's
what the pro cyclists say. There have been a few high speed
crashes in mountain stages where the rider went cross-
country at 30+ mph on a 40 degree slope (without armor, and
sometimes without a helmet). Some of the survivors of these
kinds of crashes claim that having their feet lashed
together prevented more serious injuries.
In my experience my feet always came off the pedals in a
violent fall regardless of how I had them attached. The only
falls where my feet didn't come off were very slow speed
crashes (fixed gear single tracking in the snow at 4mph, for
example) where I just keeled over.
--
cyberbellum - Level 1.0 rider!
Optimists think the glass is half full. Pesimists think the glass is
half empty. Engineers think the glass is too big.
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