UKH

Following on from the previous clip-ons thread (yes I know they are clipless!) a few questions from a clip on newb.

1) I'm going up a steep hill in my lowest gear and run out of oomph, momentum slows below sustainable levels.  How do I manage unclipping in this situation with the Topple of Doom (TM) as by the time I try to unclip I'm already toppling.  I've not done this yet but can see it happening, you could just unclip in good time before this happens but I wonder if there is another solution beyond "Gonna make it, keep pushing, oh god not gonna make it...arghhh".
2) How do you manage steep uphill starts?  It's an effort to clip in quickly to get the momentum to carry on uphill whilst trying to clip!
3) How do you practice trackstanding without falling over an awful lot?

1. Get fitter or unclip sooner. Don’t pull your foot up in panic. 
2. It’s hard to try to avoid it, or just plonk for foot on the pedal without clipping in (also useful at junctions)

3. Don’t bother. Or do it with flat pedals.

You missed - get more gears : )

There’s that as well! Fella fell off his bike behind me on a climb the other day. I heard much crunching of gears and a big thump and turned round to see him sprawled on the deck. He was ok. It’s a good point to make though, get in your lowest gear early. 

No1 

Learn when you need to get your foot out. 

Had a complete comedy falling over moment doing exactly as you described going up a steep hill not long after getting clipless pedals 

ground to a halt and gently fell sideways into the verge as I couldn’t un clip 

1. - Unclip a bit early as you say is one option, but just preparing yourself mentally is important so you've already thought through the action of ankle out first, and just as importantly decided which way to topple. It's not uncommon to sucessfully unclip and then fall off in the opposite direction.

2. Get one foot in and engaged, set off and use this foot primarily to get up momentum and maintain forward drive whilst getting the second foot in. If it's too fiddly, just use it carefully unclipped until you have the time to get it in properly.

3. see 1.   and make sure you can trackstand on flat pedals first maybe

You know when you used to roll your ankles out and stand on the sides of your feet as a kid? if you think of that sort of motion as you unclip it sort of feels similar, and in no time it will be automatic. However you will at least once fall over at traffic lights in front of a group of teenagers or similar, and there is a risk of this happening occasionally, however in the nearly 30 years I've worn them I've probably had about 10 topples after the initial learning month, I've have had plenty of crashes tho and OTB moments and never once was it because I was attached to the bike, and I never ended up still attached at the end of the crashing sequence.

P.s. Lower your saddle an inch or so when you are first pootling round on grass testing it out

1) Not sure I even think about it anymore on the mountain bike, it's such a built-in natural action to unclip when I get to the point of no progress. On the road bike, a track stand, even for a couple of seconds, is enough to unclip - you normally know when you're running out of steam.

2) Tricky. I've tried various things from using a stone/root/lump of mud/whatever to stop bike rolling backwards and give a bit of balance so I can get going. On a mountain bike, it helps with flat pedals so you don't have to be too accurate with getting clipped in - at least, even if you aren't, you can still push down until you're moving enough to sort your feet out properly. If you can, you could always start off at a shallower angle and then turn back up the hill.

3) Practice on flat pedals and work on keeping the bike moving backwards and forwards a couple of inches, rather than just completely static.

Once you get really good, you can do this: https://www.instagram.com/p/B-ul5DoFjv_/

I'll be honest, I've had this happen a few times and my foot just unclips automatically. And I haven't been using SPDs for particularly long, the natural motion of trying to put my foot down unclips it for me.

I also very recently found out what happens if you stack it while clipped in, lost the front wheel in a ditch (don't ask...). Magically, my feet unclipped. I don't fully understand how they unclipped.

Time on the saddle and practice. No different to blinking when something is coming towards your eyes. It's an instinctual action you don't think about and twisting the foot to release the shoe becomes the same.

1) is easy.  Move to Cambridgeshire!

To add to everyone else's points: if you've not already done so most clipless pedal systems can be adjusted for tension. Of course too light can mean inadvertent clip outs when you least need them. 

What everyone else has said - it will become automatic - well it sort of is anyway, as if you move your leg out to one side to put your foot down, it will unclip. 

Steep hill starts are a right bastard with single sided pedals.  There are a few things that you can do, in increasing order of difficulty.  1. Don't start directly up the hill, set off at an angle across the road - you've got a few pedal strokes to get clipped in before you have to turn up hill.  If you miss it you're buggered because you've now got to shuffle your bike around to face in the other direction, without falling over backwards downhill.  2. Pull hard on the up stroke with the foot that is clipped in so that you don't have to push much with the foot that you're trying to clip in. 3. Practice popping your foot straight into the pedal at the bottom of the stroke.  And practice that some more.  This is easier with double-sided road pedals like Speedplay, but it's not so bad with others as the pedal will be hanging correctly at the bottom of the stroke.  Practice that some more - it's one of those things that you'll be really glad that you can do on the rare occasions when you actually need to be able to do it.

Agree with Yanis on no. 3 don't bother just unclip and take a rest. Look on it as more practice clipping in and out.

When commuting in London most of those track standing at the lights were bad at it and needed more room as they wobbled all over the place and then either had to unclip anyway or some pulled out and moved on before the lights changed. 

What ?  no ice !!   (and she's drowned that gin) 

I agree with everyone else - you just get used to it. I reckon its 26 years since I got my first clipless pedals! So I can't really remember ever having problems - I used toe clips before that so had practiced. I do remember toppling over into a hedge when I first put toe clips on my Peugeot 10-speed racer though (late 80s?) so do sympathise. Stick with it and soon you'll forget it was ever a problem.

On hill starts in too high a gear be a bit wary if you haven't tightened your pedal release tension much - and don't do that, leave it low particularly while you are new to it. I've ridden my road bike through much of the lockdown due to major mechanicals with my gravel bike. But I took the SPDs off the gravel and put them on the road bike (rather than it's normal SPD-SLs) basically so if I had to walk due to an unfixable problem I would have shoes that I can actually walk in! But a couple of times on the SPDs I've managed to pull the cleat out of the pedal just by pulling up too hard - normally pulling away uphill in a stupid high gear! This doesn't seem to happen with SPD-SLs. But you get that horrible lurch forward where you can end up impaling your delicates on the stem, or some equally horrible inner thigh injury! Try to remember to get into a lower gear before coming to a stop.

Toby, your pedals are worn - it's hard to see because they wear evenly.  My old commuting pedals had a nasty habit of doing that, invariably and almost by definition, when you really needed your foot to stay in the pedal.  new pedals, no problem

Guess it's like tanking it on Skis..."Oh, my skis are no longer attached to me heh!"

1 and 2. As I said on the original thread learn to trackstand before fitting clipless pedals.

3. Fit normal pedals while you are learning so you can jump off and easily put a foot down as if you start to topple.  Put your saddle down as far as it will go so you don't impaled. Practice  your trackstand on a slight incline at first which makes it slightly easier because you will get some slight resistance from the lead pedal and you can learn to rock back and forth ( up and down the incline).

Frankly Jon, I know of exactly one person who uses clips that can trackstand and I how a fair amount of people that use them.

Probably, but only because of the absolutely massive power my big thighs can put out! Actually, is it not more likely to be my cleats that are worn than the pedal?

I had set up my old CX/commuter bike for my oldest kid when I got my gravel bike a couple of years ago, but he hardly ever rides it, being a classic grumpy teenager, so during lockdown I've pinched it back and put the baby seat on the back for cycling exercise with child no.3 (2 3/4, so a lot smaller than his biggest brother!). It had my old pair of Shimano M324 combo pedals on it. I reckon they are 15 years old, they did about 10 years of Helsinki commuting (so from -20 to +30) and then I think 4 years of Sheffield commuting (so rain). They've worked pretty flawlessly for that time, but at weekend I realised the bearings were going! Boo hoo! It's like an old friend passing on. 

But now it looks like I might need to buy two new pairs of pedals! Don't think my wife is going to be too impressed (I just bought my first ever pair of slightly-fancy wheels!).  

I do and I can but I don't know you so presume I'm a stranger to you too.

more likely that his cleats are worn or he's using the multi release cleats ( marked  "SH56"), possibly that the release tension is set too low.  I've been using  the same pair of pedals on my mtb for over 20 years and they still work flawlessly.

The only thing in SPD pedals that ever wears out is the bearings.

What do they do at traffic lights, do they fall over a lot?

Yeah, I remember there are the different shape cleats - at some point at least I think Shimano used to make them in different colours. I think I've had both types but to be honest don't remember which I have attached to which shoes. I have replaced cleats in the past when they got very worn.

Just unclip?

Not so in my case - there are 100 sets of traffic light each way on my commute and the pedals were getting on a bit.  The bearings were stuffed too, but changing the pedals stopped my left foot popping out.  You can see wear on SPD cleats - they get a little groove, but the pedal wears too - however, it's an even wear that I couldn't really see, but it made the world of difference when I changed them.  I'd say that it's not the riding that wears them, but clipping and unclipping.

Can one get a spare clip for the pedal, and replacement bearings for that matter, without buying a brand new pedal? 

youtube.com/watch?v=u4ptZ5Ot1TE&

Video a bit dated now (Ryan is a trials legend).  One of the tricks is to make sure you turns the bars to  give stability. Track standing with everything facing forward is much harder.

The balance also comes from chain tension via the pedals, gives you something to push against (micro rocking back-forwards).

(the slope is a training aid, not a necessity) 

Trackstand! Yer joking. Oin the cycling club I’m in I know one guy who can trackstand and he’s a very accomplished technical mtb man. The shimano spd sl cleats come in 3 colours depending on amount of float. Yellow has the most float and is the most forgiving. Adjust clip tension so it is easier to unclip

Not unless you bought the really expensive ones in the first place (bearings).  The clip is most of the pedal anyway, but the one of mine that wore out must have been unclipped and reclipped several hundred thousand times and got through three sets of steel cleats, maybe four

At the risk of weighing in to the biggest UKC disagreement since a plane tried to take off on a piece of exercise equipment I think there may be a bit of a translation issue over the word trackstand.

In my mind to be able to trackstand you have to be able to do so for a reasonable length of time, shooting the breeze with your fellow cyclists as you do so. I know a couple of people who can do this, I know a lot more people who ride clipless without being able to do this.

Possibly Jon is referring to being able to come to a controlled stop and balance for a few seconds without putting your foot down, certainly something that is useful (but not essential) for riding clipless and is useful for a slowing down in traffic or traffic lights that are just about to change.

Having said that, a friend of mine who used to race alot is always first to unclip when coming to a stop, he has no problem with option 2 above, but has seen too many silly injuries from clipless moments to take any chances.