Originally Posted by
cocar
I guess I will just have to keep working on it. For all the people who want to know why bother, I think this is a good skill to have. First off, it's annoying to have to unclip at every red light/stop sign, and you can get back up to speed while other people are still fumbling around. Also, I feel like learning to do this has improved my bike handling skills considerably, never a bad thing.
And yes, I know I'm going to fall. That's cycling. If I never did anything that caused me to fall, this would be boring as hell. I fell when I first got clipless pedals. I fell when learned to hop curbs. I've fallen learning to trackstand. Luckily I'm a retired gymnast and I know how to fall properly without bashing myself up too badly. But if I let my fear of falling stop me, I'd never learn anything new.
btw I forgot to say that it's good to see that after a major stroke you're still riding with enough finesse that trackstands are something you think about. Kudos.
The biggest secret is allowing the bike to roll backward. This movement allows you to balance the bike the same way you do when you're rolling forward. Combining the fore and aft movement allows you to stay within a given area, making it look like you're standing still when in fact you may be rolling forward and back as much as 6-12 inches (or as little as none since your body is doing the "rolling").
I've taught new riders how to trackstand as part of a cycling clinic (not recently). One guy was doing no handed trackstands in two weeks, and many riders will be able to do a short trackstand (2-3-4 fore/aft movements) within 15-30 minutes. A good instructor who explains what you need to learn will get virtually any rider doing a trackstand in an hour.
It took me a long time to learn how to do it myself. I had no instructor and really no advice. I only knew that a real trackstand was done with a fixed gear and that meant the rider had to be able to roll backward to do the trackstand. I had to figure out the rest on my own.
Ironically my method is not a true trackstand. Trackstands on the track point downhill and the front wheel points right (to give you a "downhill"). A road trackstand tends to have the front wheel pointing left (up the crown of the road) and uphill.