Originally Posted by Laggard
You unclip before you come to a complete stop.
There's no answer to your question. You can unclip half a block away from the stop or 10 feet. And it doesn't matter where your pedal is possitioned.
Well--maybe it's not quite that simple. I unclip the left foot, brake to a stop, and come off the saddle and wait for the light to change with the right foot clipped in and ready to power the bike forward. Standard practice for many folks, and best to make whatever you do so automatic and unvarying that it indeed becomes unthinking.
But I found out the hard way that unless the left foot is at or near 6 o'clock when I unclip, there's a good chance of scoring your shins with the pedal. Once I'm unclipped, I then rotate the right pedal to about 2 o'clock, which brings the unclipped pedal safely behind my leg while I'm standing.
Of course, if you're not a klutz like me this is either obvious or unnecessary.