Originally Posted by chroot
Let's see...
I've fallen about eight times myself on clipless, and have done plenty of stupid things. Let's recap:
- I fell after three minutes of clipless use in a parking lot in front of my girlfriend.
- I almost fell two minutes later (the gf was still watching), and actually broke the cleat.
- I fell once because I neglected to unclip both feet when turning the bike around 180 degrees. A nice patch of bramble bushes broke my fall.
- I fell once because I was in much too high a gear to begin moving up a hill.
- I fell once waiting for a car to pass, after the driver tried to be "nice" by giving me the inappropriate right-of-way.
- I end up in my granny gear at least once on almost every ride that's not board-flat.
- I have found myself wishing for gears lower than 30/25 literally dozens of times.
- I hit my max heart rate within three minutes of my most recent liesurely group ride.
- I couldn't fight the wind on the Golden Gate Bridge one morning and ended up getting pushed into the railing.
- My helmet (Giro Pneumo) makes my head look like a mushroom. My girlfriend is happy to point this out routinely.
- I always have the whitest little chicken legs of anyone in every group ride I've done to date.
- I almost cried when I fell on someone's driveway at 0 mph and my brifter got rotated out of line. I thought I had ruined my bike. When I got home, I finally realized you can just push them back.
- I'm absolutely terrified of going through the rows of concrete poles that block cars from entering bike paths.
- I got stuck at a protected left turn light for almost ten minutes one time because I could not figure out how to trigger the light, or what else to do.
- I took a quick look at someone else's bike and thought for a minute or two that he was riding a bike called a Bento Box. I complimented him on a nice looking Bento Box. He was puzzled.
- Warren
This was the best! Thanks for the laugh!
Besides the usual unable to clip or forgetting to clip, I once got my jacket caught in my back tire on a downhill and I reached back and yanked on it. The jacket caught in between the brake pad and the tire and down I went. It took me at least 5 minutes to get the jacket untangled, all the while people stopping to see if they could help.
Another time I was talking to another rider and didn't notice that a parked car had his car door open. That one hurt, but I was 20 years younger so I didn't fall apart like I would today.
Another time I was riding across the city park on wet grass and I came up to the tennis courts. The brakes obviously didn't work and I rode right into the fence and flipped over into the courts.
Non-biking: On a winter day in college, I ran across a busy street and jumped over a puddle and on the sidewalk on the other side. The sidewalk was covered with ice and I instantly flipped on my back.
Non-biking: I was at a busy grocery store and had just dropped off the groceries in the car. I ran the grocery cart up to the store with my GF watching. I hit a 1/2" high curb and the cart stopped instantly. I didn't. I flipped over the cart in front of a bunch of people coming out of the store. My GF was laughing her fool head off. I did eventually marry her. Who else would marry me?