Originally Posted by
rm -rf
I remembered seeing this on one of Sheldon Brown's articles on fixed gear riding:
https://www.sheldonbrown.com/fixed.html#mounting
That would be amazing to see!
(On my first fixed gear ride years ago, I did a partial version of this idea: I tried to coast as I came up to a stop sign. I got bounced right off the saddle. No tip over crash, good.)
Thanks for that! I had no idea that the technique was known outside New Haven. Guess it should be called the "New England Dismount," since Sheldon was in Massachusetts.
He doesn't say where he first saw it being done, unfortunately. Guess its origin is lost in the mists of time. Funny that it wasn't revived and then adopted
en masse during the 1990's - 2000's tixie fad.
Just looked on YouTube for bike dismount videos. Found this video with six different techniques, but not the N.E. Dismount.
Bingo. Here's the dismount Sheldon was referring to, with a variation: the rider hops off, which looks pretty clumsy compared to the classic Sheldon/New Haven technique of stepping casually off the bike. Still, it gets the job done and gives you an idea of how easy it would be to learn.
Sheldon is mistaken about it being impossible to perform the dismount with a road bike, by the way. Since you have to push forward and begin to stand on the pedal simultaneously, the point in the circle where you do that happens just a few degrees before top dead center whether you're dismounting a track bike or a road bike. Maybe a fixed gear allows you to be a little less careful about where you start the push, but the difference in the pedaling circle positions can't be more than a few degrees.