Miles, or in their case, kilometers.

My Jamis Satellite Sport rides no-handed like the thing is on rails. Fast, slow, corners, whatever, no problem. Before this bike I hadn't owned a road bike since high school. It was some model of Schwinn that I bought at my LBS in about 1986. That bike was great no-handed also. Since then, I've only had mountain bikes until this year. None of my MTBs were ever good for no-hands.

Interesting post. Hadn't really thought it about before, but I ride no handed all the time. I guess I thought everyone did. Must be a carryover from childhood or something. Just this morning I road a long ways no handed moving fast off Banker Pass on gravel in the upper Methow Valley in the North Cascades (my back yard.) Just to stretch out a little. Maybe more than anything for the hell of it; just habit. Kind of nice to sit up straight and look around. I have always enjoyed riding no handed coasting fast downhill and do it going much faster on my 'race' bike on pavement. It honestly doesn't feel like thrill seeking when I'm doing it; it just kind of happens. And often riding fast downhill on gravel I'll hold my hands an inch or so from the bars to get some relief from road chatter. Seems like it takes a lot to really deflect a wheel? The consequences of course are a lot higher if you wreck moving at speed, but seems like the bike is lot more stable and tracks better moving fast so the actual risk of a wreck is a lot lower (if you don't freak out and cause a wreck)?

Most people used to be able to ride no hands. It was usually assumed you could do it if you were a serious cyclist. I only recently realized that this has changed.

I don't know whether I'm terrible at riding no-hands, or the bike I ride the most has the wrong geometry; but I'm no good at it, for sure. My balance on one leg is not what it used to be (such as when putting on clothes or toweling off), but I'm perfectly stable on a bike typically, so long as one hand is on the bars.

It's heartening to see how many people posting here have the same trouble, though. I have always thought that it would be easier ride a higher-trail bike (which I associate with "tracking on rails") no hands than a low-trail bike (with more curved fork blades). In my head, I attribute the trouble with my main rider, which is a '60s frame with generous blade curvature, to this; but maybe I'm in error.

As a rider who typically uses bike paths in an urban area, it drives me crazy when other riders ride without hands. An instant pile of rider and bike in front of me, or crashing into me, is all anyone needs to make a great day on the bike into a nightmare.

As a kid, I could do it all day. As an adult, I just can't... and don't want to. I think it's because my kid bike had such a "relaxed" fork pitch and my adult bikes are super "twitchy." (But they steer almost telepathically - and I love it!)

FWIW I find neutral trail regular road bikes to ride no hands the easiest, IOW regular road bikes. Higher trail bikes can be a little twitchy and divey at low speeds, and don't respond as well to the tiny inputs you make with body language when riding no hands. The locked in riding the rails effect happens at higher speeds.

I'm still surprised to run across people that have trouble reaching down to grab a water bottle. Maybe it just means that we are coaxing people back onto bikes after an absence of a couple of decades?

Broadening the question a bit... how many of us learned to ride rollers no-hands??
(and how many people even learned to ride rollers?)
When I've ridden rollers at a club event, I was a bit surprised at how much it amazed folks when I rode no-hands. Of course, it's a recreational club, not a racing club.

Steve in Peoria

Let alone the rolling tire wipe.

I got ticketed by a traffic cop once for riding no hands (there's actually a law about it around here), i was riding slowly on a very wide and smooth bike path i had all for myself at that moment.. i didn't tell her i used to put on or remove rain jackets, arm and once even leg warmers while riding in my competitive days, sometimes coasting downhill a bumpy, winding 3rd grade french road from a pass summit at 30+mph, in a pack, in the fog...


The purpose doesn't matter. "i never do that anyway" doesn't matter. If a bike *cannot* be safely ridden no hands, there is something wrong that needs fixing, period.
Also, more bike handling skills is more better, always.