The moment arrived. I needed to start learning how to ride clipless. (This actually means being clipped IN to my mountain bike but that’s an explanation for another time.)
My first attempt was two weeks ago. I was warned to expect a lot of falling and tipping over. They were right. There were times I just toppled over to the side because I unclipped one side and then pulled myself down while trying to unclip on the other side. I learned that I need to unclip while rolling, not from a stationary position.
I felt particularly successful when I managed to unclip and jump off my bike before it headed into a narrow creek. Note that I said successful not skilful because it surely wasn’t skill that unclipped me at that point. (Although, to be honest, I should have been able to cross the bridge instead of unclipping anyway.)
Saturday was Day Two in clips. My personal goal was not to fall off the side of the mountain. I am happy to report that I achieved that goal. Not that I would have gone far if I did slip a bit...
As expected, I fell some more while trying to get out of my clips at various points. It felt more stressful this time around. It wasn’t so much the pain of falling because it really doesn’t hurt that much to topple over. But there’s a burst of fear or something when you’re going down and you can’t get your foot loose to brace yourself and it feels like you have no control. Add a dose of frustration because you were trying to avoid what you did wrong the last time… only to do it again. And of course the bruised ego, aka embarrassment.
I have one particularly memorable fall. I heard a rider approaching behind me and I didn’t want to be in his way. So I hurriedly found an opportunity to pull over so he could pass. I kept telling myself that no matter what I needed to get out of his way, even if it meant tipping over in the opposite direction. Well, you can guess what happened. I unclipped one foot, struggled with the other, and started tipping… right into the rider as he was passing me. So basically I knocked him over too. [I clipped him! HA!!]
He was a good sport about it and helped me up even though I kinda felt like staying on the ground. I even had some involuntary tears. Not from pain but just the entire experience. In retrospect, I think I was being way too hard on myself. I’m sure it looked hilarious. The other rider even laughed – not at me, but because it was funny and he understood.
Since falling is going to keep happening while I continue to practice, my goal next time is to laugh as I brush myself off. I might as well be laughing while I’m learning!
I recently came across some old correspondence with my parents. When my son was “little j”, I tried to include some news about what he was up to. In this one email, “little j” was almost 4 years old. Here are two of the funnies from that email.
